We’re going through an absolutely bloody awful situation at the moment,” said Susan Hall, the Tory Party’s 2024 mayoral candidate. It seems as though she’s accurately captured the mood of many in the London wing of the beleaguered party. Once a dominant force in the capital, the Conservatives have seen their presence reduced from 21 MPs to just nine, all clinging to the fringe of the outer London “doughnut”. 2024 saw the party lose its “crown jewels”, Kensington and Westminster, in a wave of Labour wins. And polling suggests the party is still in choppy waters, with Nigel Farage’s Reform overtaking the Conservatives in London for the first time, polling at 19 per cent to the Tories 17 per cent.
For some this is not a surprise. Trust in the party image has been pummelled, with one Kemi Badenoch supporter suggesting, since the Afghan leak, that it’s “probably best if we shut up for a bit longer”. The leak, dubbed the “most expensive email in history”, led to successive Tory grandees covering for an MoD mishap, which left thousands of names revealed to the Taliban and lumbered Britons with a £7bn bill to rehouse those exposed. Resulting in a fiery Prime Minister’s Questions and former Tory ministers having to defend themselves in national papers, the scandal has hardly helped a brand that Badenoch says is in urgent need of “renewal”.
Last year’s mayoral vote, held shortly before the general election, provided little comfort. Sadiq Khan became the first Mayor in the office’s 25-year history to secure a third term. He swept in on over a million votes, increasing his share by 43.8 per cent, while Hall came in second with 32.7 per cent. Can they turn it around after an annus horribilis? Some within the party see reasons for hope.
“London is not a city. It is 50 villages massed solidly together.” More than a century later, Mark Twain’s line remains politically far more useful than he perhaps intended. London may be governed as one vast homogeneous city, but it sure doesn’t vote like one. Nor should it be treated as such. It is a patchwork of neighbourhoods, each with its own distinctive character, pace and priorities. And if the Conservatives wish to rebuild in the capital, it is that uniqueness of the place that it must remember.
Thomas Turrell, the newly elected Assembly Member for Bexley and Bromley, believes that the party is already in the early stages of renewal. “The party has to turn around its messaging in London. That’s part of Kemi’s renewal,” referring to Kemi Badenoch, the party’s national leader.
A former Assembly Member herself, Badenoch is viewed by some as uniquely positioned to understand the city’s political challenges. “She’s striking the right balance between considered intervention and letting others roll up their sleeves,” says Turrell. “She’s not rushing out all guns blazing.”
Taking London village by village
Greg Hands, a former Minister for London, remains optimistic, despite losing Chelsea and Fulham by 152 votes. “There’s a huge opportunity in London. It’s choc-a-bloc with marginal seats. Within 10 stops of Earl’s Court there are 10 seats we used to hold,” he tells me with characteristic enthusiasm.
Gareth Bacon, MP for Orpington and one of the nine who held on in the last election, also emphasises opportunity. “The party succeeds when it is the party of aspiration. London is the most aspirational city in the country,” he says. He highlights what he sees as the Conservatives’ “record of delivery” at local council level and suggests Reform (who slashed his majority from 22,378 to 5,118 last year) will struggle as they don’t have a clear local record.
What Hands and Bacon understand is that the Conservatives won’t win back London through a single national message
What Hands and Bacon — and indeed many of the Tories I spoke to —understand is that the Conservatives won’t win back London through a single national message. They’ll win it back by doing what scores of smaller associations (local Tory “clubs”) have already shown works: campaigning like a local party, ward by ward, borough by borough, village by village. That means showing up and delivering, in the places where politics is still a personal matter.
Also from south-east London, Baroness Teresa O’Neill, leader of Bexley Council, echoes this. She insists the Conservatives’ record at a local level is the party’s strongest asset. “The party absolutely has a future, especially with councils, because we deliver for our residents,” she says. “We probably don’t shout about what we do enough.”
The instinct in Westminster seems to boil down to a need to regionalise everything. To treat parts of the country as uniform blocs, and London is handled no differently. To party apparatchiks in SW1 its a Liberal, Labour-leaning mass, politically out of touch and electorally out of reach.
But that view ignores the quieter story on the ground. There are Tory councillors delivering in Wandsworth, there are still MPs in Orpington and Romford, and voters in the suburbs and the estates who want cleaner streets, better services, and to see themselves or their children have the opportunity to own their own home.
Many of the Tories I spoke to understood this. In Bexley, Baroness O’Neill described the party’s council record as its strongest asset. In Wandsworth, councillor Tom Pridham spoke at length about his younger group trying to speak to its generation. Across the boroughs, councillors all shared a sense of frustration that their local work wasn’t being backed up by the party’s burgeoning national infrastructure. For it is at this local level where the “best” Conservatives are found. Not in the sense of how high they rise, but in how well they work. In the sense they all seem to share that it is their community they serve, and it is that community and the need to preserve and enrich it that makes them Conservatives.
“The party machine is not ready to fight an all-out election next year”
But can anything really change, when the party is fundamentally at odds with itself? Even the most positive Conservatives acknowledge structural problems in the party. Josh Coldspring-White, a councillor who once worked in the party’s campaign headquarters (CCHQ), says: “The party machine is not ready to fight an all-out election next year. We are not getting enough support from the centre.” Back in 2018, CCHQ boasted of a campaign manager in every London borough. These days, they’re unwilling to confirm the numbers, although a rather rudimentary search for campaign staff indicates this number has fallen by around 75 per cent. “The party’s been gutted,” says one member.
But for the optimists, the future of the party rests in an aspirational message to get young professionals back on board. Turrell is one of those calling for new policies, pushing the party to a more pro-housing agenda. “I’m a renter in my early thirties on a good salary and I still don’t see buying as foreseeable,” he says. “Our policies are still designed for a housing market that doesn’t exist anymore.”
Pridham, a councillor in Wandsworth, says his council has made this approach a priority. “We have quite a young Conservative group on council. Our leader is in his thirties. So we can speak to the challenges our generation faces,” he said. “I was actually able to host a young Tory event and it not be a complete embarrassment.”
The verdicts on Kemi
“She is getting better, but I would say she is a work in progress.”
“We are the party of hope, and nothing she is saying backs that up.”
“Every time she opens her mouth, something conservative comes out of it.”
Others are a little less hopeful. One senior Tory who lost their seat last year says, “We just have not spoken to generation rent. Old Tories are all that is left now. Young people would rather pull their own eyeballs out than vote for the Conservatives. CCHQ seems to want to target older voters for local elections, but has no plan for anything else. It’s a cop out. We don’t have a hope in hell of winning, aside from in very rare cases where voters split six ways.”
A Tory in outer London offered a similarly bleak outlook for the future. “Kemi is not the right person to sort this. She is not articulating a good vision. We are the party of hope, and nothing she is saying backs that up.” It seems in some places the cultural tensions of the party remain. In some outer London areas, housebuilding makes Tories nervous. In Kensington, one Tory said leaflets featuring the Union Jack “makes us cringe”.
James Cleverly for Mayor?
For some, the problem is not just cultural or political, it’s geographical. Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford (majority: 1,463), swiftly dismissed a question about his future in London. “We don’t consider ourselves part of London, we’re Essex. The Conservatives should accept that the Greater London area is not one place. We must dissolve the GLA and return powers to the boroughs.”
When I raise the prospect of ‘dissolving London’ with others, the idea is quite quickly dismissed.
The green belt remains another active faultline for the Tories. Bacon (who I am told sometimes describes his Orpington seat as “rural”) warned against building on it. “Those who want to build on the green belt are misguided.”
It doesn’t take long to find someone who disagrees with him. Jonny Ross, a young Conservative in Croydon, says: “We need a more pro-housing approach. There’s a lot of brownfield sites in London. We could build on the greenbelt, but not on parks, on disused land.”
Peter Fortune MP, whose seat of Bromley and Biggin Hill is one of the most marginal in the city, believes the debate is more nuanced. “The green belt debate is a fake argument. The real question is about the kind of housing we build, not just where,” he says. “Conservatives must lead on community-led development.”
The divisions between inner and outer London, young and old, moderate and radical, appear hard to reconcile. Tim Barnes, a Westminster councillor and former MP candidate, notes: “The doughnut is not what it used to be, but CCHQ does not understand how to differentiate messages for different areas.” Coldspring-White agrees. “We need to appeal to moderates as well as Reform. It’s a balancing act,” he says.
Even Hall, a standard bearer for the Right, acknowledges the ideological breadth in the London party: “I’m on the Right of the party, others are more liberal. But we’re all Tories, because we share the same values.”
In the search for unity and momentum, one thing seems to unite everyone: the urge to get back to “winning”. Attention seems to have slowly turned to the future. For many that means policy changes and personnel. Several mention James Cleverly, only this week making a triumphal return to the Tory front bench to be the new sparring partner of Angela Rayner, as a possible mayoral candidate. A former Assembly Member born in Lewisham, now MP for Braintree, he’s seen by some as a bridge between voter groups. “He’s a great communicator and he understands London,” says Bacon. Fortune calls him a “consummate politician”.
Cleverly’s communication skills will be put to the test, in what could be a grand rehearsal for greater things, as he is given the unenviable task of arguing for greater housebuilding — and towing that thin line between nimbyism and yimbyism in a party that seems not to have decided fully what they make of either.
Others are sceptical. Ross doesn’t think “James has what it takes to be Mayor”, citing his belief that Cleverly “lacks charisma”. Still, the idea has gained traction. “If James was interested, he would get a lot of support,” says Scott Pattenden, Chair of the London region. But, even if the Conservatives won the mayorship, that doesn’t change how much rests on the party’s leader, Badenoch. Can she really win? Though criticised by some, she retains broad support within the party. Fortune calls her “brave” and says, “Every time Kemi opens her mouth, something conservative comes out of it.”
‘It’s tough being a Tory right now’
Insiders believe Badenoch has some way to go before she is ready to lead the country. Frazer Brooks, one of the party’s regional deputies, says: “Kemi has potential, but right now she is not living up to that potential. She is getting better, but I would say she is a work in progress.”
In the meantime, the party sees next year, where all Londoners head back to the ballot box for their local council elections, as the next big challenge. Some seem to believe Enfield Borough is CCHQ’s “No 1 target”, and remain hopeful of wins in Wandsworth and Westminster. Yet in outer London the view is characteristically morose. I have yet to find a councillor in any Tory-held borough who won’t privately express severe worries they could lose control of the council.
Next year seems to be being seen as yet another challenge for the party. But for many, that’s part of being a Tory in London. As Kanta Mistry, a councillor in Brent, simply puts it: “It’s tough being a Tory at the moment. But we’ll persevere.”
There is hope, but only if the party gets serious about its foundations
To that end there is hope, but only if the party gets serious about its foundations. For that to work they need a pro-housing message that resonates with renters, as well as owners. It means allowing space for different “tones” in different parts of our city, and it means giving London’s local leaders the freedom to adapt policy to their community.
The green belt debate is a perfect example. In some parts of outer London, protecting it is non-negotiable, and for good reason. Conservation of your natural environment is, and should be, an instinct for those who choose to clip on a blue rosette. Elsewhere, especially with younger voters, development on disused land, and the construction of a wider range of high-density homes, is seen as common sense. I do not believe the party must choose one approach over the other. It can lead locally and build in a way that reflects place, not just policy.
Figures like Cleverly can help spread the word and, should he resist the allure of the dispatch box, may attempt to do so at a mayoral level, but the party’s future won’t be saved by one person. As defining as the personality of past leaders has been to the Tory image, the future lies in the slow work of rebuilding trust where people live.
There seems to be no quick fix. But if the Tories want to recover in the capital, they must stop trying to win a city, and start listening to its villages.
