The Conservative party conference, which opens in Manchester on Sunday, is always a very different occasion from the Labour conference which has just finished in Brighton. This year, the distinctions are particularly telling. The first is that the Tory party will not hesitate to scrutinise and debate the lessons of the May 2015 general election. The second is that the conference already has the election of 2020 in its sights. Neither of these things was remotely true of Labour’s energised gathering in Brighton.
A preoccupation with power has been the hallmark of the Conservative party for nearly two centuries. The 2015 election marked another milestone in that long story. It was the first time the party has won a majority in parliament since 1992. As one political scientist has recently noted, the result suggests that the Tories may once again have become the default option in British politics. They have won six of the nine elections since 1979. They stand to gain from boundary changes in this parliament. With protection from the first-past-the-post electoral system, and amid a reasonable if fragile economic outlook, a long period of Tory rule is very much on the cards.
But Tory serenity in Manchester will not be impregnable. As ever, Europe will be the critical issue. The migration crisis and the continuing weakness of the eurozone mean the polls are beginning to turn against EU membership. If that continued, it would not just mean UK exit from the EU but very likely Scottish exit from the UK. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking towards the planned referendum and David Cameron has little to show for his efforts to secure a pro-European outcome. With Ukip faltering electorally, many Tories will feel emboldened to embrace an out campaign, now led by Margaret Thatcher’s still-forceful chancellor, Nigel Lawson. Though George Osborne is making it clear that such behaviour will not be forgotten if he becomes party leader, speculation about Boris Johnson’s intentions in the referendum campaign are rife.
As this implies, the European issue is closely intertwined with that of the succession to Mr Cameron. By the time of the next general election the Tory party will have a new leader. The manoeuvring and calculations are well under way. Mr Osborne seems more entrenched as favourite to succeed than ever. The chancellor is seen as the prime minister in waiting, rather as Gordon Brown was after 2005. His visit to China last month underscored his political reach, while next month’s spending review will shape the economic agenda of this whole parliament. Mr Osborne comes to Manchester surrounded by a sense of inevitability. But he only needs to make one false step – and he has made them before – and the mood could change fast. If it did, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and apparently Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, are waiting.
The third issue, itself also intertwined with both Europe and the Tory leadership, is Lord Ashcroft. The former party treasurer has upstaged Mr Cameron with his vengeful biography. Lord Ashcroft may have shot his bolt in September, but as usual he is expected to be a prominent presence at the conference. He is the party’s loose cannon, loaded in every sense. The Tory party’s status as the voters’ default option, and Mr Cameron’s command over the party he led to a majority in May, may not infinitely survive a display of division of the kind that the peer may create.
And then there is Jeremy Corbyn. The Tory party has mostly resisted the temptation to gloat. But a Tory conference, especially one in which the champagne is back in the wine cooler as it apparently is this time, is neither a biddable nor a well-behaved place. Mr Corbyn’s ascetic and decent image, with his wish to do politics in a kinder and more reasoned manner, could not be a starker contrast, and one in which most people would side with Mr Corbyn. A Tory conference that pulls to the right over Europe, in spite of the Labour leader’s Euroscepticism, or over the leadership, could help Labour and thus Mr Corbyn too. The Tory party may seem stronger than for many years – and it is. It may appear the favourite for 2020 – and it is that, too. But Britain does not love the Tory party. Even a decade after Mr Cameron became leader, the party remains uncomfortable in the centre ground. Its position rests upon being better trusted with the nation’s economic fortunes than any of the alternatives. If the Tories succumb to hubris, the politics of Britain could change more decisively than currently seems likely. Manchester will be the test.
