At a time of bleak headlines, there was at least some good news for Conservatives earlier today: Suella Braverman has finally left the party. As with the defection of Robert Jenrick earlier this month, the continued “self-purge” of the “out-Reform Reform” brigade can only help the electoral fortunes of the Conservative party. As I said in a previous article, “wreckers like Braverman are why the public don’t like us”.
For those of us who have long pointed out the utter failure of their strategy, it’s schadenfreude to see them leave a ship they themselves so effectively torpedoed. Reform UK is welcome to them. I suspect Nigel Farage will rue the day they came on board. Many Conservatives will hope they have the same record of failure at their new party as they did at their last.
Their hectoring, divisive and aggressive style was the ultimate turn-off for millions of centre-ground voters who had previously backed the Conservatives. Add to this their incompetence in government, as well as their lack of political strategy, and the Conservative party haemorrhaged support under their watch.
Because their sense of political entitlement exists at stratospheric levels, there is no “you break it, you fix it” mantra for these people. Instead, they’ll leave their political mess of a Conservative party for someone else to clear up.
They now argue, from Reform, that “Britain is broken”, as if they were not the ones involved in breaking it. Their rhetorical style is that of Momentum and Corbyn: it describes the problems rather then solving them. It’s negative politics. Yet what really matters to voters are positive solutions.
More broadly, shedding this toxic, vote-destroying band of political losers may just give the leader, Kemi Badenoch, the glimmer of a chance to get the party back on track – and at a time when it feels the leadership has been perhaps surer-footed than over the past several disastrous years.
It’s a small window of opportunity, but the defections can give Badenoch greater freedom to take a step in the right direction. The Conservative party can only win by returning to the mainstream of British politics, focused on aspiration, access to opportunity, stronger social mobility and a vision of equality of opportunity for all.
The new centre-right group that I am supporting, Prosper UK, launched earlier today, could be a vehicle for Badenoch to steer the party in the right direction. It’s a long way back, but let’s finally all agree: we’ve reached the end of the political cul-de-sac that Braverman, Jenrick and co so catastrophically led the party down.
The battle for a rejuvenated Conservative party truly begins today. It could offer millions of disenfranchised centre-right voters the choice they so badly deserve.
• Justine Greening was the Conservative MP for Putney from 2005 to 2019
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