Next Tory Leader Has "Big Strategic Call" To Make On Winning Back Voters

The next leader of the Conservatives faces “a big strategic call” as to whether they “sacrifice” some of their new voter base to win back the voters that have shifted to Labour and the Liberal Democrats in recent years, according to former government adviser Sam Freedman.

As things stand, Rishi Sunak's Conservatives are very likely to lose the 4 July general election, with opinion polls continuing to give Keir Starmer's Labour large, double-digit leads. If the Tories do lose, then they will be expected to replace Sunak with a new leader, who would be tasked with rebuilding the party's support.

According to Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, the new leader faces a choice between trying to double down on the party's current efforts to attract older, Brexit-supporting voters, or instead appealing to voters who have ditched them for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The Tory voter base has “changed quite dramatically” since the Brexit vote in 2016, and is now older than it was previously, as well as being less economically liberal and socially Conservative, he explained.

While the issue of Brexit helped reinforce this new voter base over the last two elections, it came at the expense of other Tory voters, and after the General Election, any new leader may face a decision on whether the party reinforces its new voter base, at risk of switching to Reform UK, or tries to win back those who have shifted towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats over the last eight years. 

Since Brexit, the Conservatives “lost some voters who had voted Remain, and they gained a lot of voters who had voted Leave,” Freedman explained. 

“What that did to the distribution of their vote is it made it much older on average.”