The Conservatives may be back in power sooner than you think

It might not raise the morale of every defeated Conservative this week, but if the last 200 years are anything to go by, the world’s most electorally successful political party will return to power, and perhaps sooner rather than later.

What policies they return with will have a lot to do with the advocacy and lobbying strategies of business groups, think tanks, and civil society over the next 4 years.

Will campaigners and lobbyists turn their backs on the new Conservative party, and leave policy making to the likes of the Heritage Foundation, and the Edmund Burke Society? Or will lobbyists and campaigners learn the right lessons from history, and try and influence what could be the next Government, far sooner than we think?

Only one Labour Prime Minister has ever carried their party through two consecutive terms in office. And while Sir Keir Starmer has many strengths, even his admirers concede he lacks the charisma and appeal of a young Tony Blair. Without downplaying the well-earned Labour victory, or the frustration directed at the Conservatives in this election, if we look beyond the generous result thrown up by the UK’s first-past-the-post voting system, it is easy to conclude that the harder the public looked at Labour, the less inclined they were to put Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street. Labour started the election averaging 43% in the polls. They ended up dropping 10 points in 6 weeks. They are unlikely to get any more popular while deciding whether to cut public spending or raise taxes.

Even if the new Prime Minister turns out to be as successful as Clement Attlee in 1945 (another modest, unassuming Labour leader who won a landslide victory), Attlee’s reward for establishing the modern welfare state and rebuilding Britain after the war, was to be turfed out of office by the Conservatives just 6 years later. Attlee only had to contend against a semi-retired Winston Churchill. Starmer and his colleagues will have Jeremy Corbyn and pro-Gaza independents to their left, Nigel Farage and his 4 Reform MPs to the right, and 72 opportunistic Lib Dems waiting to pounce at the first slip.

If the Conservatives get their act together - and early signs suggest they will take their time to run a proper leadership contest and thus learn some of the lessons of their defeat - public opinion could shift very quickly in the other direction, just as it did following Boris Johnson’s landslide victory only 4.5 years ago.

France, Germany, and the United States - to name just a few - are all grappling with volatile and unpredictable electorates. It would be naive to assume the UK is immune. Indeed the rise of Reform, which won almost twice as many votes as the Lib Dems, is not only proof of how unstable British politics now is, but also a sign of how turbulent things might yet become.

The Conservative party’s commitment to international development, its support for tackling climate change, and many of the policies that convinced voters that it was ready for power back in 2010, were developed while in opposition. The party will be in need of fresh thinking and new ideas in the coming months and years. For charities, think tanks, business groups, and any organisation that wants to influence public policy, it makes far more sense to engage now, and influence the party for the better, rather than face the consequences of neglecting or burning every bridge because of one very bad election.