U.K. Conservatives struggle with which way to go after election loss

After 14 years in power — after the Brexit psychodrama, pandemic rule-breaking parties, a near implosion of the British economy, and a string of underwhelming prime ministers, the Conservatives got the boot. Labour won in a landslide in July.

What now for the Tories? That is the question.

Members at the conference seemed split. Should the party swerve sharply to the right and come out swinging, focusing on illegal immigrants, transgender athletes, knife crime and welfare slackers?

Or should it hew to the middle and return to its “small state, low tax” mantra?

Many seemed to hope that Labour would flounder all on its own. Starmer and his party were rocked by mini-scandals last month — with revelations that he and his wife accepted freebies for bespoke clothing, expensive eyewear and choice seats at Arsenal soccer matches.

Political life goes on. Former prime minister Rishi Sunak is on his way out as leader of the Conservative Party. He appeared at the beginning of the conference on Sunday, oh so briefly, not in the main auditorium, but a kind of lounge with dim lighting.

He begged his party to stop its endless feuding — typified by ministers and their allies trashing one another with ceaseless anonymous hit jobs, gleefully doled out by Britain’s political press.

“We must end the division and the backbiting and squabbling,” Sunak said.

And then, poof, Sunak left the building.

Running to replace him are four Tory lawmakers, whom, according to the polls, most ordinary Britons have barely heard of.

They are Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat. They spent the conference doing Q & As, taking selfies, getting on podcasts and pressing their case at receptions, while party delegates dipped their cups into the free-flowing river of merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.

Cleverly, a former home and foreign secretary, very smooth with the press, was seen doing push-ups to impress a crowd at his campaign booth.

In his main speech on Wednesday, Cleverly focused on his broad experience in government. Like others, he vowed to lower immigration, even though immigration — legal and illegal — soared in recent years under Tory governments.

Badenoch has been a more combative figure, which is what her fans dig.

Over the course of a few days, Badenoch suggested (then rolled back) that maternity leave pay to new mums was “excessive” and claimed that up to 10 percent of civil servants were “very, very bad” — even, she joked, “go to prison bad.”

“I like her willingness to say difficult things,” said Christopher Salmon, founder of a company that helps companies deal with international trade. “But that freshness, that bit of controversy. Will that work as a leader? That is what many wonder about.”

Salmon said he thought the party should move right, to the extent that the public does not like choosing pronouns, diversity hiring or corporate wokery.

“I don’t think most people like to see British history and British institutions trashed,” he said.

Jenrick repeated his call for Britain to leave European Convention on Human Rights (a postwar convention that Britain wrote) to “secure our borders.” He promised a freeze in net migration (which Tories have promised repeatedly in the past) and to chuck the “mad” target of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 (a target pledged by Tory prime minsters Theresa May and Boris Johnson).

Tugendhat, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, stressed his military career. He said he knows what leadership demands. “My mission is to win the next general election, and I have never failed a mission yet.” He has said this before.

The four candidates will be voted upon by Conservative lawmakers and reduced to two contenders next week. Then the final two will be voted on by the 170,000 or so (nobody seems to know exactly how many) dues-paying party members.

The mood at the conference was far from funereal.

The membership did seem resigned — almost relieved, the pain was over? — over their historic loss and many embarrassments.

Unlike the Republicans in the United States, no one was talking about voter fraud or recounts.

“The Conservative Party is in an existential moment,” said Katie Lamm, a Tory lawmaker, speaking at event hosted by the Policy Exchange, a Tory think tank. “We have to be completely honest with ourselves.”

Lamm spoke about the need for “a moral vision,” but details, apparently, are to come.

Among the other topics discussed in the hallways, many Tories were worried that the right was headed toward irrelevance as a result of the split between the Conservative Party and new upstart Reform Party, led by arch-Brexiteer and Trump ally, Nigel Farage, who won a seat in Parliament.

At the conference, some thought: Why not merge with Reform?

Interestingly, many of the party leaders complained about the sorry state of Britain. Though their critique might be correct, it makes for a tricky pitch to voters. Who else but the Tories are responsible after 14 years in power?

Patrician Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on a panel, followed by a camera crew doing a “fly-on-the-wall” docuseries. Mogg, now back in private life, has been making a go of it as a presenter on GB News, Britain’s version of Fox News.

He was asked: If Conservatives are for a small state, low-tax Britain, how did the state get so big?

“We didn’t take control of the levers of power,” Rees-Mogg said.

He went on to criticize “green jobs and green economy as nonsense.”

He said the problem with British economy was that it had become circular — that wages were paid to state employees by the state and then returned as taxes.

Rees-Mogg told The Washington Post that after such a massive electoral defeat, it was right for the party to spend some time asking why. He declined to say whom he supported for new Tory leader.

“We should be done with apologizing. We’re not the nasty party,” said Andrew Hardie, a retired doctor and Conservative member at the conference. “We need common sense. That’s what voters want.”

It was not a conference with a lot of big bold ideas.

There was some agreement that “wokery” was bad, but less focus on how to get Britain’s economy going again. The Labour government has vowed to make “wealth creation” its number one goal.

Liz Truss, who lasted as prime minister only 49 days (her term compared to the time it took a head of lettuce to wilt), appeared briefly. She said the Tories would have done better if she had stayed on as prime minister.

Truss claimed she was done in by her party and the financial establishment, which expressed shock at her plans for deep unfunded tax cuts in 2022.

Asked who she would chose as new Tory leader, Truss said she liked Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei. It was unclear if she was joking.