After 14 years in power, Britain’s Conservatives fear the misery of opposition

LONDON — Foreign Secretary David Cameron once said his time as Tory opposition leader was five years spent “just banging his head against the wall.” Now his party is braced to go through it all again.

Polls consistently show a commanding lead for Labour, Britain’s main opposition party, making it likely the Conservatives will depart office at this year’s U.K. general election. It’s no wonder nearly 60 Tory MPs have already announced they will quit parliament rather than face the harsh judgment of voters.

Behind closed doors, those Tory parliamentarians who are standing for re-election are beginning to question what life in opposition is really like — and what support, if any, they might receive to ease the transition.

But while British opposition parties preparing for government are granted special access talks with the civil service, no such training exists for a party about to lose power. A brutal shock awaits those who stick around.

Banished from office 

Unlike in many other democratic nations, Britain’s transfer of power is almost instantaneous, with a new prime minister typically entering Downing Street the morning after an election. Ministerial heads of Whitehall departments are turfed out overnight, without any time lag to soften the blow. The defeated PM and their family must swiftly find a new place to live.

Kate Fall, Cameron’s deputy chief of staff both as leader of the opposition and prime minister, recalled: “No one is really prepared for the sense of being suddenly so out of power and out of the focus of the minds of the country. You wake up and you have no decisions to make.” 

There is no opposition version of the Cabinet Manual, a formal document which sets out how those working in government should conduct themselves. The absence of experienced civil servants to advise on policy and procedure also makes it tricky for an incoming opposition to perform its role — holding the new government to account — effectively.

Catherine Haddon, a program director at the Institute for Government (IfG) think tank, said most newly-formed oppositions are hopelessly ill-prepared.

“If opposition parties are reluctant to be seen to be measuring the curtains going into government, the governing party is going to be even more reluctant to be seen even contemplating the possibility that they might lose the election,” she noted. 

Haddon added that opposition parties are often “in the greatest turmoil” following an election defeat, and the leadership contest that typically follows.

This difficult landing is made even harder by the harsh reality of life in opposition.

“You are basically confined to a set of rooms on the parliamentary estate,” Haddon said. “People talk about entering offices and [finding] there’s no computers, no furniture, phone lines not being set up the right way.” 

These rapidly-reduced resources are exacerbated by a lack of experienced staff to show shadow ministers the ropes.

Tory peer George Young was an MP both in opposition and government. “It is quite a shock to realize that you’ve got to write your own speeches,” he said on this week’s Westminster Insider podcast, which also explores the transition to opposition. “You can’t get briefings, you can’t get legal advice from within the government.”

“You go from government, where you’ve got thousands of civil servants … to a position where you might have one or two people supporting you as junior staff members,” added Haddon. 

The pain of being thrust out of office is also psychological, as ministers lose symbols of power such as their iconic red boxes of official documents, and their grace-and-favor cars.

Academic Nigel Fletcher, author of Institutionalised Dissent, which charts the fortunes of the U.K. opposition since 1935, added: “Everyone who’s had the experience has said that it’s pretty miserable and soul-destroying — particularly if you’ve been a senior politician and you’ve only ever known government.” 

The wilderness years 

After 14 years in government, it’s of course possible that some jaded Tory ministers may actually be looking forward to the relatively peaceful life of an opposition backbencher, particularly if they’re able to pick up a well-paid second job.

But if they do lose the election, the Tories will still have a constitutional role to play as parliament’s official opposition, keeping the new government on its toes.

“Somehow you’ve got to keep people interested in politics,” Young said.

“It really is important that we have a well-functioning opposition and one that is able to do it as effectively as possible,” Haddon said.

The opposition does have mechanisms at its disposal in the Commons, including Prime Minister’s Questions; urgent questions to ministers; and opposition day debates. Fletcher argued the latter “can be used quite strategically to raise an issue up the agenda,” which the Scottish National Party did effectively earlier this month by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Fall added: “The most important thing you are there to do is to drive ideas, influence policy on the day, create your own narratives and try and be connected to the country.” 

Being an effective opposition is not cheap — yet the money allocated for this task has received criticism ever since then-prime minister Stanley Baldwin gave opposition leader Clement Attlee a government salary in the 1930s. 

“Our opposition is quite badly resourced when you compare to other electorates, especially ones that rely more heavily on the public purse,” Haddon said.

Fletcher agreed, arguing that “what’s really missing in opposition is the expertise that you can develop in government, where you have civil servants who are specialists in particular policy areas.”

Media operators

To stay in the game while in opposition, the Tories would have to be smart in the way they use the media. As prime minister, Rishi Sunak sometimes bypasses broadcasters entirely recording clips directly for X. In opposition, attracting attention isn’t so easy. 

“The greatest difficulty for any opposition is if the media think they’re somewhat irrelevant, if you’ve lost an election,” Haddon said.

Fall faced this pressure while the Tories were in opposition in the mid-2000s, and encouraged Cameron to grab the focus of voters by heading out of Westminster. “You’ve got to get out and about round the country,” she said. “You can’t just be holed up doing a good job in parliament.” 

The path to power 

Every Tory MP wants their time in opposition to be kept to an absolute minimum. However, history suggests that in Britain this is rarely the case, with both Labour and the Tories having spent long spells out of office after losing power.

“It is often the case that a new opposition spends quite a lot of time examining why it lost and having debates amongst itself,” Haddon said, making it tricker to connect with voters. “It is hard often to pick yourselves up from that position.”

Fall, who worked for the Conservative Research Department when incumbent PM John Major lost to Tony Blair in 1997, agreed. “There’s always going to be a blame game after a lost election,” with disagreements over who or what was at fault.

A party can therefore be tempted to enter its comfort zone following a rout, as Tory MP Charles Walker warned. “Any party when they lose a general election tends to lose its self-confidence and that is absolutely fatal,” he said. “There’s this sort of political appetite for simple solutions to complex problems.” 

But it’s not all bad. Being in opposition can provide time to think, and space to commission organizations to advise what went wrong. As Haddon said: “Being out of government gives you opportunity to talk to many more people and start having those kinds of conversations at the front end of public services.”

“You can go into opposition and just muck about and just be a sort of internal focus group whinging and whining,” said Walker. “Or you can use your time in opposition to recharge the batteries, and find and test new exciting policies to meet the challenges of the day — so you can have a compelling offer at the next election.” 

Now staring apparent defeat in the face, the Tories can only dream of a quick turnaround.