Former cabinet minister David Gauke has warned that the Conservative Party is “not close to recognising” how badly placed it is for the next election. Speaking to the Guardian, Gauke, who served as justice secretary and chief secretary to the Treasury, said many in the party were unwilling to fully repudiate Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.
Gauke argued that the party was ignoring heartland voters in the home counties, who had turned in large numbers to the Liberal Democrats, while spending too much time fighting on Reform UK’s turf. “If the next election is going to be about immigration and the war on the woke, it’s not going to be the Conservative party that are the beneficiaries,” he said, predicting that Nigel Farage and Reform would benefit instead.
The former MP criticised the Tories for focusing on culture-war issues where Farage is the dominant voice. He said the party had no message for aspirational, educated voters in the home counties, who had stopped feeling spoken to since around 2015. He also noted that while Reform was taking Conservative votes, much of that was because the Tories “just no longer looked functional”.
Gauke said Labour must deliver strong economic growth to fend off Farage, but warned that Chancellor Rachel Reeves would need to make hard choices on tax, the pensions triple lock, and EU relations. “We are on the naughty step,” he said, referring to high debt interest payments. He added that it was a “delusion” that taxing the very wealthy alone would raise enough revenue.
Unlike Labour after 2019, the Tories had not undergone a transformation or confronted why they became so unpopular, Gauke said. He believed the party could re-establish itself as the main opposition, but only if it stopped trying to outflank Farage on his own issues.
