Let’s be clear: this Conservative party is dead. Those who killed it should own up so we can move on | Justine Greening

The local elections wipeout proves that out-Reforming Reform cannot and does not work. Both Tories – and Labour – need to rethink hard and fastIt takes real effort to kill a political party that has been around for nearly 200 years and is the most successful in Britain’s history. But at the very least, this version of the Conservative party is dead. To quote the famous Monty Python dead parrot sketch, it has ceased to be. It is an ex-party. In last week’s local elections, of the 16 councils it was defending, the Conservative party lost control of every one of them. It won just one of the six mayoralty contests. The BBC’s projected national vote share for the Conservative party was just 15%. It’s another record low for a party that has spent the last several years achieving record-low vote shares in national elections. This is a pathetic performance for a party often described as the natural party of government.And it was all so predictable. I’ve lost count of the articles I’ve written for the Guardian warning that the party’s “Reform-lite” strategy of trying to out-Reform Reform would lead to failure and electoral disaster. Back in July 2024 I described it as an existential moment that required change. “Do or die,” as I put it. The party chose not to change – with fatal electoral consequences. Continue reading...

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