Are We Watching the Slow Death of the Conservative Party?
By Grace Wilson · 6 minute read · 21 June 2026
Writing off the Conservative Party has been a dangerous game for much of modern British history. The party has survived industrialisation, two world wars and repeated electoral defeats. It has earned the reputation of being Britain’s natural party of government for a reason.
Yet following the 2024 General Election, a question that would have seemed absurd only a decade ago is now being asked with increasing seriousness: is the Conservative Party facing a temporary setback, or a long-term decline from which it may never fully recover? The Conservatives have endured crushing defeats before. However, the challenges they face today appear to be of a different nature. Electoral competition from Reform UK and an ageing voter base have created problems that cannot be solved by changing leaders.
The Conservative Party is not dead. But for the first time in generations, its long-term future is genuinely uncertain.
The Scale of Collapse
The 2024 election was not merely a defeat for the Conservatives. It was a political earthquake.
After winning a commanding majority in 2019, the party was reduced to just 121 seats in 2024, a loss of 244 constituencies. Few parties in modern British history have experienced such a dramatic collapse in such a short period of time. The damage was visible across the country. Thirty-three of the forty most marginal constituencies in 2024 had been won by the Conservatives in 2019. Of those seats, the party managed to retain only eleven. Perhaps most alarming was the loss of constituencies that had long been considered safe Conservative territory. North East Hampshire, a seat many Conservatives would once have viewed as comfortably secure, fell to the Liberal Democrats. Current projections suggest it may remain outside Conservative hands for the foreseeable future.
Of course, large defeats do happen in British politics. Labour’s annihilation in 1983 and the Conservatives’ defeat in 1997 both seemed catastrophic at the time. What makes 2024 different is that the Conservatives are no longer facing a challenge from only one direction.
Reform UK and the Fragmentation of the Right. If Labour is the Conservatives’ traditional opponent, Reform UK represents something potentially dangerous. A rival is competing for the same voters. For decades, the Conservative Party managed to maintain a combination of centre-right, economically liberal, socially conservative and Eurosceptic voters. Today, that coalition is showing signs of fracture. Reform’s success in 2024 was impossible to ignore. In Clacton, Nigel Farage secured 46.1 per cent of the vote and entered Parliament after years of attempting to do so. More importantly, Reform established itself as a genuine electoral force.
Current polling paints an even more troubling picture for the Conservatives. While the Conservatives hover around 19 per cent in some forecasts, Reform frequently polls between 27 and 30 per cent. What makes Reform particularly dangerous is the motivation of its supporters. Research suggests that many Reform voters are not just expressing dissatisfaction with the government of the day. A recurring theme among supporters is a deep mistrust of politicians and scepticism that the government can improve their lives. Many also express concerns over immigration and national identity. This is important. Protest voters can disappear quickly. Ideological votes are far more durable.
The Conservative dilemma is therefore obvious. Move further to the right, and they risk competing directly with a Reform movement that many voters see as more authentic. Move back towards the political centre, and they risk losing even more voters to Farage.
Neither option looks particularly comfortable.
The Demographic Challenge
While Reform presents an immediate electoral threat, demographics may represent a more serious long-term challenge. Political parties recover from bad elections. Recovering from demographic trends is much harder.
The age profile of Conservative support should concern anyone interested in the party’s future.
Among voters aged 18 to 24, Conservative support sits in the low double digits. Among women in that age group, it falls into single figures. Support remains weak throughout the under-50 electorate. However, among voters aged 65 and over, Conservative support exceeds 40 per cent. The pattern is unmistakable. The older the voter, the more likely they are to support the Conservatives. This presents a significant problem. Every political party relies on certain demographics, but few rely so heavily on older voters. Put bluntly, a party cannot build a long-term electoral strategy around voters who are gradually leaving the electorate. There is, however, an important caveat. The traditional idea in politics is that people tend to become more conservative as they age. Younger voters who currently back Labour or the Lib Dems may not hold those views forever. As individuals accumulate wealth and buy homes, they often become more receptive to centre-right politics. Yet there are reasons to question whether this process will automatically benefit the Conservatives in the decades ahead.
Even if today’s younger voters become more conservative with age, there is no guarantee they will become Conservative. Political loyalties formed during national events can endure for decades. Many middle-aged voters experienced the financial crisis, Brexit and the political instability, which culminated in the chaotic final years of the Conservative government during their formative political years. It is entirely possible that these generations become more right-leaning over time while remaining sceptical of the Conservative Party itself.
The education divide presents another challenge.
Among graduates, Labour enjoys a commanding lead while Conservative support remains relatively weak. The Conservatives perform strongest among voters with lower levels of formal education. On its own, this would not necessarily be a problem. However, Reform is increasingly competing for many of the same voters. The data suggests that Conservatives and Reform are fishing in the same electoral pond. Both perform best among older voters and among those without university degrees. Every vote gained by Reform, therefore, comes at the Conservatives’ expense.
An Identity Crisis
Behind the electoral and demographic problems lies another question. What exactly does modern Conservatism stand for? The party successfully adapted to changing political conditions. It embraced free-market economics under Margaret Thatcher and repositioned itself under David Cameron. Today, however, the party appears uncertain about its direction. One of the clearest examples is immigration. Conservative factions increasingly disagree about the purpose of the party itself.
The social right favours dramatic reductions in immigration and stricter border controls. Meanwhile, business-oriented Conservatives often support exemptions for sectors such as healthcare, agriculture and technology, all of which rely heavily on migrant labour. The result is a party struggling to reconcile competing visions of conservatism.
Tim Bale recently warned that the Conservatives risk becoming “an ersatz populist radical right party,” without a distinct political identity of their own. That is precisely the danger facing the party. If Reform owns the anti-establishment, anti-immigration space, and Labour occupies the centre-left, where exactly do the Conservatives fit? At present, the answer is not entirely clear.
Why Predictions of Conservative Death May Be Premature
Before anyone starts planning the Conservative Party’s funeral, a note of caution is necessary. Following the landslide defeat of 1997, the party was reduced to just 165 seats. Yet by 2010, David Cameron had returned the Conservatives to power. There are also reasons to doubt whether Reform can permanently replace the Conservatives. While Reform has enjoyed impressive polling, translating popularity into a nationwide political machine is far more difficult. Recent by-election results, especially in Makerfield, have demonstrated that success in opinion polls does not always translate neatly into electoral victories.
Another challenge for Reform is the question of succession. Much of the party’s appeal is tied directly to Nigel Farage himself. While Reform has attempted to build a broader political organisation, its public profile remains heavily centred around a single individual. British politics is littered with movements that struggle once their dominant personality has departed. UKIP’s decline after Farage’s departure provides a relevant example. Reform supporters may argue that the party has moved beyond dependence on one man. However, it remains unclear whether Reform possesses a second tier of nationally recognised figures capable of maintaining its momentum over the long term.
The Conservatives, by contrast, have spent nearly two centuries surviving leadership changes and ideological shifts. Their greatest strength may simply be institutional durability. Reform has demonstrated that it can attract voters, but it has yet to prove that it can survive beyond the politician who brought it to prominence. For all their problems, the Conservatives remain a major political force.
So, Is the Conservative Party Dying?
The Conservative Party is not dying in the literal sense. Reports of its demise have surfaced many times before and have often proved spectacularly wrong.
However, the challenges facing the party today are unusually severe. The rise of Reform UK has fractured the right. Demographic trends increasingly favour its opponents. Internal divisions continue to raise questions about what modern Conservatism actually means.
Individually, none of these problems would be fatal. Together, they create the most serious long-term challenge the party has faced in decades.
The question is therefore not whether the Conservatives can recover from the defeat of 2024. History suggests they probably can. The real question is whether they can recover before Reform permanently establishes itself as the dominant force on the British right. For a party that once considered itself Britain’s natural party of government, that is an extraordinary position to find itself in.
References
Baker, Carl, and Richard Cracknell. 2024. “General Election 2024 Results.” House of Commons Library. October 3, 2024. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10009/.
Bale, Tim. 2025. “Under ‘Brexit Badenoch’, What Is the Future of the Conservative Party?” The Independent. April 26, 2025. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/conservative-party-future-kemi-badenoch-b2737966.html.
“The Divisions and Concessions behind Conservative Immigration Policy.” n.d. Political Quarterly. https://politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/the-divisions-and-concessions-behind-conservative-immigration-policy/.
Tryl, Luke. 2026. “Reform UK Has a New Set of Problems.” @FinancialTimes. Financial Times. June 21, 2026. https://www.ft.com/content/1cf6beda-6e00-46a5-941d-8bb9ebf0cb34.
2026. Parliament.uk. 2026. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/content/uploads/2024/09/Marginality3-1024x724.png.