Sir Mel Stride has issued a warning to any Conservative colleagues plotting leadership challenges, urging them not to risk derailing the party just as he says it is starting to get back on track.
On the eve of the party conference, the shadow chancellor has told The Independent that voters “will never forgive” the Tories if they return to “self-indulgent” leadership contests again – less than a year after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.
It comes after a dismal first year out of power for the party, which has continued to slip in the polls – despite Labour’s woes – while Nigel Farage and Reform UK have surged ahead and now sit as the most likely challengers to the government at the next election.
The Conservatives’ downfall has promoted speculation that Ms Badenoch could face a serious leadership challenge, with shadow cabinet colleagues Robert Jenrick and Sir James Cleverly tipped as the main contenders to replace her, but Sir Mel has insisted a change at the top now would be counterproductive.
“I think we’ve got to hold our nerve,” he said. “Look, nobody finds it comfortable to be where we are in the polls.
“Nobody finds it comfortable to have lost the last election as decisively as we did, and the difficulties we had in the more recent local elections. So I understand totally why people are uncomfortable with that, but what we’ve got to do is hold our nerve.
“We’ve got a clear plan. There will be a lot more detail that will be coming out of conference very shortly. And the most important thing we can do now is preserve our unity and start to build back. And I think we are building back, actually serving as an effective opposition.”
However, leading polling expert Sir John Curtice warned that the Tories were facing an “existential crisis”, while Mr Farage had made a “lot of progress” with Reform.
Reform had “taken the coalition” of voters that had led the party to government under Boris Johnson’s leadership, he told The Independent, while the Tories had lost so much credibility that even those who voted for them in 2019 were as likely to see Reform as offering a competent government as the Conservatives.
He added that the lack of a “Boris figure” in the party means any leadership challenge is pointless.
“Where is the Boris figure sitting on the front bench?” he asked.
“The Tories were in deep trouble in the spring of 2019 as well, but then along came Boris. But where is the Boris figure for them now?”
In a sign that Sir Mel plans to answer some of the party’s critics regarding a lack of policy, he has pledged that he will be promoting “an unshackled economy” with low pro-growth taxes.
He said: “I think we are beginning to get the message through that Labour are messing up the economy. The Reform Party are economic fantasists who will promise lots of things, including on the economy, without any serious plan as to how they’re going to deliver it, and in uncertain and very difficult economic times, it has fallen to the Conservative Party to be the grown-ups in the room to set out a plan in which we clearly are living within our means.”
He fears that Labour may be leading the UK to a bond market crisis and business confidence is collapsing.
But he believes he has the solutions.
“We’re under new leadership, and what Kemi and I recognise is we have got to get back to that kind of unshackled economy where taxes are leaning into growth and are lower, where we can look at our skills offering to tackle the welfare bill.”
