I just read Iain Dale’s piece in the Telegraph. Apparently, he thinks Kemi Badenoch must think more about the Liberal Democrats than Reform if she wants to revive the Conservatives.
Excuse me? Has he lost his mind?
The whole reason Reform exists is because the Conservatives already went Lib Dem, soft on immigration, soft on sovereignty, soft on the culture wars. If the Tories double down on that mistake, they will not revive. They will evaporate.
Dale proudly cites his “quiz”: only nine Conservative seats in 2024 had Reform in second place. But that’s a parlour trick question, a magician’s distraction. Forget where Reform came second. Look at where the Conservatives lost because Reform split the vote and won. That is the wound. That is the haemorrhage.
Iain Dale is effectively saying: don’t worry about the iceberg, just count the lifeboats.
Let’s also get some facts straight Dale:
- Boris Johnson was a great PM. He had five months before Covid hit. He won a majority that broke Labour’s Red Wall. His party was then hijacked, neutered, and handed over to Sunak.
- It was Sunak who sat on his hands while immigration figures climbed off the charts — only fiddling with student visa rules in January 2024 when it was already too late.
- It was Sunak who introduced the Windsor Framework, killing Boris’s Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, surrendering leverage to Brussels, and opening the door for Starmer to sign Britain into dynamic alignment.
- It was Sunak who called a General Election just as the first Rwanda flight was finally booked. Who does that? Only someone who had given up.
- It was Sunak who killed Boris’s Bill of Rights and left the Human Rights Act untouched, so foreign courts could keep clipping Parliament’s wings.
If you want to understand why the Tories are on “death’s door”, don’t blame moving “too right.” Blame much of the ‘Lib Dem’ type leadership before and after Boris that refused to actually be conservative.
The delusion of the centre
Every political has-been and ex-strategist trots out the same tired maxim: “elections are won from the centre.” That cliché is the grave marker of every failed Tory project since Major.
In truth, people want conviction. Clarity. A party that believes in borders, in sovereignty, in British law written in Britain. Not managerial mush. Not warmed-over Lib Dem centrism.
Dale warns that you can’t “out-Farage Farage.” Wrong. You can absolutely out-deliver Farage, by taking Reform’s concerns seriously and acting decisively, not cosmetically.
The Tories do not need to “go Lib Dem.” They need to become Conservative again. The choice is simple: extinction by dilution, or revival by conviction.
And as for Iain Dale’s article? It’s not just ridiculous. It’s dangerous.
Because if the Conservatives follow his advice, the party won’t just lose a few more seats. It will lose its soul.
The Conservatives don’t need to become Lib Dems in blue rosettes. They need to be conservative again. As Margaret Thatcher warned: “Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.”
By Claire Bullivant
