Could the Tories lose their ‘blue wall’ heartland?

Rishi Sunak’s party is struggling to keep support in the south of England. Adam Forrest takes a look at the battle to hold off Labour and the Liberal Democrats

Rishi Sunak speaking at an event at Manor Farm in Hampshire (PA)

If you had to pinpoint Boris Johnson’s finest hour, it may well be the moment he turned up at Tony Blair’s old northeast seat of Sedgefield in the aftermath of the Conservatives’ 2019 election victory.

Boasting about his “stonking” mandate, Johnson was giddy with glee about smashing down Labour’s “red wall” across the north of England and the Midlands.

Three years and several scandals later, the former prime minister has a fight on his hands to hold on to his southern blue-wall seat of Uxbridge and Ruislip at the next general election.

Rishi Sunak’s party is in retreat. Officials at CCHQ are not only resigned to giving up much of the hard-won ground in the urban North, but increasingly fearful of losing lots of seats in leafy shires across the South.

So how big a problem does Sunak face in clinging on to the blue wall? And why are things going so badly wrong in territory previous Tory leaders could take for granted?

The Tories now face a huge task in holding off the Liberal Democrats and a resurgent Labour Party. A recent poll of 42 key blue-wall seats won by the Tories in 2019 found that Keir Starmer’s party now enjoys a huge lead.

The November survey for Redfield & Wilton showed Labour on 41 per cent, the Tories on 30 per cent and the Lib Dems on 21 per cent. Remarkably, only 53 per cent of 2019 Tory voters in these blue-wall seats say they would vote for Sunak’s party if an election were held tomorrow.

Partygate and successive scandals under Johnson eroded support among many middle-class voters across the South. Moral fury was followed by fear and outrage over personal finances when Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget hiked mortgage costs and forced tax rises when Sunak returned to Downing Street.

Anger is now evident in the most unlikely of places. In October, YouGov found Labour 13 points ahead of Conservatives among rural voters across the country, with the polling firm saying support from this group had been “slipping away” for months.

Farming communities are angry at higher costs, staffing shortages and disappointing trade deals after Brexit, as well as ongoing uncertainty about the government’s environmental land management scheme, which is supposed to govern much of their lives.

Then is also disgust over the failure to tackle sewage discharges and ongoing frustration over plans for top-down housebuilding targets. The Country Land and Business Association’s president, Mark Tufnell, said this week that rural communities were “running out of patience” with the government.

The Lib Dems, who have a good track record of turning planning issues into by-election wins, believe they have the most to gain from a revolt in the countryside. Lib Dem activists like their chances of ousting deputy PM Dominic Raab and chancellor Jeremy Hunt from their Surrey seats.

But Ed Davey will be worried about Labour’s hefty poll lead in the blue wall in recent months. Indeed, some Conservative MPs are now hoping that a split in the anti-Tory vote might just allow them to cling on with a reduced majority.

Could we see an electoral pact ahead of a potential election in 2024? Both Davey and Starmer have ruled out any formal deal, though there’s always the possibility of informal discussions about the degree of resources allocated to various target seats.

Evidence of “industrial-scale” tactical voting at recent by-elections suggests the electorate are smart enough to work out who is best placed to defeat Tory MPs on their patch. Sunak’s biggest problem remains angry voters who are desperate for change.