Jeremy Corbyn's conference speech has shocked the Tories out of their complacency, and proved they need to come up with new ideas

The Tories are successful when they offer both competence and compassion. At the moment, they appear to offer neither. Their competence is under threat from the endless Brexit process, their compassion from eight years of austerity

Why were some Conservative MPs secretly pleased that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour conference speech received such good reviews? Because they hope it will shake the Tories out of their dangerous complacency about Labour, and force Theresa May to come up with some big, popular domestic policies that grab voters’ attention.

This mindset tells us a lot about the Tories’ high anxiety as they head to Birmingham for their conference starting on Sunday. The headlines will inevitably be dominated by Brexit, the issue which consumes the government and has left a vacuum on the domestic front. But a simmering debate about how to respond to Labour’s radical plans to reform capitalism might also reach boiling point.

Many Tory MPs know their party’s traditional tunes (such as “socialism has been tried before, failed and wrecked the economy”) don’t work. No wonder the Tories have an under-50s problem – a 50-year-old today was eight when a Labour government was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. They might as well blame Corbyn for the General Strike. This week Labour offered change for a country crying out for it, as the 2016 referendum showed. The cleverest thing about New Labour was the word “new”; Corbyn’s ideas are fresh to most voters, while the Tories appear stale after eight years in power.

Tory MPs are arguing among themselves about how to get back in the ideas game. George Freeman, May’s former policy head, warned that the Tories “risk becoming a rump party of nostalgic nationalists”. Robert Halfon, who champions “white collar conservatism”, admitted: “We are stuck in the political rhetoric of the past, rather than providing a proper Tory vision for the future. Labour are speaking to the problems faced by many. We too often speak only for the few.”

But Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, warned that trying to “out-Corbyn Corbyn … leaves people yearning for the real thing”.

No doubt ministers will breathlessly trumpet non-Brexit announcements at the Birmingham conference. But they will probably not be significant enough to even flicker on most people’s radar.

The Tories are successful when they offer both competence and compassion. At the moment, they appear to offer neither. Their competence is under threat from the endless Brexit process, their compassion from eight years of austerity.

May is aware of the problem. She has asked ministers to come up with “life after Brexit” proposals for a Queen’s Speech next June or July. Yet some Tories doubt the Downing Street or Whitehall machines have the capacity to think big while they are so immersed in Brexit; they are currently scrambling together belated plans for a no-deal crash-out next March.

May’s Tory critics fear another damp policy squib. The job of radical thinking may have to be outsourced to the ideas factories in centre-right think tanks. Onward, the new kid on the Tory block, is producing some good new models. It will publish plans for the private rented sector and retraining in the age of the robots before the end of this year. The Tories should listen; Labour is streets ahead among renters and, as I reported this week, its conference targeted “left behind” voters, many of whom voted Leave in 2016.

If May gets Brexit over the line next March, there will be a window of opportunity on the domestic agenda. Many voters are bored by Brexit; they will be even more so after saturated media coverage over the next six months. But May is being very optimistic in telling the cabinet to plan for “after Brexit”. For a start, she might not be in Number 10 much longer. The vultures are already circling; she will come under strong pressure to announce her departure timetable as soon as the UK leaves the EU. In any case May, or her successor, will find it difficult to escape the Brexit straitjacket.

I suspect we are heading for “blind Brexit” with a vague political declaration about the future UK-EU relationship. If it scrapes through parliament – still a big if – that would leave the trade talks starting next April to do most of the heavy lifting. They are supposed to be concluded by the end of the “status quo” transitional period in December 2020. But UK ministers and officials admit privately that is unlikely, so we might need to extend the transition to avoid another “cliff edge”. The EU wants an extension clause included in any withdrawal agreement. Even Boris Johnson, in his 4,500-word piece in today’s Daily Telegraph acknowledges that his proposed “SuperCanada” slimline trade agreement might take longer.

A hiatus as a new European Commission is chosen and takes office next year will prolong an already complex process. The trade talks will finally define what Brexit really means but, with a new Tory leader likely to be in place, the argument will continue to divide the political parties and the country. Even then, there will be a battle over which EU laws to keep, whether to diverge further from the EU, and perhaps over whether to move back towards it or even rejoin if the economy takes a hit.

“After Brexit” sounds nice. But it’s still years away.