Sawt Falasteen - Britain's storied Conservative party faces threat to existence

The party of political titans Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher has slumped further in polls since its resounding defeat in the 2024 general election as it sheds support to hard-right upstarts.

In her first party conference speech as leader, Kemi Badenoch pledged her party would follow the "same timeless Conservative principles" that once made it an election-winning machine.

Slamming Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer as "weak" and "useless", Badenoch largely ignored the anti-immigrant Reform UK party that is eating into Conservative support and raising questions about its future viability.

"It is existential," political scientist Robert Ford said of the crisis gripping the United Kingdom's oldest political party, which was founded in the 1830s.

"On the current numbers, you'll be able to fit Conservative MPs (members of parliament) into a small coach after the next election," the University of Manchester professor added.

The Tories have run Britain for large chunks of recent history, including an 18-year stretch between 1979 and 1997 and 14 years from 2010 to 2024.

They have won more general elections and returned the most prime ministers of any modern-day UK political party, ruthlessly adapting to tap into the prevailing public mood of the time.

- Economy and immigration -

But the 2016 Brexit referendum sparked an unprecedented decline in the party's fortunes, triggering the resignation from Downing Street of Conservative prime minister David Cameron and unleashing bitter factional infighting.

The Tories cycled through another four leaders including Boris Johnson, who was brought down by numerous scandals, and Liz Truss, forced to quit after a disastrous budget, before Britons booted them from office in July last year.

"They've only got themselves to blame in a sense," Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London told AFP.

"They made all sorts of promises on immigration and the economy, which they didn't deliver on in government."

Last year's election, won by Labour, saw the Conservatives reduced to just 121 lawmakers in Britain's 650-seat parliament -- their worst defeat in a general election ever.

In her speech to a packed auditorium -- a contrast to the otherwise poorly-attended four-day party conference in Manchester, northern England -- Badenoch announced plans to slash the UK's deficit and "radically reform our welfare system".

Earlier this week she announced that any future Conservative government led by her would take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights and deport 150,000 irregular migrants a year.

The moves are an attempt to claw back support from Reform, led by firebrand arch-Eurosceptic Nigel Farage.

- Election wipeout? -

But with surveys predicting the next election, expected in 2029, could be a straight fight between Starmer and Farage, many people around Westminster are speculating she will be gone by then.

Following Badenoch's speech, Conservative MP Martin Vickers insisted to AFP that the polls could still "change dramatically", while 24-year-old councillor Ralph Muncer backed the party to "bounce back".

While the Conservatives have suffered heavy defeats before, notably in 1945 and 1997, they have always had time to rebuild against Labour -- a luxury the rise of Reform does not grant them today.

"The hole they're in is way, way deeper than any hole they've been in for a century or so," said Bale.

Several former Tory MPs, one sitting lawmaker, and dozens of councillors have defected to Reform in recent months.

A recent YouGov poll found that if a general election was to be held now, the Conservatives would be reduced to just 45 MPs.

That would put it in fourth place, behind the centrist Liberal Democrats, with Reform just short of a majority on 311 seats.

In such a scenario it is not inconceivable that Farage could ask the Tories to become a junior partner in a governing coalition.

Ford reckons that while some Conservative MPs and activists might find this tempting, they will be fearful of "a black widow spider effect".

"You mate with the larger one and it eats you," he told AFP.

A.AlHaj--SF-PST