Why Tories must stop agreeing with Farage and start attacking him to survive

The Conservatives’ ‘Reform-lite’ strategy is designed to win back voters who have flocked to Nigel Farage’s banner but it is backfiring badly

On April 15, 2010, the UK held its first-ever televised general election debate, pitting Labour’s Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, against David Cameron of the Conservatives, with Nick Clegg expected to do little more than make up the numbers.

However, if that was the anticipated script, no one told Clegg, who spoke so persuasively that the catchphrase of the night was “I agree with Nick” as both Cameron and Brown sought to side with him.

In a snap YouGov poll after the contest, 51 per cent declared the Liberal Democrat leader to be the winner, with Cameron on 29 and Brown on 19. While ‘Cleggmania’ proved short-lived, the clear lesson was that agreeing with a political opponent tends to benefit them.

READ MORE: Hamilton by-election results: Labour pulls off stunning victory over SNP as Davy Russell set for Holyrood

Delegates at the Conservative party conference in 2023 pose for a photograph with Nigel Farage (Picture: Oli Scarff) | AFP via Getty Images

A political cataclysm looms

Fifteen years later, and the Conservatives’ current strategy to defeat Reform UK, by echoing its rhetoric, is backfiring even more badly. While the 2010 debate was a one-off event, the Tories have effectively been campaigning for Reform for years.

In Thursday’s Hamilton by-election, the Conservative candidate received just 1,621 votes, down from 6,332 at the last Scottish Parliament election, while Reform got 7,088, not far behind the winner, Labour’s Davy Russell, and the SNP in second.

READ MORE: Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf resigns, effective immediately

As the Scottish Tories prepare for their party conference this week, a major topic of discussion must be about finding ways to disagree with Reform, if they wish to survive what threatens to become a political event as cataclysmic as the collapse of the old Liberal party after the First World War. Farage is out to destroy the Tories, and they must be as determined and ruthless.

There is much to go at. Many of Reform’s policies are patently ridiculous and some are downright dangerous. Keir Starmer’s claim that Farage would “crash the economy” like Liz Truss was a good line, and the Conservatives need to find similarly resonant ways of highlighting the very real dangers of voting for Reform.

However, they first need to recognise that repeatedly saying words to the effect of ‘I agree with Nigel’ will not save them, but only hasten their doom.