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The Conservatives should do more to win back voters who have drifted left or disengaged from politics and not just focus on the threat of Reform UK, according to analysis released by a new centre-right movement in the party.
Polling analysis released by Prosper UK on Monday shows that in more than 85 per cent of seats lost by the Tories in 2024, the bigger challenge is not Reform but winning back voters who are now undecided or have moved to Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Green party.
The report comes as Reform prepares to set out proposals to radically reform Britain’s immigration, policing and national security models in a speech by the rightwing populist party’s newly-appointed home affairs spokesperson on Monday.
Prosper UK’s statistical analysis, which used a poll of 13,000 voters and was conducted by the think-tank More in Common, says that in 213 of 251 lost seats in 2024, the number of former Tory voters who have drifted left or become disengaged well outnumber the pool of those going to Reform.
It showed that for every previous Conservative voter who now supports Reform, there are 1.3 ex-Tory voters who are backing leftwing parties or have disengaged from politics.
Prosper UK co-chair Sir Andy Street, former Tory West Midlands mayor, said: “This analysis is a reminder that elections in the UK are still won in the political middle ground. In most of the seats the Conservatives need to win back, the priority is not chasing Reform, but winning back people who have drifted left, switched off or are still undecided.”
In a sign that the Conservatives are looking to broaden its appeal to voters across the political spectrum, it set out a “new deal for young people” on Sunday, which includes scrapping real interest on Plan 2 Student Loans, saving graduates tens of thousands of pounds. The party also proposes creating 100,000 more apprenticeships for 18-21 year olds.
Reform has been bolstered recently by a number of high-profile defections from the Conservative Party, including former shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.
On Monday, Zia Yusuf will confirm Reform’s plans to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and pass an “illegal migration mass deportation” act. Yusuf was appointed by party leader Nigel Farage last week as Reform’s “shadow home secretary”, a title traditionally reserved for politicians in the official oppositio.
Speaking in Dover, Yusuf will vow to stop an “invasion” of illegal migration, deploying language that has been criticised by campaign groups, as he sets out plans for a new agency which he will claim could detain up to 24,000 migrants and deport 288,000 people each year.
Vowing to secure the UK’s borders, he is expected to say: “For decades, the Tories and Labour have turned the other way while the very fabric of our society has been under assault. The social contract has not merely been broken; it’s been shattered.”
He will promise to “preserve Britain’s Christian heritage”, adding that “a nation without a culture is not a nation at all. It is just an economic zone.”
Yusuf will launch an attack on the wave of inward migration that occurred during Boris Johnson’s premiership, accusing the former Tory prime minister of having “imported a staggering 3.4mn migrants in three years”.
On policing, Yusuf will set out Reform’s proposals to expand “stop and search” and increase prison capacity. He will call for an overhaul of the Prevent programme to counter extremism, including mandatory home searches for anyone referred to the scheme.
Labour chair Anna Turley hit back in advance of the speech, arguing that “Reform wants to divide our country, not deliver for the British people”. She said the party’s plans to “deport people who have followed the rules, worked hard and built their lives here — our friends, neighbours and colleagues — is a direct attack on settled families and fundamentally un-British”.
