Why is the Conservative Party ignoring the elephant in the room?

It started in Birmingham, at the Conservative Party’s annual conference. “Should we worry about Nigel Farage coming back?” people asked on panels. “What would happen if a new populist party came out of nowhere?”

Research had been commissioned, and polls had been done; hands were being wrung, and politicians and pundits alike kept bringing up the topic. This was just under three months ago.

Since then, it is true that Richard Tice’s Reform Party has had a modest resurgence in the polls. It is also true that, should those numbers hold, they may make life a tad more difficult for certain Tories in certain constituencies. As in previous elections, Reform wouldn’t gain any seats, but could prevent Conservative MPs from retaining theirs.

It’s like that old saying: if you think you’re too small to make a difference, remember the last time you shared a bedroom with a mosquito. Still, it seems worth wondering why so much time is being spent discussing the mosquito in the room and so little acknowledging the elephant.

If there is a party the government should be worried about – and no, I can’t quite believe this needs to be said either – it is the official opposition. For some time now, the Labour Party’s polling lead has been large enough to legally drink in the US. It reached stratospheric heights while Liz Truss was prime minister, then went down to more realistic levels when Rishi Sunak took over. Still, it remains both strong and stable.

It also seems worth noting that Labour hasn’t had a major scandal in a very long time. Vague news of infighting on policy occasionally bubbles up to the headlines, but none of it ever seems especially captivating. Disagreements are, after all, part and parcel of running a major political party.

Certain corners of the press tried and tried to make “Beergate” something it wasn’t, and they failed. Keir Starmer wasn’t fined by the police, and even beyond that, he surely doesn’t strike anyone as an inveterate partygoer. For the most part, he seems quite dull and competent. Perhaps that is why Britain today doesn’t feel like Britain in, say, 1995.

All the evidence points to Labour winning a majority at the next election, but this is seldom talked about. Instead, right-leaning commentators prefer to focus on an allegedly widespread “to hell with the lot of them” sentiment brought on by the dire state in which the country finds itself.

Apparently it doesn’t matter that one of the major parties hasn’t been in power for more than 12 years, and thus hasn’t played much of a part in Britain’s slow and agonising downfall. No, “all politicians” must be to blame – “Westminster” is at fault, in its entirety. That is why Farage will return, allegedly.

It has been, if nothing else, a compelling phenomenon to witness. Is it denial? Does the right refuse to admit that it is about to lose, and prefer to comfort itself with the known quantity that is the ghost of Ukip? Is it a generational issue, in that many of those in and around the Conservative Party simply weren’t in politics when Labour was an electoral force to be reckoned with? Is Starmer simply the sort of figurehead people don’t worry about until it’s too late?

On the other side, is this something the Labour Party should be worried about? Politics is dominated by narratives, and often something needs to seem inevitable before it is becomes reality. Will the opposition suffer from the perceived momentum it should have by now but is still quite absent?

There isn’t much Starmer can do to force the Tories to see him as their main enemy, but maybe that won’t be a problem for him. If the mainstream right keeps panicking about Reform and Farage, it may well end up willing them into being.

If that happens, the Tories are right that their vote share will be squeezed and they will lose more seats than they otherwise might have lost. By trying to avoid the elephant, it is likely they will end up getting stung.