A shadow minister has insisted his party should “absolutely not” shift to the right after its general election defeat.
Andrew Bowie, the shadow veterans minister, said the Conservative Party “does better when it commands the centre ground”.
The Conservatives now have only 121 MPs, down 251, after an election routing that has posed big questions for the future direction of the party.
The Conservative vote dropped from 13.9 million at the last election in 2019 to just 6.8 million.
Asked directly if the party should move rightwards after the party’s historic election defeat, Bowie replied: “Absolutely not.”
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He told Sky News: “I mean, that’s for the party members to decide who the leader is going to be, but I think that the Conservative Party does better when it commands the centre ground.
“That’s where we have done better traditionally, and that’s where we command most support in the country when we do so. So it’s not for me to determine where the party goes, that’s for Members of Parliament in general, and indeed, the party membership.”
Bowie went on to argue that Rishi Sunak should stay on as Conservative leader for the foreseeable future for “continuity”.
He said: “I think it’s important that there is some stability at the top of the Conservative Party as we determine how and the length of the leadership election that we’re about to undertake.”
He told Sky News: “Rishi gives us that certainty, gives us that continuity, and I hope he finds within himself to carry on whilst we get our house in order and select who is to succeed him and lead us into the next election in four or five years.”
Bowie’s comments comes amid a debate within the Conservative Party over its future ideological trajectory and the rules and timing regarding the coming leadership contest.
Speaking on Monday, shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell recognised that former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s instinct “is almost certainly to go”, but insisted more time was needed for potential successors to make their case.
Meanwhile, former home secretary Suella Braverman has explicitly urged her party to shift further to the right in order to win back Reform UK voters.
Warning that her party no longer had the “luxury of a monopoly” over right-wing voters, Braverman has said it needed to do more focus on “core Conservative policies”.
Countering Braverman, Conservative Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has said that embracing Reform’s policies could prolong the party’s time in opposition by “many, many years”.
But Houchen has also warned against a protracted leadership contest as it would be a “waste of time” and could risk appearing self-indulgent.
“If we navel-gaze for too long, that’s going to turn off the public even more, because it again feeds into that perception that we’re more concerned about the ongoings of the Conservative party rather than what the public care about, which is: how do we help improve their lives?”, Houchen told the BBC over the weekend.
“We do need to get there relatively quickly, because without a successful and competent opposition, I think parliament, in and of itself, starts to break down, doesn’t work as effectively as it could do”, he said.
“We need to make sure we find the right leader to navigate us through what is going to be a very, very difficult time to try and unite the party. The next couple of years are going to be very difficult for the Conservative party to find itself again, what it means to govern effectively, what it wants to offer to the public over the next four or five years.
“And so the next 18 months are going to be a treacherous one for the Conservative party.”
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