Before the 19th Century, elections were a raucousMaking a harsh and loud noise. affair. Supporters of each side would gather outside polling stations to intimidate their opponents. Voters would often get beaten up for backing the "wrong" candidate.¹

Today is much the same, but all the screaming and fighting takes place within the Conservative PartyA British political party. Members are known as Tories..

This morning ToryA member of the Conservative party.  MPsMembers of Parliament. MPs are elected to represent people in 650 different geographical areas.  woke to the news that their party has lost hundreds of councillors across the country. By 7.30am, they had already lost 122 council seats.

The Conservatives are facing their worst local election result in 40 years, and have lost the Blackpool South by-election with a huge swing to Labour.

Their problem is that they are shedding votes on their left, to LabourBritain's main left-of-centre political party. and the Liberal DemocratsAlso known as the Lib Dems, a liberal political party in the UK. , and on their right, to a surging Reform UKA right-wing populist party in the UK. It has support from Nigel Farage and used to be called the Brexit Party.. 

Polls have suggested Reform could even supplant the Conservatives as the second-largest party in the House of CommonsThe democratically elected house of the UK Parliament. It consists of 650 Members of Parliament.  after the next election.²

Can Sunak turn things around? All the evidence suggests that the country is fed up with the Conservatives and want to give it a good electoral kicking.

A poll last year found 57% of people think the Tories cannot run the country competently.³

However, voters are more volatile than they used to be.⁴ It is not impossible that they could be coaxed back.

On the other hand, that also means still more of them could flee the Tories. In the past, while the Conservatives sometimes suffered big defeats, they could always bounce back.

That may no longer be true. The party could just go extinct. If Reform wins more votes than the Tories at the next election they will crash out of the Commons.

It has happened before: in 1993, the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party went from 154 to two seats.

The same could happen here and condemn the world's oldest political party to the scrapheap.

The big hope for the Tories is that the man who would replace them, Keir StarmerThe leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020 and British prime minister since July 2024., is not popular either. Even as his party rides high in the polls, 47% of people say he is doing a bad job as Labour leader.⁵

Is the world's most successful political party facing extinction?

Yes: The only way is down for the Conservatives. The country is in a mess and people want to punish them for it. And if they slip below Reform they will likely be flung out of the Commons forever.

No: The Conservative Party always finds a way of renewing itself. And Reform never does as well in elections as it does in polls, so there is little chance of them displacing the Tories.

Or... People hate the Conservatives but they dislike Labour too. Starmer may not win, and if he does, he will have to turn things around very quickly, or people may flock back to the Tories.