Xander West: The Conservative Party must revive the CPC

Xander West is an independent writer and author of the Grumbling Times substack. 

An essential part of any political party’s recovery from major defeat is reform of its internal machinery or institutions.

The Conservative Party, unfortunately, seems not to have taken this endeavour as seriously or comprehensively as is necessary to restore its status as the centre-right’s party of government, in other words to publicly show it has changed for the better over repeating such ad nauseam.

Perhaps this contributed to Danny Kruger, Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell’s decisions that conservatism may be better realised in another party. Nevertheless, the Conservatives’ history provides plentiful inspiration for reorganisation following severe defeats which, whilst not a panacea, could strive to fulfil several present challenges. In particular, the Conservative Political Centre (CPC) embodies the kind of party institution which should be urgently revived.

The chairmanships of Ralph Assheton and Frederick Marquis, 1st Baron Woolton, with a strong supporting role by R. A. Butler as head of the Conservative Research Department, were the most transformative of the postwar era. To quote Philip Norton’s The Conservative Party (1996), they “not only resuscitated the party but effectively galvanised it” following the landslide defeat of 1945; the creation of the CPC the same year was no exception.

Butler in particular, who influenced its formation, considered breaking the intellectual monopoly of socialism a crucial aspect in radically renewing the party. As its political education body and wholly independent until 1964, the CPC sought to produce well-informed and intellectually self-confident Conservatives at all levels without subjecting them to propagandising diktats or soundbite sloganeering.

Through its extensive publications, lectures, conferences, schools and study groups, it stimulated political thinking and the discussion of new ideas without formally committing the party to certain policies or forcing its members to conform to official opinions. Indeed, the body prioritised the two-way movement of ideas between the Conservative leadership and membership by circulating responses from local branches on specific topics, to which the relevant minister or senior party figure would be obliged to reply and consider in their decision-making. CPC pamphlets were also intended to reach a wider public who might be sympathetic to conservative ideas or arguments.

However, after nearly half a century of prominence in Conservative politics, the CPC appeared to atrophy in its final decade or so, with the idea of education becoming more top-down than grassroots. Perhaps its consolidation into a directorate with the Research Department in 1988 crippled whatever independence and authority it still enjoyed, forcing a greater orientation towards merely reviewing official policy directions. Its closest successor, the Conservative Policy Forum, inherited only a fraction of the role once performed by the CPC in ensuring party members are represented in policymaking, with scant reference to ideas beyond policy and no notion of political education.

Most importantly, the CPC in its prime was dedicated to explaining problems and suggesting solutions in accordance with conservative principles, its arguments thus setting it apart from conventional think tanks.

Although conservatism has frequently been the most pragmatic body of modern political thought, such considerations must be anchored in some underlying convictions to avoid being attracted into all manner of expediencies and undermining one’s own stated positions. Sometimes trusting the strength of Conservative politicians’ instinctive or dispositional conservatism has proved enough, yet other times this has failed or the right spirit towards conservation has been all but absent, whereupon dire straits ensue.

This demonstrates why the CPC was such a vital asset in policy formation and election campaigns alike, for its educational mission essentially advanced conservatism and strong, articulate conservatives within the Conservative Party. To disregard this role, it implied, would impair the party’s chances of election and the quality of government thereafter. It should be self-evident that disseminating bullet-point lists of ‘values’ via email or press releases will never suffice for thought, nor what the party forgot about itself in recent years in forsaking its distinct and rich political tradition.

Of course, there are obvious benefits in hosting a vibrant environment for ideas within the party today, or in producing competent and knowledgeable activists, both of which the CPC facilitated through its activities. Whilst some may argue the need to teach Conservatives about conservatism shows the party was never conservative in the first place, this is an inaccurate assumption.

Political education done right entails informing, articulating and deepening conservative expressions of common sense or disposition, indeed of substantiating values and the motivations behind policy proposals. The need for articulated principles and applying the conservative tradition are simply inextricable from the party’s form and function, its identity and purpose.

Reviving an institution like the CPC could begin to satisfy the immense unrealised demand for a party which represents something solid and understands itself, whilst guarding against possible future drift from leaderships seeking more convenient choices. Perhaps the window in which the Conservatives could have monopolised this potential support, however, has already closed.

It is a damning indictment against the Conservative Party of recent years that a plurality of the electorate now supports, for lack of other perceived options, a party which offers fireworks with assertive rhetoric in lieu of solidity, nuance and true depth of thought or feeling. Both options carry ample persuasive power, but only one may engender permanence, although the prominent defections to Reform could quickly upend this assessment in its favour.

Furthermore, whilst the formation of a concrete policy suite at the 2025 party conference was a positive development, recreating the CPC would give them the substance and verifiably conservative credentials they desperately need.

Again, ‘authentic’ conservatism is more than albeit important counters to Labour policies the Conservative leadership tends to promote and deeper than attempts to find merely popular taglines or policy solutions. Moreover, the realisation that contemporary conservatism ought to defend what is good in society does not make it ‘muscular’, for such an idea is so skeletal to the entire philosophy that it barely should need restating.

Nevertheless, where the party has clear ideas, a reimagined CPC could readily support, campaign for and build upon them. It could also show conservatives, rather than nostalgic centrists, remain the preponderant faction. Yet, the overriding consideration might become that of legacy, not of the past twenty years but two centuries of Conservative achievements which risk being forgotten amidst the political tumult.

In 1945, as now, the repository of wisdom in the conservative tradition demands rediscovery and readapting to present circumstances. The Conservative Party’s survival is much less assured than in 1945 or 1997, but the reinvigoration of a party cannot occur through its leadership alone.

Energy, ideas and self-confidence must be shared by the whole party; the question of sustaining them is where a party institution focussing on political education would come into its own. Given those preconditions, there is little but individual egos preventing Reform from forming an organisation along similar lines and further assimilating the core Conservative vote.

If given a fair chance, re-establishing a body like the CPC could facilitate much in a Conservative recovery, but if current trends persist might equally find itself passing the torch for the conservative political tradition.