‘Risky’
Tories, ‘drama queen’ Jenrick and Farage’s Trump problem: voters’ verdict on
the battle for the right
In focus
groups in Warrington and Godalming, there was a feeling Keir Starmer was adrift
– but are Reform’s ‘Globetrotters’ the answer?
Luke Tryl
Fri 23
Jan 2026 15.00 CET
Boris
Johnson’s election victory in 2019 was so sweeping you could walk from Land’s
End to Hadrian’s Wall without ever leaving a Tory constituency. You could also
have walked between two constituencies where More in Common ran focus groups
with 2019 Conservative voters this week – Warrington South and Godalming and
Ash. These are two seats that tell the story of the breadth and collapse of the
Conservatives’ 2019 coalition.
Warrington
South, a north-west marginal that has flipped between Labour and the
Conservatives, sits just outside the “red wall”. It voted leave in 2016, backed
Johnson in 2019 and swung to Labour in 2024. Today, More in Common’s MRP
(multi-level regression and post-stratification) modelling suggests it would be
won comfortably by Reform UK.
Godalming
and Ash, by contrast, is deep in the “blue wall”. An affluent commuter seat in
Surrey, it voted remain, and in a rare bright spot for the Conservatives in
2024, Jeremy Hunt managed to fend off the Liberal Democrats to hold the seat.
These
very different seats are now central to the “battle for the right” that
exploded back on to the political scene this week with Robert Jenrick’s
defection/dismissal. How did voters in these seats react to the latest
skirmish?
It is
fair to say that even 14 months into her leadership, views of Kemi Badenoch
remain fuzzy. But when played a clip of the video Badenoch filmed announcing
her dismissal of Jenrick, the groups were unusually approving. Sarah, an admin
officer from Godalming, said she was “blown away”, while James, an IT engineer
from Warrington, described Badenoch as “decisive”. In both groups, the
participants said they wanted to see more like that from Badenoch and wondered
why they had not seen it before.
But while
Badenoch personally impressed, for some it brought back memories of why they
had booted the Conservatives out of office in the first place – their tendency
to infighting. “I think she’s one to watch,” Allie said, “but it’s all a bit
risky, isn’t it?” James said it could feel like a return to the “chaos inside
the party” of the last government.
Neither
of these groups took to Jenrick. Shown clips of his defection speech. George, a
Warrington service engineer, thought Jenrick seemed “primed” or “scripted”,
Jenna said he was “not very convincing”, and Helen said: “He said words but
there was no substance to them.” This feedback mirrored what we heard during
the Conservative leadership election, when voters struggled to warm to Jenrick
and questioned his authenticity.
What
about Jenrick’s “broken Britain” claim, now at the centre of a three-way debate
between Labour, the Conservatives and Reform? In Godalming, some felt it a tad
hyperbolic. “He was a bit of a drama queen,” Allie said, “a bit
sensationalist.” Did she think Britain was broken? “Breaking, yeah. Not broken
yet.” Even so, the group worried about the direction of travel: crime, the cost
of living, small boats, government waste.
In
Warrington, the mood was darker. Derek reeled off examples: “NHS, definitely
broken. Police force, officers leaving in droves. Pensions being affected.”
Valerie, a receptionist in her 70s, told us: “I thought now I’d be enjoying
life, going out during the day, socialising, but I’m having to work … The price
of everything, whether it’s heating, your utilities, plus food – prices have
just gone up so high.”
For
George, the cost of living was eroding solidarity. “It’s becoming a bit selfish
now because it’s got to the point where everybody is struggling. You’re kind of
thinking: how is it going to benefit me and my immediate family?” he said.
Is Nigel
Farage the answer? Valerie earned nods of approval when she said: “I don’t like
him but he stands by his convictions.” Rachel agreed: “He’s a bit like
Thatcher. He might not be right but he stands by what he does.”
Even in
Godalming, hardly Reform’s home turf, some were tempted. Jenna said he “seems
more positive and proactive about stuff. And, I don’t know, you sort of seem to
have a bit more faith in an individual like that.”
Leaving
aside their antipathy for Jenrick, the groups tended not to think it mattered
that Reform were taking in Tory defectors. Asked whether they felt it
undermined Reform’s claim to be something new, Tom from Godalming replied that
they could be “becoming like the Globetrotters”, taking the best players from
the other teams. Likewise, Valerie from Warrington was not concerned about
Reform’s talent being diluted. “Is he [Farage] trying to cherrypick the best
just like a company would? Pick from the opposition so that your company ends
up better?” she said.
Nor did
accusations against Farage of racism at school move the groups. Presented with
the accusations and the Reform leader’s response, almost everyone felt it was
unfair to judge Farage by what he had said as a schoolboy, and added that most
people would have said things they regretted in school. Helen said: “As you
grow up, you go: actually, no, that was ridiculous. That was awful. Why did we
do that stuff?”
Hanging
over both groups was another name. Westminster’s obsession with the US does not
normally extend to our focus groups but this past week has been an exception.
Whatever they thought of Farage, their attitudes to Donald Trump were
sulphurous. “I feel he’s pushing us towards world war three,” Valerie said.
Kerry said: “He’s just going to make things 10 times worse.”
For many
voters on the right, it is Farage’s Trump problem above all else that puts them
off. Matthew, a travel agent in Godalming, said Farage was “very much a mini
Trump … he’s going to take the country down the wrong path”. Bill, a retiree
from Ash, saw it a bit differently: while not a fan of Trump, he wondered
whether Britain needed a shock to “get us kicked in the right places, because
we’re just going nowhere at the moment”.
Britain
may feel broken but the right is far from united on how to fix it, split
between traditional conservatism and Reform’s insurgence. Most recoil from
Trump’s style of disruption and upheaval, and ties to him remain a top
liability for Farage. But one thing that did unite the two groups was their
sense that Keir Starmer was struggling as prime minister. Allie summed it up by
saying Starmer was “floating over it all without going very deep into
anything”.
That
sense of a prime minister adrift, after the failures of the last Tory
government, was driving these voters to contemplate something more radical. Or
as Derek put it: “We’ve tried Conservative, we’ve tried Labour, they didn’t
work. Why not try Reform? We’ve got nothing to lose. If that doesn’t work …” he
chuckled, “then it’s definitely broken.”
(Participants’
names have been changed)
Luke Tryl
is the UK director of the research group More in Common
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