How conservative parties collapse

Kang Won-taek

The author is a professor of political science and international relations at Seoul National University.

Could a ruling party survive if 70 percent of voters were dissatisfied with the government and only 18 percent satisfied? What, then, does it say about the main opposition party if the governing party still commands 28 percent support while the opposition has only 18 percent?

This is the situation in British politics, according to a recent Ipsos poll. Despite widespread dissatisfaction with the government, the main opposition Conservative Party has failed to emerge as a credible alternative. Ipsos found Labour at 28 percent, Reform UK at 25 percent and the Conservatives at 18 percent.

The British Conservatives are famously one of the world’s most successful political parties. They survived enormous social changes over a long history, repeatedly adapting to changing times and returning to power. Yet they now face an unprecedented political predicament. Their 18 percent support even trails the right-wing populist Reform UK.

The Conservatives governed for 14 years after winning the 2010 election. But in the 2024 general election, they secured only 121 of 650 seats, their worst result since 1832. Their 23.7 percent vote share was also a historic low. In 2019, by contrast, they won 43.6 percent and 365 seats. In five years, their vote share fell 19.9 percentage points and they lost 244 seats.

Why did this happen? There are many reasons, but perhaps the most damaging is that voters no longer regard the Conservatives as a competent party.

Brexit was a crucial turning point. In Britain, with its long tradition of parliamentary sovereignty, entrusting the country’s direction to a referendum was itself an uncharacteristic choice for the Conservatives. Brexit also transformed their electoral coalition. Alongside their traditional middle-class supporters came voters with anti-immigration, nativist and anti-elite tendencies.

Afterward, the Conservatives faced a dilemma. Keeping two groups with very different political demands inside one party proved difficult. A moderate, pragmatic course alienated hard-right voters, while accommodating the populist right drove away moderate conservatives. The party became trapped between the center and the populist right.

Nor did British society noticeably improve after Brexit. Employment insecurity persisted, rising prices made homeownership harder and dissatisfaction grew with public services, including the National Health Service. Then came Boris Johnson’s scandals and Liz Truss’s policy failures and financial turmoil.

The Conservatives had long been called “the natural party of government” — a party considered inherently capable of running the country. That belief in its competence collapsed.

The British experience carries important lessons for Korea’s conservatives. One reason conservative parties remained dominant for so long after democratization was public confidence in their competence. They could point to the historical achievement of industrialization and economic growth, their ability to employ bureaucrats and experts effectively and expectations that they could manage the economy and national security steadily.

That confidence has been severely damaged through the conservative governments of Park Geun-hye and Yoon Suk Yeol.

Instead of confronting problems facing Korea today — jobs, housing, regional decline and social changes driven by artificial intelligence — conservatives remain preoccupied with memories of past achievements and old political conflicts. The martial law crisis also energized hard-line forces defending martial law or promoting election-fraud theories.

Like Britain’s Conservatives, the People Power Party (PPP) has consequently lost its way between hard-line supporters and moderate centrists. Even when dissatisfaction with the Lee Jae Myung administration rises, it does not translate into greater support for the opposition. If the governing party’s failures do not become opportunities for the opposition, the underlying problem is a fundamental lack of trust in it as an alternative government.

The complacent assumption that, in a two-party system, voters who dislike one side must eventually choose the other can carry an enormous political price. Britain’s Conservatives lost 67 percent of their previous seats in just five years. A party that has occupied one side of Britain’s two-party system for nearly two centuries now faces questions about its survival.

The PPP has even less reason for complacency.

The collapse of a conservative party does not begin with one or two election defeats. It begins when voters cease to regard it as a political force worthy of governing the country.

Conservatism that loses flexibility and pragmatism will struggle to survive. Britain’s Conservative Party today may offer a glimpse of the future the PPP could soon confront.