The Conservative Party has lurched to the centre-left because there’s no viable opposition on the right, Bow Group Research Fellow Benjamin Loughnane has said.

Bow Group Research Fellow Benjamin Loughnane told GB News that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his party would only likely pivot towards the right and freedom-based policies if it faced pressure from parties like Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party).

Mr Loughnane said: “One of the problems over the past two years is that there has been absolutely no threat from the right. It’s all come from the left. So Boris has had to lean into the left. Look at the tax rises, the restrictions – they are not conservative policies.

“Why would you adopt conservative policies when you have no opposition, when you have no threat?”

The Bow Group research fellow continued to say that instead, the Conservative Party has adopted a form of centre-left policy-making, “which isn’t what people voted for in 2019 and it’s not what they want to vote for in the next election”.

Advocating for a right-wing equivalent of the leftist Progressive alliance, Mr Loughnane said: “We really need to see a threat come from parties like Reform UK. If anything, I’d love to see some kind of unity between the parties on the right.

“We’ve got Reclaim, Reform UK, the Heritage Party, but they’re all working at cross purposes. We need some kind of coherent opposition to things like lockdown, to the Channel crossings. Things that people are very angry about but there’s no outlet electorally to vote against.”

The Bow Group fellow added that viable party challengers on the right could give rise to threats of – or actual – defections from the Tories, with MPs facing possible pressure in their constituencies for failing to deliver on real conservative policies.

“When you get that pressure coming from within the Conservative Party, it moves the whole party back to its core principles, which are freedom, conservatism, and pro-business,” he said.

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