Does the fate of Foot’s Labour show what could happen to the Tories?

The party is floundering. Its leaders are at odds with their activists about what are their core beliefs. It is in danger of being relegated to third place in the popular vote by an organisation whose prominent figures are former members. And many commentators wonder whether the party has any kind of future. No, this is not a description of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party in the 2024 campaign but of Michael Foot’s Labour party as it faced disbelieving voters in 1983.

Opinion polls since Nigel Farage’s restoration as leader of Reform have provoked feverish speculation about what might happen after the polls close on 4 July. Will Reform and the Conservatives merge, or could Farage’s party simply replace the Conservatives as the main opposition to Keir Starmer’s Labour government? Few seem to believe the Conservative party can survive in its present form. Nobody can predict the future but sometimes history can help us anticipate it; and what happened to the divided left of the 1980s gives us some clues as to the fate of the fractious right of the 2020s.