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Former heavyweights from the Conservative Party’s moderate wing have launched a new movement to try to drag the party back towards the centre and counter Nigel Farage’s “incredibly damaging” Reform UK.
Launched in London on Monday by former Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson and former West Midlands mayor Andy Street, Prosper UK claimed that 7mn centre and centre-right voters had become politically homeless.
“So many people in this country only believe politicians are shouting at each other,” Davidson told the FT.
“There is a gaping chasm in the middle in this country that doesn’t feel there is a single political party out there that represents them,” said Davidson.
Prosper UK’s backers believe Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, has taken her party too far to the right to counter Reform UK, while they believe centrist Labour politicians face pressures on the left from the Greens.
The new movement hopes to develop policies and influence Tory thinking to pull it back to the centre, even at a time when the centre-right across Europe is being hollowed out by pressure from right-wing populists.
Prosper UK’s vice-chairs are the pro-Europeans Amber Rudd, former home secretary who resigned the Tory whip in 2019, and former work and pensions secretary David Gauke, who lost the whip in the same year in a row over Brexit.
Davidson argued that there was a growing cohort of centrist, economically pragmatic, pro-business voters who were increasingly underserved, according to Prosper UK, which claims to have the support of prominent business figures.
One of those, former CBI chair Rupert Soames, told a Westminster press conference: “Some of the views expressed by Reform will be incredibly damaging to business because it is not serious politics, it is not pragmatic, it is not based in the reality of the world.”
The launch comes at a critical time for the Tories, who on Monday lost yet another Tory MP, Suella Braverman, to Reform, following the recent high-profile defection of shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick.
Farage said on Monday that his populist party was taking over the “centre right”, arguing that was why he had been able to convince former cabinet minister Braverman to defect.
He took a dig at Prosper UK, saying Braverman had “reached the view that actually the centre right of British politics needs to unify around Reform. Or, if you like Ruth Davidson, I mean, you pays your money and takes your choice”.
Badenoch has tacked to the right on issues including immigration to halt the loss of voters and senior party figures to Reform.
Asked if Badenoch supported the movement, Street, former John Lewis boss, said: “I had a very good conversation with Kemi, it was a mature conversation. We don’t agree on everything but that’s OK.”
Despite including several former politicians, its founders insist it is not a new party but a movement, and will not be putting up candidates at the next election.
Its aim is to influence Conservative policy and leadership by engaging voters who feel stranded between the main parties.
“When we lost [the 2024 general election] as we did, we didn’t only lose voters to the right, we lost voters to the left as well,” Davidson said. “The Conservative Party is failing on the business and growth side and we want to help Kemi to become the new prime minister.”