Alex Clarkson is the former Conservative parliamentary candidate for Stevenage. He is a Hertsmere Borough councillor, and a committed Conservative campaigner.
Much has been said about the Conservatives’ bruising results in the 2025 local elections.
Many commentators have already weighed in with theories, strategies, and post-mortems. But I want to offer something different: a perspective rooted not in spreadsheets or headlines, but in lived experience. This is a dispatch from the campaign trail — from someone who knocked the doors, made the calls, and stood side by side with candidates across the county.
From January through to polling day, I campaigned in twenty-two divisions across Hertfordshire. It was a punishing schedule — my car still hasn’t forgiven me — but it gave me a rare vantage point. Whether in Baldock or Bushey, Watling or Waltham Cross, I encountered the same conversations, the same unease, and the same quiet but unmistakable signal from our voters.
That signal wasn’t about potholes or recycling targets. It was about immigration — and what it says about a government’s control, a nation’s identity, and a people’s sense of fairness.
Election day in Stevenage was sobering. I’d stood as the Conservative parliamentary candidate there in 2024, and I know the town well. As the local results came in, I watched friend after friend fall to the Reform UK challenge — if not in person, then via the relentless updates on my phone from the divisions I’d supported. It hurt, not just personally, but politically. The losses weren’t just numerical. They were symptomatic. The tectonic plates of British politics have shifted. And if we don’t move with them — fast — we’ll find ourselves buried in the rubble.
This is not about merging with Reform, nor mimicking them. It’s about recognising that the voters they’re attracting are not aliens or radicals. Many are our people. They haven’t changed. We have. The Conservative Party has historically thrived when it adapts to the national mood — Peel, Disraeli, Churchill, Thatcher, even Johnson understood this. But today, there’s a disconnect between what many Conservatives are talking about internally, and what voters are shouting at us from the doorstep.
The tragedy is, on paper, Hertfordshire County Council has been one of the best run in the country. Ninety-two per cent of children attend good or outstanding schools. We’ve planted over 325,000 trees, eliminated landfill waste, dramatically improved recycling, and filled more than 70,000 potholes. But none of that could compete with the national silence — or incoherence — on the issue that mattered most to people.
On the doorstep, I heard it again and again: concern not just about illegal migration, but the sheer scale of legal immigration. “I’ve always voted Tory, but…” followed by fears over housing, schools, crime, and wages. It wasn’t hate-filled. It was weary.
They talked about GP waiting times, children priced out of their hometowns, the pressure on social services, and the feeling that nobody was listening. And they were right. Under Labour’s plans, immigration will continue to rise. In fact, the population is set to grow by the size of Edinburgh every year — permanently. And what has Labour done so far? Abolished the Rwanda deterrent and dressed up a feeble package of pledges as a crackdown. It’s not a crackdown. It’s a cop-out.
Reform UK exploited that vacuum masterfully.
Their economic platform may be fantasy — £140 billion in tax cuts and spending promises with no funding plan — but voters weren’t voting for spreadsheets. They were voting for someone who at least had the courage to talk about the things that affect their lives. The irony, of course, is that by doing so, Reform helped Labour win. In Stevenage, Reform’s 18 per cent share split the centre-right vote, handing Labour victory. If they hadn’t stood, we’d have beaten them — just as we did in 2019.
And this pattern repeated itself across division after division.
The majority of voters were on the centre-right, but the result was Labour, or worse, Labour-Lib Dem coalitions that now govern with only minority support. The real enemy is not the split — it’s what the split enables: higher council taxes, reduced services, and the creeping cultural radicalism of woke activism dressed up as “progressive coalition” governance. It’s happening across Hertfordshire.
We have the policies to answer the public’s concerns. The Illegal Migration Act, the Deportation Bill, and Rupert Lowe’s Early Day Motion calling for tougher border measures show that the will is there in parts of our party. But what’s missing is the courage to lead with it. Far too many Conservative councillors and campaigners are still afraid to put immigration front and centre in their communications. That must stop. Our base is not focused on bin collections right now. They’re asking who controls the border. They’re asking what it means to be British. And they deserve answers.
Equally, we must not underestimate how many people now see immigration and culture as inseparable issues. For many voters, this is not just about numbers. It’s about identity. They see towns and neighbourhoods change beyond recognition, feel their own values marginalised, and ask — quietly but firmly — whether anyone in Westminster shares their concerns. We must answer them, not with bluster, but with clarity and compassion. Patriotism isn’t racism. Border control isn’t bigotry. And restoring pride in Britain isn’t just a political necessity — it’s a moral one.
One issue that surprised me with its prominence on the doorstep was the European Convention on Human Rights. People know what the ECHR is — and they are angry. They know it blocked flights to Rwanda. They know it shields foreign criminals from deportation. And they are tired of being told we’re not allowed to govern our own country. The usual scaremongering — that leaving the ECHR puts us in a group with Russia — doesn’t cut through anymore. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are not members. And they seem to be doing just fine.
We should also be clear-eyed about Reform UK itself. It is not a serious political party — it is a vehicle for a single man. Just ask Donna Edmunds, elected in Shropshire as a Reform councillor and who quit within days: “I thought I joined a party. Turned out I joined a cult.” Even now, Farage has already fallen out with one of his four MPs. That was 25% of his parliamentary party gone — in week one. How will he manage 690 councillors?
What we need now is not a merger, but a strategic realignment. We need to find ways for Conservatives and Reform voters to work together — not against each other — to stop Labour embedding itself in power for a generation. That means cooperation in Parliament on key issues like immigration. Coordination at council level to prevent Labour-Lib Dem pacts. And above all, it means putting the country before ego. This is no longer about “light blue” versus “dark blue.” It’s about red, white, and blue.
At the Stevenage count, I crossed the room to speak to the Reform team. Some of them had voted for me just a year earlier. We shook hands. We talked. They weren’t enemies. They were allies — lost to division. If we are to win again, it is those voters we must bring home.
Because if we don’t — someone else will.
