Closing Time

A new political divide could make the centre-right redundant

On a recent podcast with strategyaaron, we began by discussing a recurring theme of this blog, whether the return of centre-right politics is inevitable or even possible. It is something I’ve obviously been pondering for some time. As I mentioned with Aaron, it all ultimately hangs on the divides in politics and whether the very ground is shifting.

We tend to think of our politics in terms of a spectrum which runs from left to right. This is primarily an economic spectrum (though it is often enhanced with a social Y-axis, as in the Political Compass). It loosely situates politics within the scheme of class interests (again, defined by relationship to capital rather than where you went to school). Such an analysis presupposes the existence of a right and a left, and really requires not only both to exist, but also that political competition will usually drag them towards the centre.

From the mid-2000s onwards, it has been argued that a new divide is emerging – between open and closed. The definitions are contested and fluid, but broadly mean those who are internationalist and committed to the global liberal order on one side, versus those who are insular, national, and nativist on the other. Elsewhere, David Goodhart has plotted it as “Somewheres” vs “Anywheres”, typified as a “political and moral” fault line between those who are broadly open and those who are rooted in one spot. Should this become the permanent divide, it is likely to be ruinous for the centre right as we know it.

The centre right is primarily a creature of the economic spectrum. In simple terms, it was born out of the same factors that established the political spectrum, through the rise of industrialisation and the competing positions of the landowner, merchant and labourer. Though positions have fluctuated over time and in different circumstances, the centre right has, broadly, charted a steady course through the last century and a half of political disputes.

At its core, it is the politics of a gently moderated economic liberalism, trade and capitalism. The centre-right stands for the interests and freedoms of business and, by extension, higher-paid professions. In general, it takes a position of freedom of trade and industry, low(er) taxation and limited government spending. The exact details of this have fluctuated from Macmillanite paternalism to the Thatcherite retreat of the state. Still, the broad narrative has been the same – less government and lower taxation than the other side.

The approach built an effective electoral coalition. It knitted together high-earning professionals, small business owners, and the aspirational. The policy offerings worked for above-median-earning households and brought together a sufficiently large, geographically diverse voting bloc to win elections. This bloc also had broad social cohesion, but the economic union smoothed over cracks, allowing it to tie together voters with differing levels of social conservatism. Both young urbanites and rural business owners could find themselves comfortably on the same side of the spectrum.

This trend is recognisable in Britain and across the Western world. Centre-right parties have shown regional variation and change over history. They have, however, always broadly stood for economic liberalism and the small state, with a social conservatism which still respected individual freedoms. For so long as the open/closed divide remained secondary, they could bridge it through their other offerings.

Right-wing parties were able to subsume both somewhere and anywhere-type identities into a broader movement. As governments, they were generally committed to the international order. They supported global governance systems as a way for Britain to influence the world stage. Military intervention could be a way of projecting both power and values. Economic advantage required embracing the international, and they were generally at home with transnational culture as well as patriotism. For the voters, this combination was manageable as long as the economic spectrum mattered more.

Now, arguably, it does not – and it is this shift that the centre right is struggling to deal with. In Britain, the tension most obviously developed around Brexit and the EU. The open position was both logically and culturally pro-Remain. Vested in European trade, relaxed about international institutions, moderate on immigration. The closed side, as Goodhart and others have argued, was clearly coded towards Leave. Yet, until that point, the Conservative Party —and, by extension, the centre-right —could be home to both.

Increasingly, that line is becoming harder to hold. This is partly due to demographic shifts. As Ben Ansell and others have noted, the balance between the groups has shifted. The professional, which has tended to be more socially liberal and more open, has grown. As Rob Ford has noted, it has also become more electorally impactful, with an increasing number of seats having a plurality of voters with higher education. It is also, however, because the axis driving voting is no longer the economic one.

The Conservatives have previously managed to straddle the issue of openness. Indulging it in some areas, rejecting its most progressive elements. This is no longer sufficient. Reform leans into the full-throated representation of the “closed” part of the spectrum. They are somewhere between uninterested in and hostile to international organisations and the liberal global order. They reject measures on climate change, and of course, pursue a strong anti-immigration line. Though their economic policies are often confused, they routinely follow a nativist line.

At the same time, the pursuit of Brexit and the pursuit of Reform votes has alienated more open voters who would once have been economically Conservative. The right-wing vote has dropped significantly among voters of working age and among the professions. This is partly the result of policies that poorly serve that group, but also a cultural rejection of what tends to be a more socially liberal, open-looking chunk of voters. They are moderate on immigration and committed to things like the fight against global warming. Each of these positions becomes harder to balance when the key issue is open vs. closed, rather than the economy. Instead of straddling both aspects of the spectrum through combined economic interests, it now looks like losing both.

This is far from a solely domestic problem. In the United States, the centre-right has already been effectively eaten by this process. Through Trump and those around him, the Republican Party has been seized by a spirit of closedness. It is now in full retreat from the global trade order and is gradually rejecting a host of international commitments. Domestically, it is becoming far less interested in the positions, or even the votes, of the right-leaning but open, comfortably off. Meanwhile, in Europe, a large chunk of centre-right parties are facing a similar squeeze to the Conservatives here.

The shift to an open–closed axis doesn’t just change electoral arithmetic; it changes the very geometry of competition. The centre right thrived in a multidimensional space: voters were divided along economic lines, with social questions providing texture rather than cleavage. The party could bridge those dimensions because the electorate itself was bridged — urban professionals and provincial business owners could align on taxes and trade while tolerating differences on social issues. Open–closed politics collapses those dimensions into a single line: identity, worldview, and culture dominate, and economic positions become secondary signals rather than defining ones. In such an environment, the centre right’s core skill — combining dynamism with continuity — becomes strategically useless. Its coalition was built for a world in which compromise was both necessary and electorally rewarded; now, compromise is punished by the internal logic of the axis.

This realignment manifests clearly in Britain. The Conservatives can no longer rely on economic alignment to offset cultural divergence. Highly educated, professional voters with internationalised instincts have been lost over Brexit, while the party can never fully commit to the economic nativism that Reform will likely offer. The party is caught in a wedge: appealing to one side alienates the other, and internal messaging struggles to reconcile the contradictions. The same pattern appears elsewhere. In the United States, the Republican Party has been consumed mainly by the closed faction, leaving business conservatives with diminished influence. Across Europe, centre-right parties are squeezed by similar pressures: the CDU faces internal strain between liberal, internationally minded urban voters and conservative, provincial constituencies; Les Républicains contend with the gravitational pull of both Macron and Le Pen. In each case, the traditional balancing act — reconciling multiple axes of voter preference — is increasingly unsustainable.

The consequence is structural: the centre right as historically constituted may not survive. The very traits that made it resilient — moderation, pragmatism, flexibility — become liabilities under the new axis. Where once it could mediate and combine competing somewheres and anywheres through an economic offering, it must now pick a side. Its clarity on economics and ambiguity on global co-operation is now the wrong approach for the wrong time. In an economically dominated spectrum, there is a clear place for a fiscally liberal party with moderate conservative instincts. In an open v closed one, it is not clear that there is. Combined with their failures in government, it makes it even harder for the Tories to come back.

In short, the open–closed realignment threatens the existence of the centre right not through miscalculation, but through the mechanics of political competition itself. Its historical model relied on bridging divides that are increasingly irrelevant; its electoral strategy depended on tensions that no longer define the central axis of politics. Unless new dimensions emerge to allow reconciliation, the centre right risks being hollowed out from within, leaving a vacuum at the intersection of economic liberalism and moderate conservatism. The question is no longer whether the party can win elections — it is whether the centre right can continue to exist as a coherent and popular political category at all.