Politics

The House Article | Inside Prosper UK’s Mission To Pull The Tories Towards The Centre

Published

2 days ago

October 7, 2026

qasimgillani

Inside Prosper UK's Mission To Pull The Tories Towards The Centre

Andy Street speaks at a Prosper UK event in September 2026 (John Rose/Alamy)

10 min read4 min

Prosper UK is on a mission to pull politics – and the Conservative Party – in a centre-right direction. Will it succeed? Noah Vickers reports

In a hotel bar in Newbury, confusion reigns. Seven men have gathered in the bar’s function room to talk about how they can play their part in a new political movement. The trouble is, several of those attending aren’t entirely sure what this movement is, or what its actual objectives are. It’s called Prosper UK and it has so far attracted almost 30,000 supporters across the country.

Co-chaired by former West Midlands mayor Sir Andy Street and the ex-leader of the Scottish Conservatives Baroness (Ruth) Davidson, Prosper styles itself as a “modern, forward-looking centre-right movement with the ideas, energy and reach to shape the country’s next chapter”.

Its mission statement is that “the UK deserves better than a choice between Andy Burnham and Nigel Farage at the next election”, and it is explicit in wanting “the Conservative Party to provide that alternative”.

However, the group argues, the party can only do so “by appealing to the centre ground and reaching beyond its traditional base, to voters who have backed other mainstream parties and to voters who have drifted away from politics altogether”.

Prosper’s top team includes Amber Rudd, Sir David Gauke, Lord Barwell, Margot James and Sir David Lidington – the former home secretary, justice secretary, Downing Street chief of staff, digital minister and de facto deputy PM to Theresa May respectively. It’s an impressive roster, but one that some believe is also indicative of Prosper’s limitations.

The group “looks a bit like a network of ex-MPs wanting to go back to the ‘golden years’ of Cameron”, says one current Conservative MP, which “doesn’t really resonate because a) they weren’t that golden, b) the political landscape is unrecognisable, and c) the party of 2026 is unrecognisable”.

Notably, all of these senior figures were opposed to Brexit during the 2016 referendum – an event that dramatically ruptured the Tories’ voter coalition and later forced several of the party’s leading lights into the political wilderness. Gauke and James, for example, were both stripped of the Conservative whip by Boris Johnson after they rebelliously attempted to prevent a no-deal Brexit, while Rudd voluntarily surrendered the whip over the same issue.

Though Prosper does not yet have a formal policy on Britain’s relationship with Europe, it is currently consulting with its supporters on it, asking for their “practical views on where co-operation with the EU should be strengthened and where the UK should remain independent”.

Prosper’s launch, back in January this year, was partly drowned out by Tory MP Suella Braverman deciding to defect to Reform UK on the very same day – but the planning had been in place for many months.

“Andy was the person who did the ring-round and really set the ball rolling… sort of late summer last year, getting people together in August and September,” says Davidson.

“Part of the frustration had been that we saw Labour come in, they were talking about growth, but actually doing policies that were the antithesis of that.”

She adds, carefully: “The Conservative Party was picking itself back up off the ground and was talking a lot in the culture kind of space, rather than the economic space at the time.

“We all coalesced around a simple truth, which was we felt there was a gap in British politics and that millions of voters, even coming out of the back of an election where they’d all had their say, still felt politically homeless.

“We wanted to bring those people together and take that conversation out of the Westminster bubble – take it into the West Midlands for Andy, Scotland for me, out into communities across the UK and start listening to why people felt they were so disenfranchised.”

Sir Andy, drawing on his decades in senior roles at John Lewis, says he would not have launched Prosper if he were not certain there was an “addressable market” of people ready to back them.

He is also clear that Prosper is not a think tank or a pressure group – it is a ‘movement’, which is gathering support not just from disaffected Conservative voters and members but also from people who voted for and currently support other parties, like Labour and the Lib Dems.

As well as publishing policy reports, Prosper is holding regional events across the country, and it is hoped that this will eventually give rise to a nationwide structure of local Prosper branches – starting, naturally, with the places where they are accruing most members.

Hence, Newbury – a Tory/Lib Dem swing seat which swung decisively away from the Conservatives in 2024.

Of the seven men gathered in the hotel bar – most of whom look over the age of 50 – four are Conservative members or supporters, one is a former Conservative who has moved to the Lib Dems, and two say they are non-aligned centrist voters.

At least a couple of the group say they first heard about Prosper thanks to Rory Stewart mentioning it on The Rest of Politics, but they are less sure about how exactly it intends to fight for the centre-ground perspective they hold dear.

The assembled supporters are given a brief overview of ‘Rethink the Rates’, a campaign Prosper is running to reform Britain’s “outdated, unfair and broken” system of business rates. But no sooner have they been asked whether anyone would be willing to assist in that campaign, the questions begin.

“What I would like to know is, is this a cross-party group?” asks one attendee. “My recollection is that when I first heard about Prosper UK, it was intended to be cross-party, but I’ve only heard the word ‘Conservative’ so far in this room.”

Another chimes in: “Is it another party? We don’t want a further dissolution of the parties under first-past-the-post.”

“I haven’t got this straight in my own head,” says a third attendee, a little later on. “Some of this messaging is quite confused, regarding where Prosper is and where it’s going.

“Is it politically aligned? Isn’t it politically aligned? Is it speaking for business? Is it speaking for centre/centre-right politics? What is the driver and how do I sell this to people?”

“I think that’s a real challenge,” a fourth supporter admits. “I’ve been to the higher-ups, saying, ‘You need clearer messaging, people’.”

Structurally, it could be argued that Prosper is not all that different to the Jeremy Corbyn-supporting Momentum movement, in that it has its own membership and is trying to steer a particular political party in a particular political direction.

“It looks a bit like a network of ex-MPs wanting to go back to the ‘golden years’ of Cameron”

Sir Andy points to a key difference: “Momentum was within the Labour Party, fighting for a particular version of what they believed in, but the whole point about Prosper is that it has to be additive to the Conservative Party…

“The minority of people who come to our events are existing Conservative supporters, so this is trying to extend the remit of the Conservative Party.”

Has Tory leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed any of what Prosper is doing?

“We wanted to make absolutely sure we spoke to Kemi before we launched,” Sir Andy replies.

“We wanted to explain what we were trying to do.

“Critically, on the day we launched, Ruth answered a very direct question from Laura Kuenssberg, ‘Do you want Kemi Badenoch to be prime minister?’ Answer: ‘Yes’, so let’s not try to disguise that…

“We explained to Kemi we were trying to be additive, trying to attract these people who perhaps the party wasn’t yet winning back – people who voted Lib Dem, people who lent their vote to Labour, and of course people who sat it out.

“So, this point about trying to broaden the church, bring them back so that we can have a Conservative government again, was there.”

But Sir Andy admits that Badenoch’s reaction to Prosper’s launch was somewhat on the “cool” side.

“I’m the leader of the Conservative Party, not anyone else,” she said when asked about Prosper in the week of its launch. “And it is what I think needs to happen that they need to support, because that is what Conservative Party members have voted for.

“Anybody who is trying to push an agenda that is not the platform I stood on is not being helpful.”

Sir Andy says he understands, however, the position his party leader is in: “She’s trying to do two things at once. She’s trying to reinforce the boundary with Reform and at the same time win back those people, so she’s got to be careful about too openly shifting to our view of the world.”

He adds: “Lots of her lieutenants in the leadership of the party have openly engaged and welcomed ideas coming forward.”

Prosper has produced policy papers on welfare, devolution, immigration and, more recently, a report on how young people should be helped in navigating a labour market reshaped by AI. It is also calling for reforms to make student loans fairer and for the triple lock on state pensions to be replaced.

How is all of this research being funded?

“If only there was one crypto-billionaire, it would be easy,” Sir Andy laughs. “It’s just coming from a relatively large number of – by political standards, currently – small donations from business people or individuals… We’re not in hock to anybody.”

Davidson adds that some of its signed-up supporters have donated either on a one-off or regular basis.

Under electoral law, Prosper is a members’ association, and is required to report to the Electoral Commission all permissible donations it receives from a single source which exceed £11,180 in a calendar year. As no single donor has yet reached that threshold, no declarations have been made so far, according to Prosper’s chief executive Simon Saunders.

In the meantime, a general election may still potentially be almost three years away. What else will Prosper do until then?

The answer may have slipped out at a recent Prosper event at Arundells, the former Salisbury home of Sir Edward Heath.

Asked by the former Conservative MP Ben Howlett whether Prosper’s growing supporter base could ultimately be used to influence Tory candidate selections, Sir Andy is said by Howlett to have rejected any suggestion of “entryism” but confirmed that Prosper does want to “help select council candidates and, over time, support people with similar views to come forward” as parliamentary candidates.

“Andy was describing something we are happy to be open about,” says Saunders, when asked about this by The House.

“Over time, we want people who share our outlook to join the Conservative Party, get involved with their local associations, support local candidates and, if they want to, put themselves forward as council or parliamentary candidates through the party’s normal selection processes.”

At the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Prosper is holding several events and receptions both inside and outside the secure zone, in an effort to reach not only conference-attending Tory members but also people interested in Prosper who happen to live in the West Midlands.

Despite its tens of thousands of politically homeless supporters, Prosper has ruled out ever becoming a political party of its own.

“We’re not here to be a shadow Tory Party. We’re not. That’s not what we were set up to do and it’s not what we wish to do,” says Davidson.

“We have a kind of plan up to the election. We will make sure that we have a plan for beyond the election as we get closer to it.

“But everything that we know, all of the research we’ve done, all of the amassed experience we have on our board – which is pretty substantial – indicates that if the Conservatives don’t fight in this economic space, they won’t have a huge amount of success at an election.”

Politics

Politics Home | Labour Believe They Can Win Back Green Voters After Holborn And St Pancras By-Election

Published

3 hours ago

October 9, 2026

qasimgillani

Labour Believe They Can Win Back Green Voters After Holborn And St Pancras By-Election

Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election for the Labour Party (Alamy)

7 min read1 hr

Labour figures believe the Holborn and St Pancras by-election result has punctured the idea that Zack Polanski’s Greens are an unstoppable force on the left, but they remain cautious about how far it can be extrapolated to the rest of the country.

Labour’s victory in Holborn and St Pancras has come as a relief to a party that has spent much of the past year watching its support fragment across the political spectrum.

Sagal Abdi-Wali, Labour’s Camden council leader, won the north London seat with 12,292 votes, securing 45 per cent of the vote. Green leader Zack Polanski came second with 8,928 votes, or 33 per cent.

However, there are still reasons for Labour to be concerned: the party’s majority in the seat fell from 11,572 at the 2024 general election to 3,364, and the Greens managed to more than triple their vote share.

The result is therefore a mixed one for both parties. Labour has held an incumbent seat while serving in government, where a Green victory would have represented a significant symbolic breakthrough. However, Green figures insist the seat was never a top target seat to start with, with many anticipating a loss before the votes were counted.

Morale boost for London Labour

For Labour MPs in London, the immediate significance of the result is how it will impact the psychology of voters and activists.

PoliticsHome understands that some London Labour MPs are emailing members to encourage them that now is the best time to get involved in the party, buoyed by the notion that the result has challenged the perception among progressive voters that it is embarrassing to vote Labour in the capital.

One London Labour MP described the result as a “boost” for the party, after the Greens’ victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election and their strong performance in May’s local elections helped create the impression that Polanski’s party was becoming a viable alternative across the country.

“If we want to win these seats again, we need to have people who voted Green in May voting Labour in the next general election, and that is still TBD, but this is a really good sign,” the MP said.

There is, however, considerable caution alongside the optimism. MPs and activists recognise that a by-election in a safe Labour seat cannot simply be extrapolated into a national recovery, especially when it does not resolve the wider problem of voters abandoning Labour for other parties, including Reform.

More in Common external affairs manager Louis O’Geran said Labour had performed well in the context of by-elections, which are usually punishing for incumbents and governing parties, but cautioned against reading too much into the result.

O’Geran argued that winning back Green and independent voters in London was only “half the story” for Labour. “What we’ve seen is him [Burnham] not making enough progress, winning back right defectors.”

Labour MP for Middlesbrough Andy McDonald said that despite representing a seat where Reform came second in 2024, he feels that Labour’s success in the by-election result “applies across the country, whether it’s Greens in the ascendancy or Reform”.

“There has been a response to Andy arriving and just setting out that message of not just hope but ambition as well,” he said.

“That has really resonated across all the constituencies, and I’d like to think that’s reflected in the changing polls in my own seat as well.”

He described a “bullishness” in Labour ranks, tempered by “realism” that the economic consequences of international conflicts remained a major challenge for the government.

How did Labour win?

In Holborn and St Pancras, Labour sources credited the party’s ground campaign with delivering the win, pointing to a strong activist operation and conversations with historic Labour voters who said they were happy to vote for the party again.

Labour MP for Croydon East Natasha Irons, who served as an aide in the campaign, argued that it successfully combined a national message with a candidate rooted in the constituency.

“It has shown that the future of progressive politics sits with the Labour Party, and it always has,” she told PoliticsHome.

Irons added that “uncertainty about Zack Polanski’s Green Party” had come through on the doorstep.

Labour MP for Streatham and Croydon North and former Cabinet minister Steve Reed described the mood among Labour activists as “very calm”, with most expecting the party to win – a contrast with the “manic” atmosphere surrounding the closer Gorton and Denton contest.

“If Polanski stays, then the Greens don’t have a future,” he said.

“They’ve peaked and they’re sliding backwards because the public have seen what the Greens have become and they don’t like it one bit.”

Why did the Greens lose?

While the Greens fell short of victory, their 33 per cent vote share represents a substantial advance in one of Labour’s safest seats.

Former Green leader Baroness Natalie Bennett acknowledged the result was disappointing, but said the party remained within reach of Labour.

“This is one of Labour’s safer seats,” she told PoliticsHome.

“Their vote, you know, just if you look at the graph, just keeps going down. We’re certainly within striking distance of them in that seat next time. But it certainly won’t be our top target by any means.”

However, at the 2024 general election, pro-Gaza independent candidate Andrew Feinstein won 18.9 per cent of the vote in the seat, splitting the anti-Labour left. Feinstein backed Polanski this time around. Combining Feinstein’s previous share with the Greens’ latest performance suggests the wider vote on the left has increased by only around three and a half percentage points since 2024. The swing to the Greens was also less than half the 13 per cent recorded in the Gorton and Denton by-election.

For Russell Warfield, Polanski’s biographer and close ally, the result should not be interpreted as evidence that the party has run out of road.

“If you zoom out from this ‘this is the end of Polanski psychodrama’ kind of framing of the by-election, what it shows is that even in a really bad week for the Greens, and at the height of Burnham’s popularity… they can still get the sort of swings that would get them dozens of seats in the next general election,” he told PoliticsHome.

“In that regard, we’re where we expected to be. It’s a strong position for the Greens to be in.”

Warfield argued that the party had not necessarily lost momentum so much as reached a plateau.

He described the low turnout as one of the most damaging aspects of the campaign for the Greens.

“The ability to motivate your vote was the route to victory here,” he said.

“So that is obviously disappointing for the Greens.”

The Greens also faced questions over the political consequences of their conference motion declaring Zionism to be racism. Former leader Caroline Lucas had previously described the motion as “dangerous” and “divisive”, criticising Polanski’s leadership. After the result, she said that “tripling our vote share was huge”, while urging him to address internal problems.

Green activists acknowledged the motion might have had some impact, although the short period between its passage and polling day made it difficult to assess its overall significance.

Former party co-leader Jonathan Bartley told PoliticsHome the by-election result would “demand some serious soul searching”, warning of a “toxicity of the Green party brand”.

Impact of tactical voting

Tactical voting may also have helped Labour. O’Geran pointed to the Liberal Democrats being squeezed since the local elections, with some voters apparently switching to Labour to keep the Greens out.

“From our conversations in Holborn and St Pancras, there is this sense of real risk aversion from a lot of people around Zack Polanski,” O’Geran said.

“Just this sense that he’s potentially dangerous and divisive.”

A person close to the Lib Dem campaign told PoliticsHome prior to the by-election that the conference motion could encourage voters to back Abdi-Wali instead of the Lib Dems in order to keep Polanski out of Parliament.

A Green Party spokesperson insisted the party remained “here to stay and just getting started”, arguing that voters had sent Labour a message demanding rent controls, action on privatised water and justice for Palestinians.

Politics

Holburn And St Pancras By-Election Result Boosts Labour Morale For Winning Green Voters Back

Published

3 hours ago

October 9, 2026

qasimgillani

Camden Council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election for the Labour Party (Alamy)

7 min read1 hr

Labour’s victory in Holborn and St Pancras has come as a relief to a party that has spent much of the past year watching its support fragment across the political spectrum.

Morale boost for London Labour

For Labour MPs in London, the immediate significance of the result is how it will impact the psychology of voters and activists.

“There has been a response to Andy arriving and just setting out that message of not just hope but ambition as well. That has really resonated across all the constituencies, and I’d like to think that’s reflected in the changing polls in my own seat as well.”