As the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth approaches on October 15, 2025, Britain finds itself in the midst of a complex reckoning with the legacy of one of its most consequential leaders. Over the past week, a flurry of commemorative events has swept across the country, from a grand dinner at London’s Guildhall hosted by Thatcher’s son Mark and actress Joan Collins, to a lively “Thatcher fest” in her hometown of Grantham featuring the celebrated play Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho. Even at the recent Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, the Iron Lady’s presence was felt—her iconic dresses encased in glass, and a stall inviting attendees to "ask the Iron Lady" for her take on today’s politics, according to Hulton Archive reporting.
Yet, as the British establishment dons its finest to celebrate Thatcher’s memory, a somber reality shadows the festivities: the Conservative Party, to which she devoted her formidable energies, is described by many as lying in ruins. As Hulton Archive notes, it is a moment that demands not just nostalgia, but a serious assessment of both Thatcher’s achievements and the long-term consequences of her brand of conservatism.
It’s a striking contrast—on one hand, the pageantry and reverence for Thatcher’s iron-willed leadership; on the other, the palpable sense of uncertainty and decline that now grips her party. The Conservative Conference itself, held from October 8-10 in Manchester, offered a vivid illustration. As Newsletter correspondent Ben Lowry observed, the event was “quieter than previous years,” with none of the usual din from protests or the electric buzz of a party in power. Just fifteen months earlier, the Conservatives had marked fourteen continuous years in government. Now, they find themselves out of office, their prospects of returning to power uncertain at best.
“It would in fact be foolish to write off the Conservative Party, which is the most enduring political movement in modern British history,” Lowry writes. But the party’s current malaise is hard to ignore. Polls suggest that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK would win an overall majority of MPs if a general election were held today, though the next contest isn’t due until 2029. The Conservative Party, meanwhile, has shifted noticeably to the right—even on issues like Northern Ireland, where, as Lowry reports, recent comments by Tory MP Alex Burghart have stoked debate about the UK’s relationship with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The mood at the Manchester conference was, in Lowry’s words, “eerily quiet.” Gone were the “masters of the universe” and the parade of cabinet ministers, business leaders, and international dignitaries that characterized gatherings just a few years ago. In 2019, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was a star attraction at the Conservative Conference, with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson glad-handing DUP leaders at a packed reception. This year, the DUP’s influence has waned, and the party’s presence was barely felt.
This shift is not merely cosmetic. The Conservative Party’s rightward drift has been mirrored by the emergence of Reform UK as a major force on the political landscape. According to current polling cited by Newsletter, Reform UK leads the field, though questions linger about the durability of its support—much of which is tied to the forceful personality of Nigel Farage, who will be 65 by the time of the next scheduled election in 2029. Should he step aside, some observers speculate, the party could quickly lose momentum.
Within the Conservative ranks, the fallout from the 2024 electoral wipe-out is still being felt. Moderates like Simon Hoare, Robert Buckland, and Julian Smith—who were highly influential on Northern Ireland issues in the last parliament—are among the few Tories to have retained their seats. Their continued presence, Lowry suggests, may help anchor the party’s moderate wing, even as more hardline voices gain ground. “The more moderate Tories will never defect to Reform and so will have influence within the remaining Conservatives,” he notes.
This internal dynamic is reminiscent of the transformation that Thatcher herself helped engineer. As Hulton Archive reflects, Thatcher was “a leading player in the transformation of Anglo-Saxon conservatism into a revolutionary political doctrine that may have destroyed conservatism itself.” Her embrace of free-market economics, individualism, and a confrontational political style was, in its time, a necessary response to the challenges Britain faced. Yet, the very radicalism that made Thatcherism effective in the 1980s may have sown the seeds for the party’s current crisis.
Today’s Conservative Party is, in some respects, a victim of its own revolutionary impulses. The shift to the right, the embrace of populist rhetoric, and the fracturing of old alliances have left it vulnerable to insurgent forces like Reform UK. The situation is not without historical precedent. As Lowry points out, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) once faced a similar challenge when the more hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) eclipsed it. The UUP, he notes, “has never shifted much in response to the DUP rise because those UUP members who would have been so inclined mostly defected to Ian Paisley’s party. And now the UUP is largely made up of moderates who would never make that transition.” The analogy is hard to miss: the Conservatives may well become a rump party of moderates, while Reform UK absorbs the more radical elements.
Still, it would be premature to write the party’s obituary. As Britain prepares to honor Thatcher’s centenary, her legacy remains fiercely contested. Admirers point to her resilience during the Falklands War, her role in defeating inflation and curbing union power, and her status as a global icon of conservative leadership. Critics, however, argue that the confrontational style and ideological rigidity she championed have left the party ill-equipped to navigate the complexities of 21st-century politics.
At the heart of this debate is a question that looms over the centenary celebrations: what does it mean to be a Conservative today? The party Thatcher led so forcefully is now adrift, its future uncertain, its identity up for grabs. The commemorations—glittering dinners, theatrical tributes, and glass-encased relics—offer a chance to reflect not just on the past, but on the road ahead.
As the Iron Lady’s 100th birthday draws near, Britain stands at a crossroads. The Conservative Party faces a reckoning with its own legacy, and with the forces—both internal and external—that now threaten its survival. In honoring Thatcher, the country is also confronting the consequences of a revolution that, for better or worse, changed British politics forever.
