Just before the home secretary, Priti Patel, delivered a tough speech on crime here in Manchester yesterday, a giant picture of Margaret Thatcher was projected onto the walls of the conference hall next to the words, “The Party of Law and Order”. The audience of members applauded enthusiastically and did so again as Patel went on to claim that voters look to the Conservatives to uphold legal norms.

But it was Patel’s government that was recently slapped down by the Supreme Court for attempting to subvert the law by shutting down parliament. And Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been declaring that the UK will leave the EU come what may on October 31 – even though the law says he can’t rip it out without a deal.

Johnson has been on a populist bent of late and while his actions may be playing well to his support base, Andy Knott, a specialist in populism, warns that tactics like his are fundamentally incompatible with some of the core tenets of conservatism. Conservatives are supposed to value constitutional norms and traditional institutions – like the courts. Populists seek to tear those very institutions down. As the two ideologies collide, there could be lasting electoral consequences for the party of government.

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