Tory party post election direction

Hello folks.  Hope you don't mind me popping back in hope that you can explain your thinking to me on one specific subject.  (Grateful if this thread can avoid insults, abuse  and petty squabbling please)

The next election is perhaps 16 months away so could yet change but it currently looks most likely that Labour will take power - whether majority or minority.

IF that happens it seems certain that the Tories would then engage in a battle for the direction the party should take next between the more centrist "one nationers" and the ideological low tax, low regulation socially conservative populists/UKIP/Trussist side. (lets not argue over terminology - even if you do not like the term can we for sake of this thread refer to that viewpoint as populist).  Indeed with Braverman's speech to the conference last week and then leaked blow back about speeding tickets and non attendance at 3rd reading of immigration bills, it seems that fight is already well under way.

To this centre/left poster, it feels like the Tories have much the same judgment to make as Labour did when they chose Corbyn as their leader.  Do they move towards the views of its members who tend by definition to be further from the centre or do they seek to move back towards the centre ditching the populist anti woke rhetoric and related policies 

Now I am guessing that the majority on this forum would prefer to move towards the populist agenda and while I don't agree with those policies, I accept that is a perfectly valid aspiration.  My question that I would welcome your views on are twofold

1) Do you believe that a move towards populism would be electorally popular. If so what is your evidence for that view (especially given that UKIP were wiped out in the recent local elections and Reform only won seats in two neighbouring wards in Derby)
2) IF populism was not a vote winner would you regardless prefer the Tories to advocate those policies even if that meant defeat or would you prefer  a more centrist party which gave you some but not all of what you wanted after the say 2029 election

Thank you.

In some previous elections, particularly the last European election we took part in, the populist party was created at the very last minute and was immensely popular. 
Perhaps the populist party for the next general election has not emerged fully, or some of the heavy hitters have not declared themselves to be a part of it.
I don't care what the Tories or Labour do, they are dead to me. A new populist party needs to emerge. The Tories feared UKIP, they feared the Brexit party at the last election and they'll fear either Reform or Reclaim, whichever becomes prominent.

Oh I don't know, you think minor parties will be trashed Ned. It's possible, but unlikely. I agree it's difficult for small parties to get established due to the FPTP system, a system I agree with. But do you remember a party called UKIP that appeared in 1993. It was a political nonentity, but slowly gained ground and went from less than 1% of the vote in 1997 to 12.6% of the vote in 2015, which is why Cameron was forced to allow a referendum. UKIP was a small party, but could no longer be ignored.