PM Malcolm Turnbull says the Liberals are a party of “progressives” but not everyone agrees. Picture Kym Smith

He wants them seen as ideologically-bound trouble makers who have no place in the centre-right philosophy of the Liberal Party inherited from Robert Menzies.

Or worse, as purely scheming opportunists.

That disguise he wants to remove is the label “conservative”. It’s the tag most common among right-wing party members such as Tony Abbott and some media commentators.

It offers the notion they are merely caretakers of valuable traditions and values, while those they disagree with they almost always call “leftists”.

By defining his enemies in his own terms, Mr Turnbull hopes to question their authenticity as Liberals. He can’t chuck them out of the party, so he is attempting to establish they don’t belong. At the very least, he will hope to devalue their criticisms.

The PM is painting Tony Abbott as a hard right winger. Picture by: Daniel MunozSource:News Corp Australia

Cheekily, Mr Turnbull in his disguise-stripping speech overnight used the phrase “sensible centre” which Mr Abbott had cited as a victim of the chaos of Labor governments.

“We took the name ‘Liberal’ because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary but believing in the individual, his right and his

enterprise, and rejecting the socialist panacea,” Mr Turnbull said in London.

“The sensible centre was the place to be. It remains the place to be.”

And he said: “In 1944, Menzies went to great pains not to call his new centre-right party a conservative party — rather he described our party as the Liberal Party, which he firmly anchored in the centre of Australian politics.

“He wanted to stand apart from the big money, business establishment politics of traditional conservative parties, as well as from the socialist tradition of the labour movement embodied in the Australian Labor Party.”

Mr Turnbull was careful to source his analysis to the revered party founder, rather than concoct his own definition.

However, he also has an opportunity to argue many of his critics are not even genuine conservatives. For example, true conservatives don’t dump science because it clashes with their political preferences. Conservatives value all learning.

Further, true conservatives defend stability and work for continuity. They build things, not wreck them, no matter their personal ambitions.

So what are they? He might favour the term “self-serving opportunists”.

Apart from infuriating his “conservative” MP and media foes, Mr Turnbull will upset a significant slice of the electorate who follow those figures.

He will have to elaborate on why he sees “conservative” as the enemy of “progressive” and without valid policies for those voters.