During the election night coverage, when the scale of the Tories' defeat was becoming apparent, a pundit - I'm afraid I can't remember who, it was a long night - some pundit said that no major party in modern times has ever had such a gap between the politics of the Parliamentary party and the membership. I keep thinking of that.
This has been true for a while - look at the elections of Liz Truss and Iain Duncan Smith against the wishes of MPs - but the recent election has exacerbated it enormously. So many prominent hard and far right Tory MPs either lost or stood down voluntarily, and also, most (maybe all?) of the supposed 'rising stars' of the right who tried to enter Parliament were beaten.
For all the attention that the far right rump gets - and I agree that Jenrick is the most likely next leader - those MPs closer to the centre-right are now comfortably the largest wing. But neither the majority of the membership, nor the party's main media allies, nor the frequently extreme major individual donors are anywhere near a moderate position.
I don't think there are many Tories at all - certainly no-one senior - who understand the extent to which their humiliation was pragmatic and practical rather than ideological, that their ineptitude, corruption and self-obsession lost them far more seats than any notion of what constitutes left and right. And I don't see how they can overcome that problem whilst the Parliamentary party remains dominated by MPs who have to dance to the tune of their supporters, to ideas that those MPs know to be - to use a leadership candidate's phrasing - completely batshit.
In other words, when the newly-elected hard right leader is forced out by disgruntled MPs (no later than the end of 2027, I predict, possibly much earlier) they need to find a replacement who can unify the party whilst also appearing attractive to the average centre-right voter. Good luck finding one of those!
RolloTreadway /
npub15n…nt9fk
2024-08-13 08:59:52
in reply to nevent1q…5d6y
Author Public Key
npub15n7gcq8qd5a5gtvth6k57lwrxy7hjvqq78nm2vw30zj6fqg2x4hq9nt9fkSeen on
wss://relay.noswhere.comPublished at
2024-08-13 08:59:52Event JSON
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