Enjoying the Collapse of the Conservative Party? That's Comprehensible – But Totally Incorrect

On various occasions when party chiefs have seemed almost sensible outwardly – and different periods where they have sounded completely unhinged, yet remained popular by their party. Currently, it's far from either of those times. One prominent Conservative didn't energize the audience when she spoke at her conference, while she presented the divisive talking points of anti-immigration sentiment she thought they wanted.

The issue wasn't that they’d all arisen with a renewed sense of humanity; instead they lacked faith she’d ever be able to implement it. In practice, a substitute. Conservatives despise that. An influential party member was said to label it a “themed procession”: boisterous, animated, but still a farewell.

Future Prospects for the Organization That Can Reasonably Claim to Make for Itself as the Most Accomplished Political Organization in the World?

Some are having another squiz at a particular MP, who was a hard “no” at the start of the night – but now it’s the end, and rivals has departed. Another group is generating a excitement around Katie Lam, a young parliamentarian of the latest cohort, who looks like a Shires Tory while saturating her socials with immigration-critical posts.

Is she poised as the standard-bearer to counter the rival party, now surpassing the Conservatives by a significant margin? Can we describe for beating your rivals by adopting their policies? And, if there isn’t, perhaps we might adopt a term from combat sports?

Should You Take Pleasure In Any of This, in a How-the-Mighty-Are-Fallen Way, in a Serves-Them-Right-for-Austerity Way, It's Comprehensible – But Totally Misguided

It isn't necessary to look at the US to grasp this point, nor read Daniel Ziblatt’s influential work, his analysis of political systems: all your cognitive processes is shouting it. Centrist right-wing parties is the crucial barrier resisting the far right.

Ziblatt’s thesis is that political systems endure by keeping the “propertied and powerful” happy. I have reservations as an organising principle. It seems as though we’ve been keeping the privileged groups over generations, at the detriment of everyone else, and they rarely appear adequately satisfied to halt efforts to reduce support out of public assistance.

But his analysis goes beyond conjecture, it’s an comprehensive document review into the pre-Nazi German National People’s Party during the interwar Germany (in parallel to the UK Tories circa 1906). Once centrist parties falters in conviction, when it starts to pursue the buzzwords and superficial stances of the far right, it hands them the direction.

We Saw Some of This Throughout the EU Exit Process

A key figure associating with a controversial strategist was one particularly egregious example – but radical alignment has become so obvious now as to obliterate any other party narratives. Where are the old-school Conservatives, who prize predictability, tradition, governing principles, the pride of Britain on the international platform?

Why have we lost the reformers, who described the nation in terms of growth centers, not powder kegs? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t wild about either faction as well, but it's remarkably noticeable how those worldviews – the broad-church approach, the reformist element – have been eliminated, replaced by ongoing scapegoating: of immigrants, Islamic communities, welfare recipients and activists.

They Walk On Stage to Melodies Evoking the Signature Music to Game of Thrones

While discussing issues they reject. They portray protests by 75-year-old pacifists as “festivals of animosity” and use flags – union flags, English symbols, any item featuring a bold patriotic hues – as an open challenge to anyone who doesn’t think that being British through and through is the best thing a individual might attain.

There doesn’t seem to be any inherent moderation, encouraging reassessment with fundamental beliefs, their own hinterland, their stated objectives. Whatever provocation the Reform leader presents to them, they follow. Therefore, no, there's no pleasure to observe their collapse. They’re taking democratic norms into the abyss.

James Lambert
James Lambert

A passionate bibliophile and critic with over a decade of experience in literary journalism.