Finding Amusement In the Implosion of the Conservative Party? That's Understandable – Yet Totally Wrong

Throughout history when Conservative leaders have appeared almost sensible on the surface – and other moments where they have sounded wildly irrational, yet continued to be cherished by party loyalists. Currently, it's far from either of those times. Kemi Badenoch left the crowd unmoved when she addressed her conference, even as she offered the divisive talking points of migrant-baiting she thought they wanted.

The issue wasn't that they’d all woken up with a fresh awareness of humanity; rather they didn’t believe she’d ever be in a position to deliver it. Effectively, a substitute. Tories hate that. One senior Conservative apparently called it a “themed procession”: noisy, energetic, but nonetheless a parting.

Coming Developments for the Organization That Can Reasonably Claim to Make for Itself as the Most Accomplished Governing Force in Modern Times?

A faction is giving another squiz at a particular MP, who was a hard “no” at the beginning – but with proceedings winding down, and other candidates has departed. Some are fostering a interest around a rising star, a recently elected representative of the latest cohort, who looks like a Shires Tory while saturating her online profiles with border-control messaging.

Is she poised as the leader to counter opposition forces, now leading the Conservatives by a significant margin? Does a term exist for overcoming competitors by adopting their policies? Moreover, should one not exist, surely we could borrow one from fighting disciplines?

If You’re Enjoying These Developments, in a Schadenfreude Way, in a Serves-Them-Right-for-Austerity Way, It's Comprehensible – However Totally Misguided

It isn't necessary to examine America to know this, nor read the scholar's seminal 2017 book, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: every one of your synapses is emphasizing it. The mainstream right is the crucial barrier preventing the radical elements.

His research conclusion is that democracies survive by satisfying the “elite classes” happy. I’m not wild about it as an organising principle. It feels as though we’ve been catering to the propertied and powerful for decades, at the cost of the broader population, and they rarely appear adequately satisfied to stop wanting to make cuts out of social welfare.

Yet his research isn’t a hunch, it’s an thorough historical examination into the pre-Nazi German National People’s Party during the interwar Germany (along with the UK Tories in that historical context). As moderate conservatism falters in conviction, when it starts to adopt the rhetoric and gesture-based policies of the extremist elements, it hands them the steering wheel.

We Saw Some of This During the Brexit Years

A key figure aligning with Steve Bannon was one particularly egregious example – but extremist sympathies has become so obvious now as to overshadow all remaining Conservative messages. Whatever became of the established party members, who prize continuity, conservation, the constitution, the pride of Britain on the international platform?

Where did they go the reformers, who portrayed the United Kingdom in terms of powerhouses, not powder kegs? Don’t get me wrong, I had reservations regarding either faction too, but it’s absolutely striking how those worldviews – the broad-church approach, the reformist element – have been erased, replaced by ongoing scapegoating: of immigrants, Islamic communities, benefit claimants and protesters.

They Walk On Stage to Music That Sounds Like the Theme Tune to Game of Thrones

While discussing issues they reject. They characterize rallies by elderly peace activists as “festivals of animosity” and employ symbols – British flags, English symbols, all objects bearing a vibrant national tones – as an direct confrontation to individuals doubting that being British through and through is the best thing a individual might attain.

We observe an absence of any built-in restraint, encouraging reassessment with core principles, their traditional foundations, their original agenda. Each incentive Nigel Farage throws for them, they follow. So, absolutely not, there's no pleasure to see their disintegration. They are pulling civil society along in their decline.