Finding Amusement In this Implosion of the Conservative Party? That's Comprehensible – But Totally Wrong

There have been times when Conservative leaders have appeared moderately rational on the surface – and different periods where they have come across as animal crackers, yet remained popular by their party. We are not in that situation. One prominent Conservative didn't energize the audience when she presented to her conference, even as she threw out the provocative rhetoric of anti-immigration sentiment she believed they wanted.

This wasn't primarily that they’d all woken up with a revived feeling of humanity; instead they were skeptical she’d ever be in a position to deliver it. In practice, a substitute. Conservatives despise that. One senior Conservative was said to label it a “New Orleans funeral”: noisy, energetic, but nonetheless a farewell.

What Next for this Party Having Strong Arguments to Make for Itself as the Most Accomplished Democratic Party in the World?

A faction is giving another squiz at a particular MP, who was a definite refusal at the outset – but with proceedings winding down, and everyone else has departed. Another group is generating a excitement around a rising star, a young parliamentarian of the latest cohort, who looks like a countryside-based politician while filling her social media with immigration-critical posts.

Might she become the figurehead to counter opposition forces, now outpolling the Tories by 20 points? Does a term exist for defeating opponents by becoming exactly like them? Moreover, if there isn’t, surely we could borrow one from martial arts?

When Finding Satisfaction In Such Events, in a Downfall Observation Way, in a Just-Deserts Way, That Is Understandable – But Completely Irrational

You don’t even have to look at the US to understand this, nor read the scholar's groundbreaking study, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: your entire mental framework is screaming it. Centrist right-wing parties is the essential firewall against the far right.

His research conclusion is that representative governments persist by keeping the “wealthy and influential” happy. Personally, I question this as an organising principle. One gets the impression as though we’ve been indulging the propertied and powerful for decades, at the cost of everyone else, and they never seem adequately satisfied to cease desiring to take a bite out of disability benefits.

But his analysis is not speculation, it’s an thorough historical examination into the historical German conservative group during the Weimar Republic (along with the England's ruling party in that historical context). As moderate conservatism loses its confidence, when it starts to chase the terminology and gesture-based policies of the far right, it transfers the control.

There Were Examples Some of This In the Referendum Aftermath

Boris Johnson cosying up to Steve Bannon was a notable instance – but far-right flirtation has become so pronounced now as to obliterate any other Conservative messages. What happened to the traditional Tories, who treasure continuity, preservation, the constitution, the UK reputation on the global scene?

Why have we lost the progressives, who defined the country in terms of powerhouses, not volatile situations? Let me emphasize, I wasn’t wild about either faction as well, but it’s absolutely striking how these ideologies – the one nation Tory, the modernizing wing – have been erased, replaced by ongoing scapegoating: of newcomers, Islamic communities, welfare recipients and demonstrators.

Appear at Podiums to Themes Resembling the Opening Credits to Game of Thrones

While discussing what they cannot stand for any more. They portray protests by older demonstrators as “displays of hostility” and display banners – British flags, patriotic icons, anything with a vibrant national tones – as an direct confrontation to individuals doubting that being British through and through is the ultimate achievement a person could possibly be.

There doesn’t seem to be any built-in restraint, that prompts reflection with fundamental beliefs, their own hinterland, their own plan. Any stick the political figure presents to them, they’ll chase. Therefore, absolutely not, there's no pleasure to observe their collapse. They are dragging civil society down with them.