The latest massive poll tells us that the
Conservatives may suffer huge losses at the next General Election, yet strangely
lots of Conservative voters like me are not particularly despondent. This tells
you everything you need to know about where the Conservative Party has gone
wrong.
I don’t have much enthusiasm for the Labour Party and
will be surprised if it does not make the same mess as previous Labour
governments, but what I am hoping for, perhaps unreasonably is that if the
Conservatives suffer a sufficiently catastrophic defeat it may emerge as a
genuine Conservative party that does not view its own supporters with disdain.
The story begins I think in 2016. British voters were
given a vote on membership of the EU. All of the major parties opposed leaving.
The media, the Civil Service and the experts all told us that it would be a disaster
to leave. But we voted to leave anyway. It was a rebellion not just about the
EU, but about British politics and everything that ordinary people thought was
going wrong with the country. Did the Conservative Party listen? No.
We ended up with Theresa May as Prime Minister who did
her best to deliver Brexit in name only. Not only May but large numbers of
Labour and Conservative MPs did their best to stop us leaving the EU. Northern
Ireland has still not properly left the EU.
Eventually in 2019 in the European Parliament election
which bizarrely we were still taking part in the Brexit Party won 30% of the
vote and the Conservatives won just 8%. This led to Boris Johnson becoming
Prime Minister, but did the Conservatives learn their lesson? No.
Boris Johnson almost miraculously was able to win the
General Election in 2019 with 43% of the vote. But the lesson of the European
Parliament election was forgotten in the euphoria.
Johnson did manage to get the UK out of the EU, but
the next two years were wasted with mask wearing and staying at home and
gradually the hope that Conservative voters had in 2019 were disappointed.
Johnson fairly or unfairly found himself having to
resign because of scandal, but his legacy was anyway not impressive. He should
have stuck with his instincts and kept Britain as open and free as possible
during the pandemic. Since then, we have gone through Liz Truss being elected by
Conservative members only to be replaced shortly afterwards by Rishi Sunak.
We have all seen our standard of living get worse
because of inflation and measures like net zero that are designed to make
voters poorer. The economy is in worse shape than in 2019. We are unable to
control our borders. More importantly the Conservative government has deliberately
opened up those borders by allowing record numbers of people to arrive illegally.
The revolution of 2016 was for nothing.
Voters gave the Conservatives another chance in 2019.
We gave them a warning in the European election and then backed them in the
following General Election, but our votes were pocketed, and the warnings
ignored.
People voted for real change in 2016 and viewed the EU
as preventing that real change. This was the point of taking back control. It
was about gaining a sovereign parliament that was not bossed about by the European
Union or judges and which could work in the interest of our own people.
But it is now clear that we need to try revolution
once again. The Conservative Party is full of centre left Tory wet Remainers.
There is no chance at the moment of getting back the low tax, low spending
Thatcherite government that might bring us real prosperity. Instead, the
Conservatives spend just as much as Labour and make it harder for us to heat
our houses and drive to work.
So, if the Conservatives won’t learn their lesson, perhaps it is time for a lesson so large that they won’t be able to ignore it. If people like Jeremy Hunt lose their seats. If all those patrician Tory wets who like to look down on us as they deplore our voting for Brexit and opposing the gradual transformation of our country, if they all lose their seats, then just maybe something better might arise.
I’m not in the business of telling anyone how to vote. It depends on where you live, who your MP is and what your goals are. In parts of Scotland, it will be sensible to vote Conservative in order to defeat the SNP. In parts of England and Wales there may well be Conservative MPs worth saving.
But it’s not up to me and it’s not up to you. It’s up
to the whole country. It looks very much as if Labour will win a majority
because for the first time in a decade it may win in Scotland. Well to be
honest if the Conservatives are to be defeated anyway, I would much prefer them
to be defeated to the fullest extent possible.
We have just like in the European elections in 2019 a
free vote. If the Conservatives lose by thirty or forty seats, they will carry
on as before and we will have the same wet mush next time. If they lose catastrophically,
they will have to listen this time to the revolt.
So, I would be very tempted to use my vote at the next election to send a message to the Conservative party. We are going to get a Labour government no matter what we do, so let’s this time continue our rebellion.
If the Conservative Party is to lose I would rather it lost badly.
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