🔗 Share this article Finding Amusement In the Downfall of the Tories? It's Comprehensible – Yet Completely Wrong On various occasions when Tory figureheads have sounded almost sensible outwardly – and different periods where they have come across as completely unhinged, yet remained popular by their party. Currently, it's far from either of those times. A leading Tory left the crowd unmoved when she addressed her conference, despite she offered the red meat of border-focused rhetoric she thought they wanted. This wasn't primarily that they’d all woken up with a fresh awareness of humanity; instead they didn’t believe she’d ever be equipped to deliver it. Effectively, a substitute. Conservatives despise that. A veteran Tory reportedly described it as a “New Orleans funeral”: noisy, vigorous, but ultimately a parting. Coming Developments for this Party That Can Reasonably Claim to Make for Itself as the Most Accomplished Democratic Party in the World? Certain members are taking a fresh look at Robert Jenrick, who was a firm rejection at the outset – but now it’s the end, and everyone else has departed. Another group is generating a buzz around a rising star, a 34-year-old MP of the latest cohort, who presents as a countryside-based politician while filling her socials with border-control messaging. Is she poised as the figurehead to counter opposition forces, now outpolling the Tories by a significant margin? Is there a word for overcoming competitors by adopting their policies? And, should one not exist, maybe we can borrow one from martial arts? Should You Take Pleasure In These Developments, in a Downfall Observation Way, in a Just-Deserts Way, It's Comprehensible – Yet Absolutely Bananas You don’t even have to consider overseas examples to know this, or reference the scholar's influential work, his analysis of political systems: your entire mental framework is emphasizing it. Moderate conservatism is the crucial barrier against the far right. His research conclusion is that representative governments persist by appeasing the “propertied and powerful” happy. Personally, I question this as an organising principle. One gets the impression as though we’ve been indulging the affluent and connected for decades, at the cost of the broader population, and they rarely appear adequately satisfied to halt efforts to take a bite out of disability benefits. But his analysis is not speculation, it’s an thorough historical examination into the Weimar-era political organization during the Weimar Republic (in parallel to the UK Tories around the early 1900s). When the mainstream right loses its confidence, as it begins to adopt the terminology and superficial stances of the far right, it cedes the control. We Saw Comparable Behavior Throughout the EU Exit Process Boris Johnson cosying up to Steve Bannon was one particularly egregious example – but radical alignment has become so obvious now as to eliminate competing Tory talking points. Where are the established party members, who prize continuity, preservation, governing principles, the national prestige on the international platform? What happened to the progressives, who described the nation in terms of economic engines, not powder kegs? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t wild about either faction either, but it’s absolutely striking how these ideologies – the broad-church approach, the reformist element – have been eliminated, in favour of constant vilification: of migrants, Muslims, social support users and protesters. They Walk On Stage to Themes Resembling the Signature Music to Game of Thrones Emphasizing issues they reject. They portray demonstrations by older demonstrators as “displays of hostility” and display banners – national emblems, Saint George’s flags, all objects bearing a bold patriotic hues – as an open challenge to those questioning that total cultural alignment is the best thing a human can aspire to. We observe an absence of any built-in restraint, that prompts reflection with fundamental beliefs, their traditional foundations, their original agenda. Each incentive Nigel Farage throws for them, they pursue. Therefore, absolutely not, there's no pleasure to see their disintegration. They’re taking social cohesion down with them.