Conservative party/opposition watch

[clv101]

Yep, they are in a real mess - it's possible, the FPTP system, which pretty much makes 'big tent', coalition parties mandatory is coming to an end. If it weren't for FPTP, you could have a center-right, one-nation Tory party *and* a right-wing, nationalist party comfortably coexisting as separate parties, who could form a coalition government if required. But their 20-30% vote share would have to be converted into proportional representation.

Most of the world's democratic countries manage with some form of PR and half a dozen separate parties, with governments typically made up of 2 or 3 parties. The UK and US two party systems are breaking down.

[Potemkin Villager]

We know who the government front benchers are now but I imagine there is total chaos on deciding who the opposition front bench will consist of. I suspect pmqs this Wednesday will not look good for the opposition especially as the usual cheap jibes are to expected even before the government actually does any thing!

[UndercoverElephant]

We know who the government front benchers are now but I imagine there is total chaos on deciding who the opposition front bench will consist of. I suspect pmqs this Wednesday will not look good for the opposition especially as the usual cheap jibes are to expected even before the government actually does any thing!

Sunak still has total control until his replacement is chosen.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... re_btn_url

Suella Braverman losing support as potential party leader, Tories say

Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch, who have all ruled out deal with Reform, seen as more viable candidates

Some MPs and senior party figures said they believed Braverman was losing support among the remaining MPs in the party to Jenrick. She is the only potential candidate so far who has suggested an accommodation with Farage.

“I don’t think the Suella campaign is going to get off the ground and there is also a significant ‘stop Kemi’ campaign,” said one senior Tory. “Electing either of them is a recipe for more internal warfare.”

One MP said there was a growing view among colleagues that no one associated with Sunak’s leadership could lead the party. “Consensus is that we don’t want to jump in to a race dominated by those who also bore responsibility in government, which was all of them,” they said.

MPs have issued strong warnings internally about rumours that members could be cut out of a vote in leadership contest, saying it would drive hundreds of councillors and activists to defect to Reform.

“We are finished as a party if we don’t involve members, huge numbers of our councillors will defect. It’s a suicide mission,” one said. “The one thing Reform don’t have are people experienced with elections, agents, they can’t do campaigning locally effectively. We do not want to hand them our people by giving them a reason to defect.”

So the members want to move to the right (we know this already), the MPs don't, but the MPs don't want to cut the members out of the leadership election process because that risks them defecting to Reform. In which case the tories really do have a fundamental problem. They have good reasons (from their viewpoint) for not wanting to do a deal with Farage -- he is the one who has done this to them, and his political agenda is the destroy their traditional foundations. But the only reason he has been able to do it is because both the membership of the tory party and much of their voting base actually agrees with Farage, at least about immigration, which is what this is about at the most basic level.

I don't see a way out of this for them. You can't rebuild a political party with a structural problem this bad embedded in it -- not when it is the very same problem which caused the previous version of the party to implode. It looks to me like the split on the right is going to become permanent, and the tories will indeed lose many of their members and activists, as well as probably quite a few MPs and councillors, to Reform. Then they will have to carve out a place between Reform and Labour.

[Potemkin Villager]

Potential for escalating instability and conflict at all levels is huge. The high level of hurt and incomprehension within the tory party is not to be underestimated, they are not good losers. Many likely to make hasty decisions without rationally considering the consequences of jumping ship to a one trick pony, anger fueled protest group which has no idea how they would actually be able to achieve their primary goal.

[UndercoverElephant]

Potential for escalating instability and conflict at all levels is huge. The high level of hurt and incomprehension within the tory party is not to be underestimated, they are not good losers. Many likely to make hasty decisions without rationally considering the consequences of jumping ship to a one trick pony, anger fueled protest group which has no idea how they would actually be able to achieve their primary goal.

I'd quibble with this a bit. Reform do know how they would achieve their primary goal, which is to minimise immigration. When pushed, Farage has clearly stated he would pull the UK out of the ECHR and ultimately would be willing to tow boats back to France and dump migrants back on the beaches they came from, regardless of the international outrage this would cause. There is nothing in the laws of physics preventing them from doing this, so if they don't care about the diplomatic and other consequences then it is a viable solution. There is also nothing stopping them from limiting legal migration to whatever level they like, provided they don't care about how upset this makes some people, or the economic consequences. I think what they lack is a coherent overall plan, including economic and foreign policy. They have lots of bits of jigsaw puzzle but it doesn't fit together to make a coherent picture. Farage might argue that they've got five years to sort this out, but I think they will run into unsolvable problems of a sort all too familiar to regulars on this board.

[Potemkin Villager]

.... Farage has clearly stated he would pull the UK out of the ECHR and ultimately would be willing to tow boats back to France and dump migrants back on the beaches they came from, regardless of the international outrage this would cause. There is nothing in the laws of physics preventing them from doing this, so if they don't care about the diplomatic and other consequences then it is a viable solution.

This is all bluster and arm waving for his base and I am sure he is quite cute enough a hoor to realise that practically trying any of this on would very shortly lead to very severe consequences and a backlash against himself which would make immigration look like a trifling problem in comparison. People landing in boats are a small part of immigrant numbers but a handy image to stir up anger which could get out of control. Reform is limited to being a trouble making grouping which, with the help of remaining tory nut jobs would soon start a civil war if they got into power and probably precipitate a military coup supported by the royals. How would that go?

[UndercoverElephant]

.... Farage has clearly stated he would pull the UK out of the ECHR and ultimately would be willing to tow boats back to France and dump migrants back on the beaches they came from, regardless of the international outrage this would cause. There is nothing in the laws of physics preventing them from doing this, so if they don't care about the diplomatic and other consequences then it is a viable solution.

This is all bluster and arm waving for his base and I am sure he is quite cute enough a hoor to realise that practically trying any of this on would very shortly lead to very severe consequences and a backlash against himself which would make immigration look like a trifling problem in comparison.

And you think he cares? Surely the whole point in Farage is that he thrives on breaking the exactly the sort of diplomatic (in its widest sense) rules you are talking about. Personally I don't doubt that he'd actually do it.

People landing in boats are a small part of immigrant numbers but a handy image to stir up anger which could get out of control. Reform is limited to being a trouble making grouping which, with the help of remaining tory nut jobs would soon start a civil war if they got into power and probably precipitate a military coup supported by the royals. How would that go?

Farage did not actually focus on small boats during the campaign. He made a point of saying he'd reduce legal migration to the bare minimum, again regardless of the consequences, of which there would be many.

He is absolutely serious about getting into power, and if you look at what is currently going on in France then it would be foolish to write that off as impossible. Reform is in second place in over 100 seats, most of them held by Labour. The Red Wall could fall again, except this time it will turn light blue instead of dark blue. Would this start a civil war, military coup or royalist takeover? I am not convinced, especially if it is part of a wider trend that is playing out over the whole Western world.

I think what would be more likely to happen would be a Truss-style economic meltdown, because the financial markets are more closely connected to reality than the political ideology is: Farage would not be able to convince the markets that his economic plan would survive contact with reality, and that is fatal.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.politico.eu/article/x-delet ... ce=Twitter

As if last week's election wipeout wasn't bad enough for former Prime Minister Sunak and his decimated party, the Conservatives' X account (formerly Twitter) has now been deleted.

The @Conservatives account — followed by more than 600,000 people and used by the party to promote its messaging and attack lines — no longer existed as of late Monday morning.

Those who clicked through to the account were instead greeted by a message stating "this account doesn't exist. Try searching for another."

According to the Conservatives, the account was not deleted on purpose. A Conservative Party spokesperson said it was a "mistake from Twitter support" that they are trying to rectify.

The X press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Does X delete accounts for no reason?

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.ft.com/content/10ada17c-6c6 ... babcd5460a

The fight for the UK right has begun

Political narratives are extremely hard to shift once they have set. There are still people who erroneously attribute Labour’s 1992 election defeat to Neil Kinnock’s over-exuberance at a party rally. Now, as the Conservative party digests the most unpalatable result in its entire history, the first battle will be to set the official version of why they lost. And since this is central to the looming leadership contest, the fight has already begun. In fact it started well before the election.

Where all agree is that this week’s loss marks the collapse of the broad, contradictory and probably unsustainable coalition assembled by Boris Johnson after Brexit, which brought white working class and Leave-supporting voters into the Tory tent alongside successful liberal-minded globalists.

But there, the debate starts. On one side are those Tory rightwingers like Suella Braverman and David Frost, who argue that on tax, immigration and net zero, the party abandoned its core voters, opening up the space for the success of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

For them the wipeout is entirely explained by a split on the right. In this account Rishi Sunak is a woke, Tory left-winger whose ideological betrayal was compounded by his ineptitude in calling the election before it was necessary and running a disastrous campaign.

The more convincing counter-narrative is that voters felt worse off and were repelled by a government they concluded was incompetent. Defeat was sealed by the Covid lockdown breaches of Johnson’s Downing Street and Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.

Having already lost liberal-minded voters over Brexit, they then lost their new coalition of voters too. But while this explanation makes more sense, the party still needs to heal the split.

Traditionally the Tories would simply move a notch to the right and steal enough of Reform’s clothes to regain their supporters. However, this new opponent will not easily let itself be out-righted. Each move right will also cost votes on the other, more liberal side of the Tory coalition.

The other problem is that the radical right now has a toehold on Westminster politics and Farage believes he can supersede the Conservatives. Those calling for a new nationalist right argue that there is no point in trying to win back lost liberal Tories.

Reform looks to the success of the radical right in Europe and asks whether it cannot turn into the main voice of the right in the UK. Farage’s ambition will only have been fortified by his modest parliamentary breakthrough and the 98 seats where Reform is currently in second place, almost all of them to Labour.

Farage argues his party can reach parts of the electorate, notably the white working class and some young men, who backed Johnson but no longer think any of the main parties speaks for them. While the primary damage in this election was to the Tories, he argues that the next time it could be to Labour.

So what next? The UK’s electoral system punishes splits. That means the odds are still in the Conservatives’ favour against Reform. They have more votes, more than twenty times the seats and a historically recognised brand. They will also hope that Reform’s success reflects a temporary disaffection which can be clawed back.

For this to be true, however, the Tories need to find a leader with the confidence to argue for the UK’s economic interests, who can rebuild a broad coalition and speak to the populist vote while not alienating core supporters. This probably means recognising the potency of the immigration issue while finding a way not to alienate large sections of liberal and wealth-generating Britain on all other matters. Above all, it means reconnecting with younger voters and families by showing that the party has an economic offer for them.

The challenge is that Farage is one of the most effective communicators in politics. He is rethinking his pitch, softening some of his free-market instincts and looking at how to appeal to younger voters. The Tories are not currently blessed with a similarly stand out figure.

The only other path, unless Farage is gifted the electoral reform he seeks, is some form of unspoken pact with Reform. But this probably requires a few more defeats and stalemates before it could happen.

What is clear is that right-wing politics is now in flux. At its heart is the battle over whether future success lies in a broad coalition built on restored reputation for competence or a radical realignment of the right.

Logic, history and the British electoral system strongly suggests the former. Surrendering to the Faragist path rather than taking it on and defeating it would herald the end of the centre right and a capitulation to unserious politics. But the only guarantee is that as long as the split remains, the right should get used to opposition.

The Tories cannot out-Farage Farage, and it looks like they aren't even going to try. If that is correct then the right is permanently split. However, the article doesn't think through the consequences of this: once it becomes widely understood that the right is permanently split then it will immediately become just as obvious that the left is also permanently split. This does not lead to a string of easy wins for Labour. More likely it leads to a permanently hung parliament and/or electoral reform. Labour wins from the centre in a two-party system, but this won't work in a genuinely multi-party system.

Nigel Farage should not be under-estimated. He is well capable of "rethinking his pitch" to appeal to younger and more economically left wing voters, and his party has no choice but to follow his lead.

[Mark]

To my naive brain, Tory & Reform = Right of Centre (RoC); Labour, Libs & Green = Left of centre (LoC)
I then tot up the RoC vrs LoC in a constituency, to see where the sentiment is...
Some are clearly RoC and some clearly LoC, but most seats are in the 40-60 band....

This time:
RoC total votes - 6,827,311 + 4,117,221 = 10,944,532 - 42%
LoC total votes - 9,704,655 + 3,519,199 + 1,943,265 = 15,167,119 - 58%

Next time the numbers could be reversed.
If the RoC votes tactically, it could be very difficult for the LoC.
If they have another bun fight, Labour might still hold on...
An awful lot can happen in 5yrs though...

[UndercoverElephant]

To my naive brain, Tory & Reform = Right of Centre (RoC); Labour, Libs & Green = Left of centre (LoC)

That is way too naive. The old left-right spectrum as a model for politics was already badly out of date before this election, and it is even more so now. Firstly, Labour may traditionally have been of the left, but it is currently positioned as dead central as possible. The LDs are socially left, but historically they were economically right of centre. The greens at present are on the extreme left both economically and socially. Calling Reform "extreme right" is to fail to understand their appeal to the working class. Farage himself claims to be anti-establishment, and in some ways he really is. In fact he is much more dangerous to the establishment than the left is.

I then tot up the RoC vrs LoC in a constituency, to see where the sentiment is...
Some are clearly RoC and some clearly LoC, but most seats are in the 40-60 band....

This time:
RoC total votes - 6,827,311 + 4,117,221 = 10,944,532 - 42%
LoC total votes - 9,704,655 + 3,519,199 + 1,943,265 = 15,167,119 - 58%

Next time the numbers could be reversed.
If the RoC votes tactically, it could be very difficult for the LoC.
If they have another bun fight, Labour might still hold on...
An awful lot can happen in 5yrs though...

Forget right and left as you have understood them. Farage is now going to go for Labour voters who are socially conservative -- the exact opposite of libdem voters. The thing you need to understand is Farage cares more about social conservatism than he does about the interests of the very rich and that makes it much easier for him to appeal to Red Wall types. Johnson got those people to vote for him once -- to get Brexit done -- but Farage intends to get them long-term. The thing we need to remember is that he doesn't actually need very many of those people to start winning enough seats to ensure Reform is a permanent fixture in UK politics. The result will be a situation where the tories can only win in the sort of places they won on Thursday, leading to a severe decline in the number of people willing to vote tactically for Labour, given that Labour isn't offering those people what they actually want while the Greens, Libdems and Reform are.

Put more simply, I expect the combined vote share of Labour + Tory to decline even further at the next election, and the traditional left-right spectrum to become ever more anachronistic and meaningless.

[Forever_Winter]

To my naive brain, Tory & Reform = Right of Centre (RoC); Labour, Libs & Green = Left of centre (LoC)

That is way too naive. The old left-right spectrum as a model for politics was already badly out of date before this election, and it is even more so now. Firstly, Labour may traditionally have been of the left, but it is currently positioned as dead central as possible. The LDs are socially left, but historically they were economically right of centre. The greens at present are on the extreme left both economically and socially. Calling Reform "extreme right" is to fail to understand their appeal to the working class. Farage himself claims to be anti-establishment, and in some ways he really is. In fact he is much more dangerous to the establishment than the left is.

I then tot up the RoC vrs LoC in a constituency, to see where the sentiment is...
Some are clearly RoC and some clearly LoC, but most seats are in the 40-60 band....

This time:
RoC total votes - 6,827,311 + 4,117,221 = 10,944,532 - 42%
LoC total votes - 9,704,655 + 3,519,199 + 1,943,265 = 15,167,119 - 58%

Next time the numbers could be reversed.
If the RoC votes tactically, it could be very difficult for the LoC.
If they have another bun fight, Labour might still hold on...
An awful lot can happen in 5yrs though...

Forget right and left as you have understood them. Farage is now going to go for Labour voters who are socially conservative -- the exact opposite of libdem voters. The thing you need to understand is Farage cares more about social conservatism than he does about the interests of the very rich and that makes it much easier for him to appeal to Red Wall types. Johnson got those people to vote for him once -- to get Brexit done -- but Farage intends to get them long-term. The thing we need to remember is that he doesn't actually need very many of those people to start winning enough seats to ensure Reform is a permanent fixture in UK politics. The result will be a situation where the tories can only win in the sort of places they won on Thursday, leading to a severe decline in the number of people willing to vote tactically for Labour, given that Labour isn't offering those people what they actually want while the Greens, Libdems and Reform are.

Put more simply, I expect the combined vote share of Labour + Tory to decline even further at the next election, and the traditional left-right spectrum to become ever more anachronistic and meaningless.

This is bang-on. It's not left or right anymore. It's more like up and down.

[Mark]

Time will tell with Labour - OK, they were 'dead central' for the GE, but we'll have to see if they remain there whilst in power...

I'm not sure that Reform are "extreme right", but they're certainly on the way there.
That's precisely why they do appeal to certain elements of the working class....
It's easy to blame immigration if your wages are suppressed, you can't see a GP, your housing situation is dire etc. etc.
I believe that a certain Mr Hitler started by going down that road.

I disagree that a large number of people tactically voted Labour at the GE - a few will have done that, but not many.
Probably balanced by those who thought Labour would 'walk it', so voted LD/Green
Labour's share of the vote wasn't that much altered from the previous GE.

Clearly, the biggest factor in the GE outcome was the collapse of the Tory & SNP vote...
A chunk of the Tory vote either went to Reform or LD, with a little going to Labour
A chunk of the SNP vote went to Labour

[UndercoverElephant]

Time will tell with Labour - OK, they were 'dead central' for the GE, but we'll have to see if they remain there whilst in power...

If they move to the left then they risking losing votes to both Reform and the Tories, without replacing them from the left. This is Labour's big problem -- its vote at the election we have just had was mainly tactical anti-tory, which is why they were dead central and made as few commitments as possible. But even if they stay dead central and don't make any bad mistakes then they will bleed votes from both sides, simply because there's much less reason for people to vote tactically for them. I keep explaining this to people but get the feeling that I am not being understood!

I disagree that a large number of people tactically voted Labour at the GE - a few will have done that, but not many.

According to Yougov, 29% did:

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/ ... l-election

Labour voters are also more likely to be voting tactically, at 29%, while Conservative, Reform UK and Green voters are much less likely to be doing so (8-12%).

If Labour loses 29% of its vote, it loses its entire majority:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... ctory-vote

Declines in the heartlands mean Labour are now spread thin, with more than half of their seats won with a majority of 20% or less. Labour face vulnerability on two wobbly wings; the huge haul of seats they gained from the Conservatives tend to be more economically moderate and socially conservative; and a restive urban heartland where they will face progressive pressure from a rising Green party and a band of independent firebrands. A big Commons majority may not feel so comfortable with so many MPs looking anxiously over their shoulders, and a coalition of such intense and conflicting local pressures will be hard to hold together.

In Jenga, players build taller towers by taking blocks from the bottom and balancing them on top – the taller the tower, the weaker the base. This election was a masterpiece of electoral Jenga. Labour put its heartlands at risk to throw everything – organisation, messaging, policy – at Tory-held battlegrounds. The gamble paid off handsomely, with a landslide built on little over a third of the votes cast.

But it will not take much to bring this teetering tower tumbling down. A swing of under 6% to the Conservatives would be enough to entirely wipe out Labour’s majority. Labour’s rise has been dizzying. Now they must undertake the high-wire act of government with no electoral safety net. If they fail, a brutal fall could follow, and soon.