Tories ‘at risk from rightwing insurgency’ warns donor Lord Cruddas
Peer says Conservatives no longer party of centre right and are threatened by Reform UK, Brexit party successor, if Nigel Farage takes leadership
Be nice for there to actually be a right wing party in Britain, no?
Also, possibly better that there be a sorta classically liberal right wing party rather than the sort of horror that seems to appear without that long term choice.
sorta classically liberal right wing party rather than the sort of horror that seems to appear without that long term choice.
But tactically correct at this stage? The Overton Window needs shifting a long way to classical liberal, if that’s your destination. If you’re not careful that’ll just get watered down. It’s not as if it’s had a good record of success, so far. So something a little stronger to start with? People are accustomed to authoritarianism. Easier to transit to right authoritarianism. You can’t assault the barricades with a limp rag.
That’s been the trouble with Brexit. Got the referendum. Won the referendum. Then expected to get the result of the referendum. Look where that got you.
Reform UK have about three policies, and they are all awful.
There are Wellingtons rather than Jackboots beside the front door. But it would be nice to vote for a party that promotes self-reliance, a stiff upper lip – stoicism and resolve.
We certainly need a right wing party in the UK, but my hope is that it is merely required to frighten the Tories back into shape and give them some backbone. A bit like Farage did when he made Boris dig out the Churchill costume and promise to “Get…Brexit…Done!”.
If we can’t have Hugo Boss uniforms and torchlight processions, I’d settle for Tice. Or anyone, really.
“…a sorta classically liberal right wing party…”
If only! The problem is that such a party could never win power. And, in dividing right of centre vote, it would guarantee left-wing governments.
snag
I think you’ll find amongst many that a party only needs three policies
Flog ’em
String ’em up
Ship ’em out
I decided decades ago that I was agin’ “string ’em up” because it would result in juries returning dishonest “not guilty” verdicts. Now I tend to think we should string up Blair (of course) plus all those politicians – government and opposition – civil servants, public health experts, epidemiological modellers, doctors, nurses, teachers, vaccine regulators, vaccine manufacturers, and so on who brought us the panicdemic – and especially the Gain of Function researchers who (probably) designed and manufactured the bloody virus. Have I missed anyone out? Hm: the Beeb and most of the rest of the media. They’ll none of them be missed.
That’s all assuming that juries would not be a dishonest bunch of leftie wankers this time round – but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Perhaps the experiment could begin in Scotland: you only need an 8 – 7 majority of the jury there. The standard of evidence demanded is higher but that should present no problem at all.
Theo: And, in dividing right of centre vote, it would guarantee left-wing governments.
That’s the standard argument of the disappointed Tory tribalist. The mistake currently is to think that the Conservative party is right of centre.
The solution which will be painful for all and especially for the Tory sentimentalists, will be a Labour govt, the annihilation of the Tories (incl salt & flamethrowers) and the emmergence of a new party of the right. They can’t do anything about Labour and they are short of Lions so that’s the way to go.
That won’t be Reform but something that comes after Reform who, in 2024, should concentrate on disrupting the few seats of specific Tories whose continued tenure isn’t threatened by the polling such as the unspeakable Gove in Surrey Heath.
Yes, because if labour were in government we’d get:
Open borders
Eye-watering levels of tax
Massive over-regulation
Attempts to stamp out small businesses
Double-digit inflation
Millions of public-sector non-jobs on 6-figure salaries
Totalitarian responses to an outbreak of the sniffles
What would a tory government do? Would be interesting to find out, one day!
dearieme
As a long standing hanger n’ flogger. I fear thst these days the former policy is simply no longer viable. Not out of any issue about the crims’ Yooman Rites, but because the British State is just so fucking useless that it can’t be trusted to organise the hanging of a painting.
Theo – The problem is that such a party could never win power. And, in dividing right of centre vote, it would guarantee left-wing governments.
I agree, the Conservatives should be abolished, and we should have some sort of Justice and Reconciliation trials before sentencing Rishi and his associates to capital punishment for treason.
BiW – What would a tory government do? Would be interesting to find out, one day!
We found out in October, the answer is “immediately fold to a coup led by complete bankers”.
If, at the next General Election, you vote Labour, you get Corbynistas led by a man with a Charisma bypass. You vote Tory and you get Blair Lite. So, what’s the alternative? I understand that both Tice and Garage are successful businessmen in their own right, rather than going through the politically correct Oxbridge PPE route. Under Starmer, the Criminal Prosecution Service became the Criminal Protection Society influenced, I would suggest, by those same PPE graduates.
If Farage became part of Reform, and some of his GBNEWS colleagues, such as Neil Oliver or Mark Steyn, followed him, I would be tempted to give them a go.
“Farage”. Bloody auto (in)correct!
I wish I didn’t have such doubts about Farage. Nice guy & all that, but maybe that’s the problem. I hold him responsible for what happened after ’16. I was asking a year before the Referendum, what plans are there for after, if you win. All I got was wait & see.
It was damned obvious to me – and I don’t even live in the country – that the Remain side weren’t going to accept a defeat. Of course they weren’t going to play by the rules. There should have been strategic planning running from the day after the result came in, through the negotiations & act of leaving to gathering the benefits of doing so. If it was May who replaced Cameron, she & the rest of the Tory shite should have been running scared of losing the next election. A right of centre split vote letting Labour in should have been a weapon to be deployed, not something to be avoided.
“If it was May who replaced Cameron, she & the rest of the Tory shite should have been running scared of losing the next election”
But that is very nearly what happened. OK admittedly the2017 election was all down to May’s incompetence, but the tightnessof the result allowed the Remainer traitors to take over Parliament.
I’m inclined to think it’d been better if they’d lost it. Let Corbyn in with a low percentage of the vote. Labour reject the referendum result. If they engineer a “Peoples’Referendum”, encourage Leavers to abstain. Later to be discredited. Give them several Winters of Discontent. And the summers too. In the process the lurching maggot ridden cadaver of the Tory Party can be put where it belongs. Buried at a crossroads with a stake through its heart. And look what history would have brought as a gift. Labour would have copped Covid & made an even bigger mess of it than the Tories managed. Somewhere around now you’d be looking at a genuine right of centre government with a healthy majority & the ’16 Referendum result banked & to be implemented.
But that would take an understanding the Left has. That not all politics is parliamentary. It needs the start of a Long March through the institutions in the opposite direction. Politics at street level. To look at how Lenin, Mussolini & Hitler & all the other socialists came to power & learn by it. Because if you are to overturn the Left you do need a revolution.
guarantee left-wing governments
We’ve had left wing governments since 1997. Aside from Brexit (and the Tories were never that keen on it overall) you couldn’t get a fag paper between any of the main UK parties.
The current Blairservatives have given us: BRINO, open borders, record high taxes, covid authoritarianism, Net fucking Zero and the tranny madness infesting every area of life.
I have not had a government to suit me for the whole of my adult life. I expect that to continue at the 2025 and 2030 elections. I cannot be disappointed in that regard.
If I can, in some small way, contribute to the utter and final destruction of the Tories then I will be satisfied, if not happy.
If I can, in some small way, contribute to the utter and final destruction of the Tories then I will be satisfied, if not happy.
I’d feel the same way. There is absolutely no chance of getting the classical liberalism Tim aspires to whilst the Tory Party exists. They’re its greatest enemy. Much more than Labour. Tory’s have long degenerated into a party just wants power for power’s sake.
Ottokring: …the British State is just so fucking useless that it can’t be trusted to organise the hanging of a painting.
Alan Coren was already there last time round. In the 1970s he wrote a update of Nineteen Eighty-Four in which Winston Smith is menaced with an arthritic hamster because Room 101 has run out of rats.
Just my two cents… But the rise of a new “right wing” party that opposes the current blob may just be the answer here.
Yes, it will split the opposition to current Labour, so Labour will get a majority, blah, blah.
BUT…
– Labour is quite likely to get a majority anyway after the shitshow the Tories have managed to display. If ever there was a time to launch a new party in the same “niche” as the current Tories it is now, not tomorrow.
– “People will get what they vote for” will apply heavily to a new Labour government.
They are backed in the Media by
neo-religious nutterssome very …Activist-Ambitious.. movements which have nothing to do with the original purpose of Labour, but who will keep pushing their agenda, and will demand their wishes be given form by the new government.Yes, all that horror promoted by the hyperwoke, the Inclusivesness Dhimmi’s, the Race grifters, and environmental nutters will be put before Parliament, and attempts will be made at getting it through. Along with the financially unsustainable Bread and Circus Labour promises in general.
And that’s a Good Thing, because you can explain to Average Joe how insane this is, but he simply isn’t interested because he still has his comfy perch.
That perch needs to be set on fire for him to start noticing something is terribly, terribly wrong around him.
And current Labour doing their stuff unrestricted will light that fire, with accelerants.
May be harsh, but a majority of the population must feel the pain of the Madness before they’re ever going to get off their comfortable arses.
– A new right-wing party in Parliament will give the few useful Tories somewhere to run to, instead of staying in the decaying carcass of the Tory Party.
Plenty of opportunities for reform in Opposition that simply aren’t there when you are in power.
As-is, I expect quite a few “Tories” to jump ship and join Labour, showing their true colours, anyway if they win.
A new right-wing party is a much more practical vehicle for reform than trying to pry out the entrenched zombies in the Tory Top. Less effort, and a much clearer message to the public. Along with a possibility to salvage some of the good’uns along the way.
– Labour will self-destruct in one of those classic British Backstabbing Bonanzas sooner or later.
My guess will be sooner this time, because current economic reality dictates that the flaws in their Plans will manifest and hurt people all that sooner. And the ….diversity… of all the competing nutter squads welcomed to their warm nest doesn’t help.
(I’ve a feeling there’s a couple of smart cookies in Labour that hold down the rest to let the Tories self-destruct, and ride at least part of the depression wave with the Tories ( and the Blame..) in power. I find the lack of calls for a GE after the Tory Shitshow….Disturbing..)
Any new political party must be established in the Opposition ( even if only one or two seats) before that inevitable round of backstabbing happens. When you start picking up people and votes after the fact, you’re simply too late.
– It takes about a decade to get this kind of thing done. Especially if you want that party to not be like the previous incarnations, filter out the opportunists, and get things stable and settled before you actually have to pick up the reins of power and Perform.
Labour will “perform”, and in goodness of time drive the voters to you. But you have to be ready for it..
Could be I’m stating the Obvious above here, but there’s too many people stuck in that Two Party thinking, with the defeatist “we’ll not be able to do anything for years!!”/ “Wasted Votes!!” disease.
Put on your Big Boy pants and accept that these things take time and effort.
Especially since the alternative is basically Blood on the Streets eventually, possibly in our time..
And yes, I’m a pessimist in that regard.
Oh, and you need that decade to find the roughly 450-500 competent people willing to run in the various constituencies while realising what they’re up against for at least two election rounds.
Just to see what sticks, and to show people there is an alternative out there on their voting forms.
But that would take an understanding the Left has. That not all politics is parliamentary. It needs the start of a Long March through the institutions in the opposite direction. Politics at street level. To look at how Lenin, Mussolini & Hitler & all the other socialists came to power & learn by it. Because if you are to overturn the Left you do need a revolution.
I don’t disagree with your analysis, BiS, but the problem is that while many on the Left get their jollies from sitting in interminable committee meetings voting on composite motions, most of us on the Right start to bleed from the eyes after 30 minutes or so of this. We’d rather be doing stuff than endlessly talking about it – hence Conquest’s second law. I can’t see a right-wing ‘long march’ ever happening.
many on the Left get their jollies from sitting in interminable committee meetings voting on composite motions, most of us on the Right start to bleed from the eyes after 30 minutes or so of this.
If you’re not going to put in the effort to get what you want, you won’t get it will you?
Chris Miller: We groomed Liz “Renfrewsian candidate” Truss well.
@Chris Miller
I don’t disagree with your analysis, BiS, but the problem is that while many on the Left get their jollies from sitting in interminable committee meetings voting on composite motions, most of us on the Right start to bleed from the eyes after 30 minutes or so of this. We’d rather be doing stuff than endlessly talking about it – hence Conquest’s second law. I can’t see a right-wing ‘long march’ ever happening.
I think it’s factually incorrect to talk about the willingness of different people to do the grinding committee stuff being determined by their political allegiance. It’s true that it’s a sort of effort that some people can do, and most of us can’t – but the “can’t” isn’t necessarily because right-wing types are too sensible/too busy/having too much fun doing other stuff. I think it’s much more likely that it’s about what’s an effective tactic for a particular group at a particular time.
If committee work were a politically effective tactic for right-wingers then I think that there are enough willing volunteers to sit through it. If you go back to the 1970s-1980s, there was a right-wing counterblast to radical student politics. A lot of conservative students, often studying law (practically useful for this part of the plan – and not one of the subjects that in British academia traditionally had the left-wing bent of, say, sociology) made targeted efforts at taking over some boring parts of the student politics apparatus. Particularly constitutional committees of the student councils – which is where some of the most tedious stuff goes on, and doesn’t afford a lot of obvious potential for political grandstanding. It was often easier to get a conservative elected on low turnout for this kind of relatively anonymous role than for the more publicised, and politics-heavy, roles such as student council president, accommodation officer, welfare officer, campaigns officer etc. But it was an influential post because you can put a squeeze on the ability of radicals to use the student council infrastructure for political campaigning, by declaring certain activities as beyond the remit of the council’s constitution.
So this was for a while an effective tactic, and right-wingers were prepared to do the grind needed to undertake it – the above pattern was widespread, spanning many universities. But it was only temporarily effective, since it emphasised the importance to left-wingers of making sure they got control of unglamorous posts which had blocking potential. There were coordinated campaigns to get right-wingers voted off such committees, in favour of “sensible” people.
I’m not sure that tactic would be effective today either, because after left-wingers have set the direction of an organisation for long enough, its organisational ground-rules start to reflect the culture and values of the people who’ve been running it. It was a workable student politics campaign for conservatives decades ago because the student council constitutions often hadn’t yet caught up with the way radicals were trying to use (or repurpose) the apparatus. To repeat the success now, you’d have to be elected explicitly with the intention of overturning the way things are currently done, and rewriting the rules to make student politics less “political”, rather than trying to get elected on an apparently unobjectionable platform of making sure the current rules get stuck to. It’s not an impossible approach (and some right-wing student politicians have had success by campaigning for “can we please sort the accommodation out rather than kidding ourselves that anyone cares about the 17th solemn proclamation that Randomville University Student Union has made on the suffering in Palestine”) but it’s a harder task to get elected on an explicitly right-wing platform because university students on average are left-wing.
To be honest I can’t think of many places where right-wingers are turning down easy wins simply due to “not turning up” when it comes to sitting on committees. There’s a whole bunch of places that would benefit from voices contrary to the current narrative (English Heritage, the lifeboats, museum boards, in fact probably any major charity, any ESCG committee…) but the problem seems to me to be more about how you get a critical mass of people into those positions when the appointments process will favour those with views more in-line with the current organisational culture. I don’t think the conservative fightback in those positions is being held back due to some kind of character flaw in conservatives being unable to concentrate in boring meetings. They’ve done it in the past when it looked like a winning strategy and I’m pretty sure they could do it again if there was a chance of success for it.
Rather than it being an issue with the “conservative character”, I think some of the blame can be pinned on the apparent hopeless of the cause, and some on the personal and professional risks that someone who attempts a counterblast can face: progress in many areas of life relies on not going against the grain re whatever the Current Thing is. Lots of conservative-minded people with some potential for official influence just won’t share their views in public for that reason. (And if you critique current narratives from a left-radical position, that’s often more “acceptable opposition” than if you do so from a right-radical or even liberal-conservative position.) It’s not a very enticing offer to sit through hours of boring meetings for a cause you can’t hope to win due to your inability to conjure up a majority, and which if you do express your true feelings is going to close off avenues in life to you.
I’m impressed Anon. There is someone else thinking strategically about this sort of thing. I thought I was the only one.
Sure it’d be a difficult, long & fraught process. But it was for the left. They’ve spent decades & devoted their lives to it & now enjoy the fruits of their labour. The right don’t have the stomach for that? Then they don’t deserve to win.
@bis
The problem is finding the routes amenable to change. Sometimes a long, march through the institutions is the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s better to just destroy the institutions – either from a position of power, or by setting up an alternative to the institutions that hopefully will replace them. Currently there are plenty of right-wingers trying to do something like that with “Dark Academia” and the Intellectual Dark Web – perhaps a reasonable bet that you can “beat” the universities rather more easily, now the internet has changed the way knowledge gets transferred, than you could transform them into more right-wing institutions. And they are willing to put time and effort in, which somewhat refutes the idea that conservatives don’t have the stomach for it – though a lot of them are grifters, of course.