How 'popular Conservatives' are destroying the party once epitomised by Ruth Davidson
Yes, Popular Conservatism – a political oxymoron on par with a “wise fool” or “jumbo shrimp” – is back and howling at the moon, calling for the Tory party to move further to the right and drive out the non-believers.
Undeterred by their wholesale rejection by voters, the solution proffered at the Pop Con conference last week was to double down on the same mistakes. I have to give the ‘Popular’ Conservatives credit. It takes a special sort of intelligence to see an election in which you have lost hundreds of seats to liberal and centre-left parties, including 61 in Tory heartlands to the Liberal Democrats, and interpret that as a mandate to run screaming to the Reform-lite fringe.
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Hide AdThe remaining liberals and moderates amongst the Conservative ranks – those who have not already abandoned ship to friendlier vessels – have a right to consider whether it’s worth continuing this losing battle with the hard right.
Do they really want to remain in a party which is drifting ever closer to Nigel Farage and co? Many liberal ex-Tory voters have already jumped overboard. Some, however, are still wavering on the deck, hoping against hope that the hard-right takeover might yet be stopped.
The way the wind is blowing, the Tories awaiting a turn away from the radical right are likely to be disappointed, in Scotland and across the UK. The alliance between "liberal Tories" and their hard-right counterparts was always somewhat uncomfortable.
This is a party that until recently contained both Rory Stewart and Jonathan Gullis. To call that a “big tent” is to seriously undersell the size of the gazebo. A quick glance at social media, however, will tell you that discomfort has long since turned into mutual dislike.
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Hide AdThe famed pragmatism of the Conservatives has given way to ideological fury; the hard right sees One Nation Tories as crypto-liberals and wants them defenestrated. Why not jump before you are pushed off the gangplank?
There was a time when Ruth Davidson could credibly pitch herself and her party as the flagbearer for liberals and moderates in Scotland. With the run of Boris, Truss and Sunak – and now with the likes of Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch scrapping over the remains of the party – the door has definitely been shut on that era.
The only question that remains is what comes next. The results of the general election surely point to the need for a more proportional voting system. That would be a benefit to voters, who could finally have a proper say in their representation – but it would also be a benefit to parties, which could end their internal ideological squabbles by splitting between their more extreme wings. Given Keir Starmer holds an overwhelming majority in parliament, however, electoral reform is unlikely to be high on his agenda.
While that remains the case, "liberal Tories" are going to have to decide how much more of the hard-right drift of their party they can stomach. If they wish to get out of the drama and away from the Faragist right, then the obvious choice is to join a proper liberal party. I suspect it will be far more fun to watch the implosion of the Tories from the outside – popcorn at the ready.
Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland
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