Tory leadership contest is revealing how party’s lurch to far-right is terrifyingly real

Watching the Tory leadership election kick off this week, however, I have come to realise that even the most ridiculous of events can contain cause for fear. As the Conservative clown car revs up, with a questionable cast of characters in tow, the chance of them steering to the far-right is a terrifyingly real prospect.

After all, the great ‘moderate Tory’ hope of this contest was supposed to be Tom Tugendhat. Tom is a decent person – a Conservative in the traditional mould. As a former military officer now in politics he, in some ways, exemplifies the idea of public service about which Keir Starmer talks so much.

And yet, Tugendhat decided that his first big statement of the election campaign should be to announce his hostility to the European Convention on Human Rights. It is a calculated slap of the greasepaint to try to satisfy the eternally dissatisfied hard-right – both in the Tories and amongst the Faragist third column.

Expedient politics

The most generous thing you could say about Tugendhat (or perhaps the most damning) is that he probably does not actually believe we should leave the ECHR, he just thinks this is what he needs to say to succeed in today’s Tory party. After years of standing out against the nationalist right that has been driving the Tory clown car, he has caved, and put on his red nose.

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This is a well-worn path for the Conservatives. David Cameron promised the EU referendum as a sop to the right. He assumed that he would never have to act on that promise, but the trouble with pantomiming and pandering to people you disagree with is that eventually they expect you to deliver.

For another interpretation of the ‘sinister clown’ model of Tory leadership, there is Robert Jenrick. He, of course, was the immigration minister who presided over chaos and cruelty in the Home Office – who mimed vitriol while also overseeing record immigration numbers.

Attacking Mickey Mouse

This time last year Jenrick took his turn in the spotlight, bravely ordering the removal of Disney cartoon images from a child refugee centre, just in case they might make anyone feel slightly better about their situation. I am sure he felt very macho, having taken on the perilous threat of refugee children and cartoon characters.

It was the worst kind of trivial nastiness – a Mickey Mouse minister taking an axe to Mickey Mouse. Presumably he then went on to kick over a sandcastle and steal candy from a baby.

Why Conservative leadership contest is a historically important event

Easy though it is to mock the quality of the Tory leadership hopefuls, enabling and encouraging the worst impulses of the far-right carries dangers for our country and our democracy, as we have seen just this week. We need a serious government, but we also need a serious opposition. Right now the Tories cannot and will not fulfil the latter role.

As the Conservative clown car careens to the right, there is still time for sensible people to jump out.

Alistair Carmichael is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland.