The Tories' existential crisis
What's the point of Liz Truss, they ask. But what's the point of the party?
On Times Radio’s breakfast show earlier today, in the inevitable discussion about whether or not Liz Truss would survive as prime minister, I expressed the view that Liz Truss is not the problem. The problem is the Conservative party that has produced Liz Truss as prime minister.
As I have written here here, here and here, the real issue is that the Conservative party no longer understands what conservatism actually is. One faction seems to think it’s a pale lavender version of left-wing “equality of outcomes,” trans-nationalism and trashing energy supplies to prevent the reportedly imminent yet mysteriously ever-moveable climate apocalypse. The other thinks conservatism is all about cutting taxes and letting the market rip, from de-regulating childcare to the mass importation of foreign workers.
Neither of these alternatives remotely embodies conservative values. Each in its own way represents instead hyper-individualism or the ideological attempt to remake the world to create utopia, which all serve to corrode society rather than conserve it.
Outside the fantasy universe of the progressive intelligentsia, the majority of people — who subscribe to “small c” conservative values — are bewildered and repelled by this choice. That’s because neither alternative speaks to their most fundamental wish to live in a place they can call home, where they subscribe to a shared, independent and sovereign national project based on a set of inherited traditions and institutions which will be upheld, passed down to their children and defended against attack in order to protect the rule of law, democracy and freedom against oppression. These are conservative values. That’s why such people voted in their millions for Brexit.
Yet in last summer’s Conservative leadership election, the final choice that was laid before the party’s rank and file was between two candidates who reflected a binary choice between two kinds of unconservatism. Opinion polling suggested that most party members actually supported Kemi Badenoch, who as I wrote here stood for exactly what they wanted: someone who would uphold the conservative values of nation, culture, tradition. But she didn’t make the final cut because the party’s MPs didn’t rate her — and that’s because they don’t have a clue about what it is they need to conserve.
That’s why they have squandered the opportunities offered by Brexit. And that’s why, faced with the catastrophic outcome of the choice they foisted upon the party — and the continuing and deepening chaos of a government that has simply imploded — they find themselves paralysed. They can’t decide whether to get rid of Truss, because they can’t decide who would replace her. And that’s because, behind the problem that she represents, there’s a much deeper one. The MPs may have decided there’s no longer any point to her. But they can’t decide who would rescue the party because they can’t work out what the point is of the party itself.
Today’s latest drama, the resignation of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, reflects the struggle of true conservatives to emerge from the deadening and false binary choice that has consumed the party. Her resignation letter referred to a “technical infringement of the rules” concerning an official document about migration sent from her personal email. But the sting of her letter was her denunciation of the government for “breaking key pledges” and not honouring manifesto commitments to reduce overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration in the “small boats” crossing the English Channel.
The politics professor Matt Goodwin has written this evening that Braverman has thus accused her party of becoming disconnected from the very same voters who put it into power three years ago. He writes:
This is especially the case on the issues Braverman highlights. This is unpopular in SW1 but the fact is that Braverman is much closer to the new Conservative electorate on issues such as immigration, illegal migration and the small boats than many of the liberal centrists who are now taking over the party from within…
And that is now why some MPs and renegade politicians sense a bigger opportunity. Tonight, on Whatsapp groups and late night calls, there is open talk about the possibility of a far more profound split within British conservatism, a reconfiguration of the right…
A big risk facing the Conservative Party is not just that the turmoil of the Truss government continues but there begin to emerge serious calls for an entirely new vehicle for disgruntled conservatives who simply no longer believe that today’s Conservative Party is what its name implies.
The cracks in the Conservative party have been apparent for many decades. Successive prime ministers have attempted to paper them over, but the underlying pressures blew the whole thing wide open over Brexit.
The party now has to make a choice. Does it want to restore the UK as an independent national project that upholds its historic culture, traditions and institutions? Or does it want to finally break that culture apart on the rocks of social or economic individualism and anti-west ideological dogma?
The choice is very simple and clear. But if today’s Tories were actually able to understand it, they wouldn’t be in the mess that now threatens to destroy them.
Recent posts
My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers argues that Lord Levy’s arguments against moving the UK embassy to Jerusalem will aid Israel's foes. This is how the piece begins:
And you can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, about the hysteria that greeted the proposal to move the UK’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem, by clicking here.
One more thing…
This is how my website works.
It has two subscription levels: my free service and the premium service.
Anyone can sign up to the free service on this website. You can of course unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the foot of each email.
Everyone on the free list will receive the full text of pieces I write for outlets such as the Jewish News Syndicate and the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other posts and links to my broadcasting work.
But why not subscribe to my premium service? For that you’ll also receive pieces that I write specially for my premium subscribers. Those articles will not be published elsewhere. They’ll arrive in your inbox as soon as I have written them.
There is a monthly fee of $6.99 for the premium service, or $70 for an annual subscription. Although the fee is charged in US dollars, you can sign up with any credit card. Just click on the “subscribe now” button below to see the available options for subscribing either to the premium or the free service.
A note on subscriptions
If you purchase a subscription to my site, you will be authorising a payment to my company Dirah Associates. In the past, that is the name that may have appeared on your credit card statement. In future, though, the charge should appear instead as Melanie Phillips.
And thank you for following my work.