Third place is more than enough
The Tory party is supposed to be the most successful political party ever, anywhere. It has clung onto power time and time again, bolstered by the UK’s voting system, its rich backers, split opposition and a mainly unearned reputation for competence.
But now it is imploding, almost 70 MPs have announced that they are standing down at the next election. They are verging on sub 20% ratings in the opinion polls, although where they find a 5th of the voting age population to support them is beyond me.
They also face a perfect storm of a huge Labour lead, Reform taking the racist votes and an Anyone But a F**cking Tory (ABAFT) campaign in constituencies across the country which could finally lead to the tactical voting that will wipe them out.
But the internal party civil war is continuing and will now intensify. This is why I am certain there is at least one new huge scandal to emerge that will finally kill off this government, too many people have the motive, the opportunity and evidence and they sit on the Tory backbenchers and in the cabinet.
Then once in opposition the party will face a leadership election with a choice of which version of Lady Macbeth they want to take over, then they will move far to the right to absorb Reform, and Farage, and Tice and 30p Lee again. They will campaign on “getting our country back” whatever that means, British jobs for British people, a “real” Brexit, sinking the boats, all while claiming they are still the centre ground and it is the left that has become ever more loony.
The trouble for the Tories is that they might actually be the third largest party in Parliament by that time, although they will still have the support of the right wing media empires they have enabled and protected. But their voice will be heard very little in parliament, they will be convulsed by leadership challenges the second the polls don’t improve, a few old One Nation tories might hold on but they will be in a small minority, treated as traitors and not true believers, they would be better off in the Lib Dems.
But if the Tories do go down this route we had better be sure they never come back again, in power they would make this current shower look like the Attlee government, the country would be a mini version of Trump’s America. Truss would be seen as a prophet, human rights would die, god knows what they would try to do to the courts, and the police.
The Tory party might wake up realise it wants power again, recruit real political heavy weights, return to the centre ground and abandon Brexit madness and the Laffer curve. But that seems increasingly unlikely, the longer they hang on the worse it will get.
But until the Tory party regains its sanity, third place in parliament is all they deserve.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media