Even without Boris, the Tories are still a trainwreck

By Pete North - December 12, 2021

I was going to write a detailed article on the who should follow the Oaf as Prime Minister. Until I remembered that I don’t have a dog in the fight. It was kind of important the last two times since it ultimately had a bearing on the outcome of Brexit, but this time, it doesn’t really matter.

The great and the good would have it that we need a return to serious politicians. “It is depth, honesty, thoughtfulness, managerial skills and a certain understatement that the party and the country should be hungering for” says Matthew Parris. Well he’s shit out of luck because the contenders thus far appear be Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.

Parris has Truss bang to rights in her assessment of her as an empty vessel but if that’s true it goes double for Patel who can’t even stand on her record of getting immigration under control. As to Rishi Sunak, I couldn’t tell you what the man actually stands for. He seems like a Cameron without the substance, and I don’t think the party is all that taken with him. He’s an unknown quantity.

That then leaves us with Jeremy Hunt, who’d be seen as May’s spiritual successor. As it happens, he’s managed not to land on my shit list for any reason and when I have heard him speak, he’s always struck me as a man who can master his brief. He does, however, carry a certain amount of baggage from his last bid, and doesn’t carry the support of Brexiteers. I don’t think anyone can garner the support of the class of 2019 without convincing Brexit credentials.

More to the point, Tories will be thinking about what it takes to win the next election, and if it’s Jeremy Hunt then the next election becomes a beige-off between two chronically uncharismatic actors. Whoever follows Johnson will have to put forward a serious agenda to the country because none of them can win on the force of personality. Much will depend on which faction of the 2019 Tory membership bothered to renew their membership.

But like I say, it doesn’t really matter. Ridding ourselves of the Oaf is surely great news for the country, but it doesn’t really get us anywhere. It is unlikely that any successor will depart from the Net Zero agenda, and though Liz Truss pays lip service to her dislike of wokery, she is unlikely to take on the beast in its lair. She’ll fiddle around the edges, but she’s no iron lady. Like her predecessors she might just carry off being marginally preferable to the Labour alternative (if her superficial credibility holds out that long) but from there, we’re on a countdown to a Tory wipeout.

Moreover, are we really so certain the Tories will ditch Johnson? If he scrapes through the Shropshire by-election and u-turns on the latest round of Covid controls, he might be able to brush off the media noise about Christmas parties and direct the party faithful to spin it as a remainer establishment coup. A lot of Tories already think that. Though Johnson’s credibility is in tatters, he still has die hard supporters, and Labour’s poll lead is not by any means on firm foundations. The Labour party is the same trainwreck it was in 2019.

This is idle speculation of course, since I made my mind up a little while back. Politics as it stands is absolutely horrifying, voting can’t stop it from getting worse, it categorically will get worse and there is no hope whatsoever for the Tory party. I’m not taken with the Reform Party, seeing it largely as an opportunistic dog in the manger, serving largely as a hobby for Richard Tice. And I think he’s a moron.

This all forced me to consider what I consider important, and back the party that cares about the things I care about. That, to my great surprise is Ukip, and though I’m very well aware it barely even registers on any polls, that was true back in the day when I was last a member. If there isn’t an alternative you have to build one. It’s either that or shove my ballot paper in the bin and stop caring entirely. If you don’t use the democratic mechanisms at your disposal I don’t suppose you have any real right to complain about any of it, and people can’t whinge that they don’t have a choice if we put one on the table.

In the meantime we just have to let the chips fall where they may. There’s no point trying to polish the turd of the Tory party. If they didn’t learn from Johnson, and they haven’t seen Truss coming, and Tory members are still willing to trust them then they’re a lost cause. What matters is putting issues on to the political map and make politicians fear for their jobs if they don’t do as they’re told. We proved before that you don’t need a large party to do that. Who cares if the Tories want to commit suicide?