The Conservative Party

Chris in London said:
I don’t think it will split in two. Whereas the conservatives were always historically a broad church, from the one-nation ‘Tory wet’ wing to the right wing of the party, now the one nation element is steadily becoming marginalised. The local grass roots activists however have largely been the more reactionary element - retired colonels and daily mail aficionados etc. What I foresee happening is a more gradual process where the Conservative party becomes entrenched in the ground occupied by its constituency membership, maybe with Farage returning to the fold, while the more moderate element starts to follow Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen out of the party.
Click to expand...
I hope to God you're wrong, but fear you may not be.

It's just staggering how political parties seem to be completely blind to actions which ensure their marginalisation and demise. Labour ploughed on with its lefty nonsense for year after year after year under the likes of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, losing GE after GE. Then a *moderate* Labour leader comes along in one Tony Blair and wins 3 successive GE victories. The back to lefty nonsense and lose the next two GE's. Spot the pattern here?

Thereas May gets in and makes a play for the centre ground and opens up a 20 point lead on Labour. (OK so she's an utter buffoon and trashed that soon enough, but you get the point - centre ground, moderate politics is where the votes are).

If the Tories think anything other than electoral wilderness lies ahead for them if they were to lurch to the right, they are even more bonkers than I thought they were.
 
Chris in London said:
I don’t think it will split in two. Whereas the conservatives were always historically a broad church, from the one-nation ‘Tory wet’ wing to the right wing of the party, now the one nation element is steadily becoming marginalised. The local grass roots activists however have largely been the more reactionary element - retired colonels and daily mail aficionados etc. What I foresee happening is a more gradual process where the Conservative party becomes entrenched in the ground occupied by its constituency membership, maybe with Farage returning to the fold, while the more moderate element starts to follow Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen out of the party.
Click to expand...

Agree with this. The tory party will slide to the right and the populist alt right approach will creep in. They risk alienating a big chunk of the base to moderates, as its low ball politics and that is not the traditional base. There are many well educated tory voters who agree with their economics or see them as traditionally more competent / less risky option than labour. Tony Blair's success was in convincing these people that Labour was a safe economic choice. These voters abandoned Labour post Blair/Brown but they will not tolerate the racist dog whistles and anti business extreme brexit mantra. These voters will abandon the centrist ground of the tory spectrum in the same way the nutters will jump to the brexit party or UKIP at the extreme end. All in all i see the tory party losing support from both ends of the spectrum.

How it looks in terms of seats at a GE will depend a lot on the extent to which the parties outside the main 2 can offer a united proposition. Brexit/UKIP could cancel each other out resulting in no seats or if one can wipe out the other they will get something. Change.uk / LibDem could do the same, if they fight each other they will nullify each other, if they work together or even merge they could unite the remain vote and that would result in big gains (subject to labour's brexit position).
 
A Conservative MP is to speak at a men’s rights conference alongside controversial activists including one who ran a website listing the personal details of feminist writers and called for a “bash a violent woman month”.

Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, who is a vehement critic of feminism and once sought to obstruct a bill to protect women against violence, is listed as a speaker at the International Conference on Men’s Issues taking place in Chicago in August.

Among the other scheduled speakers are two Ukip European election candidates, Carl Benjamin and Mark Meechan. Benjamin, who posts YouTube videos as “Sargon of Akkad”, once tweeted “I wouldn’t even rape you” to the Labour MP Jess Phillips, and has argued feminism has caused an increase in mass killings.

Another speaker is Paul Elam, an American who leads a group called A Voice for Men. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors extreme and far-right activity in the US, included Elam on a list of “male supremacists”.

Elam set up what he termed an “offenders register” website displaying photos and personal details of women users said had committed offences against men or had falsely accused them of crimes.
Click to expand...
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-davies-to-speak-at-us-mens-rights-conference

I thought the Torys had moved on from these sorts of people. Men's rights? FFS!
 
Are these two "men of the people" really leadership contenders ? I cannot for the life of me see how any working class Tory voter would look up to them unless they actually like forelock tugging and the class system - the Brexit impasse enables them to exploit the position for their own gain quite shamelessly because of an extra frisson of notoriety their faux rebellious stance gives them

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-paid-entirely-14590579

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...n-paid-more-than-160k-for-giving-two-speeches
 


He has no chance but it would be hilarious if it happened.

They’d be absolutely ruined as a party.
 
bluethrunthru said:
Are these two "men of the people" really leadership contenders ? I cannot for the life of me see how any working class Tory voter would look up to them unless they actually like forelock tugging and the class system - the Brexit impasse enables them to exploit the position for their own gain quite shamelessly because of an extra frisson of notoriety their faux rebellious stance gives them

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-paid-entirely-14590579

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...n-paid-more-than-160k-for-giving-two-speeches
Click to expand...

Never underestimate the power of the deferential working class. Their deference to wealth and rank has a long and not particularly edifying history.

Know your betters....

img.jpg


And love them.
 
Whoever leaked stuff from the meeting of the National Security Council, be it Brexiteer or Remainer, wants their hat nailling on imo.

Yes, we are going to be controlled by Chinese & Americans if the unholy alliance of toffs, racists, coffin dodgers, rednecks & thickies get their way, but leaking stuff from National Security meetings, is not the way to deal with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.