As the Tories launch yet another parliamentary faction, there is a sense that MPs are in a desperate rush to see which ideas stick ahead of an election that is likely to wipe the party out.
The ‘Popular Conservatism’ group of MPs was this month established by former prime minister Liz Truss in an effort to stop the Tories from “swimming against the tide when we’re talking about conservative values.”
Truss resigned after just 44 days in office in 2022, making her the shortest-serving PM in British history. Now she claims to know what it will take to revitalise the party. Addressing the “crippling tax burden,” bringing “robust control” over borders and ending “net zero zealotry” will, she promised, “excite the public.”
The problem here is not only that Rishi Sunak’s government is already using every one of these issues as talking points, however unconvincingly, but that half a dozen other groups of Tory MPs have already pipped Truss to the post.
Most of the groups that make up the so-called Tory “five families”—the ‘traditional values’ New Conservatives, pro-Brexit European Research Group, ‘anti-woke’ Common Sense Group, ‘Trussite’ Conservative Growth Group (yes, Truss already has her own faction) and the north-of-England-focused Northern Research Group—are totally unknown by ordinary voters. They are also roughly made up of the same Tory MPs, which really paints the image of Conservatives trying to position themselves wherever the wind is blowing, and say roughly the same things.
And Truss is perhaps even less likely to leave a mark than her “five family” counterparts given her left-wing political record. Ben Harris-Quinney, who chairs the conservative Bow Group think tank, told The European Conservative:
Liz Truss is a former Liberal Democrat ‘Remain’ supporter who was crowbarred into Parliament by David Cameron. Until very recently, she wrapped herself in the LGBT movement that she now calls left-wing extremism.
Anyone can change their views, but if the best the right of the Conservative Party can present as a beacon is someone with a track record of only establishment left-wing liberalism, then it has no realistic hope of winning the support of the conservative movement, or popularity.
Harris-Quinney added: “I’m deeply sceptical of the Conservative Party’s ability to return to core values and popularity, but if it does it would need a gold standard conservative leader brave enough to reform radically.”
It is no wonder, then, that former UKIP leader Nigel Farage claims several Tory MPs contact him every day to ask what he will do next. In his latest interview, he said: “They’re looking for something, they’re desperate.” (So desperate, in fact, that some are even shaving off their beards in the hope it will win them a vote or two.) Farage later said at the launch of the Popular Conservatism group that “this could be the end of the road for the Conservative Party.”
While Farage is flirting with the idea of joining the Tories for the first time in decades, actual Conservative MPs are deciding that enough is enough. Since insiders last year joked politicians are quitting like “rats leaving a sinking ship,” it has been reported that more Tory MPs are stepping down at the next election (56 so far) than since the 1997 vote, when the party was eviscerated at the polls. Even figures with comparably good public support are giving up, such as former defence secretary Ben Wallace. He has had enough of politics and wants to do “something completely different,” such as “work at a bar.”
The latest senior figure to call it a day was Kwasi Kwarteng. He served as chancellor under Truss and was seen as her right-hand man. Then he announced he was quitting as MP just hours before Truss launched her new group—hardly the vote of confidence Truss will have been hoping for.
Like the groups that launched before it, Truss’s Popular Conservatism movement seems unlikely to alter the course of British politics. Harris-Quinney concluded that while “Britain needs the most radical reform in our history to survive,
The most likely future we face is one in which the Labour Party wins the next election, the Conservative Party adopts conservative talking points, Labour continue the nation’s decline, the Conservatives limp back in after 5-10 years with anaemic support and fail to do anything they promised, and the pantomime of Britain’s destruction continues uninterrupted.
UK Tories in State of Desperation Ahead of Electoral Wipeout
Liz Truss
Photo: B. Lenoir / Shutterstock.com
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As the Tories launch yet another parliamentary faction, there is a sense that MPs are in a desperate rush to see which ideas stick ahead of an election that is likely to wipe the party out.
The ‘Popular Conservatism’ group of MPs was this month established by former prime minister Liz Truss in an effort to stop the Tories from “swimming against the tide when we’re talking about conservative values.”
Truss resigned after just 44 days in office in 2022, making her the shortest-serving PM in British history. Now she claims to know what it will take to revitalise the party. Addressing the “crippling tax burden,” bringing “robust control” over borders and ending “net zero zealotry” will, she promised, “excite the public.”
The problem here is not only that Rishi Sunak’s government is already using every one of these issues as talking points, however unconvincingly, but that half a dozen other groups of Tory MPs have already pipped Truss to the post.
Most of the groups that make up the so-called Tory “five families”—the ‘traditional values’ New Conservatives, pro-Brexit European Research Group, ‘anti-woke’ Common Sense Group, ‘Trussite’ Conservative Growth Group (yes, Truss already has her own faction) and the north-of-England-focused Northern Research Group—are totally unknown by ordinary voters. They are also roughly made up of the same Tory MPs, which really paints the image of Conservatives trying to position themselves wherever the wind is blowing, and say roughly the same things.
And Truss is perhaps even less likely to leave a mark than her “five family” counterparts given her left-wing political record. Ben Harris-Quinney, who chairs the conservative Bow Group think tank, told The European Conservative:
Harris-Quinney added: “I’m deeply sceptical of the Conservative Party’s ability to return to core values and popularity, but if it does it would need a gold standard conservative leader brave enough to reform radically.”
It is no wonder, then, that former UKIP leader Nigel Farage claims several Tory MPs contact him every day to ask what he will do next. In his latest interview, he said: “They’re looking for something, they’re desperate.” (So desperate, in fact, that some are even shaving off their beards in the hope it will win them a vote or two.) Farage later said at the launch of the Popular Conservatism group that “this could be the end of the road for the Conservative Party.”
While Farage is flirting with the idea of joining the Tories for the first time in decades, actual Conservative MPs are deciding that enough is enough. Since insiders last year joked politicians are quitting like “rats leaving a sinking ship,” it has been reported that more Tory MPs are stepping down at the next election (56 so far) than since the 1997 vote, when the party was eviscerated at the polls. Even figures with comparably good public support are giving up, such as former defence secretary Ben Wallace. He has had enough of politics and wants to do “something completely different,” such as “work at a bar.”
The latest senior figure to call it a day was Kwasi Kwarteng. He served as chancellor under Truss and was seen as her right-hand man. Then he announced he was quitting as MP just hours before Truss launched her new group—hardly the vote of confidence Truss will have been hoping for.
Like the groups that launched before it, Truss’s Popular Conservatism movement seems unlikely to alter the course of British politics. Harris-Quinney concluded that while “Britain needs the most radical reform in our history to survive,
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