Today Rishi Sunak reshuffled the chairs on a sinking ship. With apparently no sense of irony, the Conservative Party X (formerly Twitter) account announced, “Today @RishiSunak strengthens his team in Government to deliver long-term decisions for a brighter future.”
This as icy seawater laps around the ankles of the Tory Party’s hapless captain and everyone can see that he isn’t in a position to make decisions for the long term. He probably can’t steer the ship in the short term. Nobody can even be sure whether the Tory Party will continue to be an electoral force for the long term; especially now that it’s lost the support of the Lib Dem coalition electorate it built in the post-Blair years, and it has alienated its core voters.
“But,” thinks Rishi, apparently — the man who promised change just weeks ago at the Tory Party conference — “I can revive that centrist Lib Dem coalition voter base.”
How, you might ask, could he possibly do that? Well, by bringing back David Cameron as Foreign Secretary. The very same David Cameron who campaigned on the losing side of the Brexit referendum which altered Britain’s foreign relations with the European Union forever. The whiff of failure still hangs over him.
This is great news we’re informed by that woman of the people Baroness Sayeeda Warsi (who has spent the last few weeks supporting marches which have seen calls for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews, including the highly divisive one on Armistice Day), who tweeted out, “Welcome back David @David_Cameron If ever there was a time for balanced, thoughtful, compassionate leadership it is now. Your country needs you”.
It must be nice for the former Prime Minister to know that at least two people woke up this morning thinking that he’s the person we need back in Parliament. I suspect it wasn’t that many more.
That’s not all Sunak had planned though. Nope! He’s decided to sack Suella Braverman, that divisive Home Secretary who knew what the Tory base (and a large part of the country) actually wants getting done, because the Guardian finds her particularly distasteful, as do the sensible Tories, like Baroness Warsi.
But as Suella walks away from the cabinet she’s withdrawn her thumbs from those leaky holes of the Tory Party ship and that cold water lapping around Captain Rishi’s ankles is about to start rising faster. He now has a cabinet that’s not even committed to doing things most of the country wants, let alone the Tory base. I suspect some are already planning to mutiny. (Who’s excited about Sunak’s new baccalaureate-style qualification?)
With that, a lot of Tory supporters have decided they’re probably going to stay in the dock at the next election. Keir Starmer doesn’t terrify them, although they’re far from enthused about him. But why get on a ship that will, by that time, likely only have the tips of its masts above water and won’t be going in the direction they want it to go in anyway?
It’s a shame because although the officers are obviously going to have to go down with the ship, it also threatens to take down a whole bunch of able seaman too.
I’m thinking, of course, about the New Conservatives. That cohort of Conservative MPs elected after 2019, largely in Red Wall seats, who actually want to do something as radical as implementing conservative policies!
Now, I would suggest, is the time for the New Conservatives to abandon ship. Climb into a lifeboat and point it towards sunny shores. What’s the worst that can happen? The lifeboat may be smaller, but at least it doesn’t have a gaping hole in it where ideology and ideas should be.
The Tory Party has already thrown one of its most popular (at least among the base) MPs overboard anyway, so perhaps the New Conservatives could fish Suella out of the storm on their way. With her would come a whole lot of name recognition (although she’s not the person you’d want leading the party; partly for reasons of her divisiveness, partly for reasons of her perceived failings as Home Secretary, deserved or not. For that you’d want the kinder more compassionate face of someone like Miriam Cates). I think there’s also a collection of conservative-leaning commentators with name recognition and a following who — if appeals to their patriotism were made — could be persuaded to climb aboard this lifeboat too. They’ve already seemingly jumped ship from the Tory Party. People like Allison Pearson, Matt Goodwin and Douglas Murray who have made careers out of often being right and always annoying the right people.
As much as an exercise of policy, this would also be an exercise of branding, so whilst there are third parties MPs could retreat to most of them are tainted in some way. They’ve either dabbled in conspiracism which the vast majority of the British public would raise an eyebrow at (a raised eyebrow and a whiff of the ridiculous to a small party is a death knell electorally), or they’re untested with no MPs and certainly none with ministerial experience, or they have a party leader now renowned for pondering who he would or would not shag on national television.
A new party provides a blank slate on which to work. Excitement can be generated, especially following an exodus of Tory MPs in a single wave! Call it something like The Union Party, a name which works on many different levels; most notably the need to get away from the divided Tory Party, to present a unifying vision for the country, to offer a party with a united front, and a reference to the nature of our United Kingdom. It may even be a banner under which the more sensible members of the alternative parties, like Reform and the SDP, could unite. With a nice logo, a set of clearly articulated policies addressing things about which people are actually concerned — like immigration, security, the economy, and the fact all of our institutions are doing things they weren’t intended to do at the expense of the things they were intended to do — and with a head start of 25+/- MPs already sitting in Parliament, a new electoral force could be created.
There are two examples people may use to object to this. The first is the example of the SDP in the 1980s; however, I’d argue now is quite different because back then neither Labour nor the Lib Dems were abhorrent to their base in the way the Tory Party are now. The other comparison that may be made is to Change UK, Anna Soubry’s ill-fated rebellion. But again there’s a difference. What Soubry et al. were offering was not unique. Whilst it called itself ‘Change’ what it was really offering was status quo neoliberalism, and the Lib Dems were offering that anyway (demonstrated by the fact five members of Change UK defected to the Lib Dems).
This isn’t a cry for radicalism (although doing anything even slightly conservative could be considered radical these days), but it is to point out that “in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” to quote the too-often-quoted Sun Tzu. People want order, they want an end to the chaos, they want a party with a vision, they want a party with policies addressing their real concerns (as opposed to unworkable smoking bans) and the New Conservatives may well be in a position to deliver it. Nobody else is going to, and the Tory ship is going down anyway.