Sunak the Janitor

People say some very nice and encouraging things to me lately. It’s the reason I started this Substack. I was actively encouraged to do so. And now I have paying customers I feel duty bound to write something even though I feel there’s not much to be said at the moment. One can tire of playing the same old riffs. Pending new developments, there’s not much to say about Ukraine, Net Zero, immigration, asylum, culture wars or any of the usual topics.

That, though, tells its own story. We should be hearing more than we are given the Tories are staring down the barrel of electoral oblivion. A party that wanted to stay in power would be urgently trying to impress their core vote. This government doesn’t seem very interested in saving its own skin. It just doesn’t do anything.

One such example of this is a story in the Telegraph today. Primary school teachers are being told to allow children to change gender without informing their parents despite government guidance to the contrary according to the biggest survey of its kind. This should have been put to bed long before now.

I recall that these guidelines were only issued last December to much fanfare from the gender critical camp. Much praise was heaped on Kemi Badenoch. But these guidelines are not statutory and schools are free to ignore them, and in fact, are being advised by activist lawyers not to follow them. Predictably, issuing guidelines appears to have made no impact. Analysis of more than 600 school equality and trans policies reveals that up to three-quarters misrepresent laws protecting sex and gender.

This is a prime example of where the Tories could and should have gone to war with the blob. Had they done so, they’d have enjoyed complete backing from Tory voters and most of the public. But this is yet another time where the Suank administration has done the bare minimum; doing all it can to avoid confronting the blob. Not only can schools ignore the guidelines, Labour can rip them up without a parliamentary debate when they take office. The issue goes unresolved.

Similarly, Rishi Sunak has today claimed controlling immigration is more important than "membership of a foreign court" in his strongest hint yet the UK could leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), but we know he has no intention of doing so. He continues to set himself up for failure and nobody believes a word he says. He told us he would “stop the boats” yet it’s looking like another record year for small boat arrivals. The message is loud and clear. The Tory party is not prepared to do anything that Tory voters actually want.

Looking at the list of Tory MPs who are standing down at the next election, one gets a sense that nobody is interested in maintaining the Tory party as a viable concern. Tory big beasts don’t want to risk the humiliation of losing their seats, which they almost certainly will. The writing’s on the wall. As such, Sunak is serving not as a prime minister, but as a live-in janitor looking after a vacant property. It’s all over bar the election.

At this point, there’s nothing Sunak could say that anyone would believe so he might as well call the election just to get it over and done with. Though the rumour is that the party is unprepared to fight a general election campaign because of a collapse in members willing to volunteer, and in all probability, Tory voters are going on strike too.

Writing in Conservative Home, Matthew Goodwin says "Voters are turning to Reform out of a genuine desire for change". Only they're not. Their performance in recent by elections has been lacklustre. There's no momentum behind them, and no vibe. Polls can't detect vibes, but nobody is talking about Reform they way they talked about UKIP. The party isn't making waves or headlines, and it doesn't even have the Farage novelty factor.

Even if it did, it wouldn't make any difference. Lee Anderson won't keep his seat and they won't take any new seats. At most they will threaten a few Tory seats but in all probability, the Tories are going to lose them anyway. The vibe is now one of defeatism. A demoralised, depressed electorate, resigned to a Labour government.

It's interesting that discourse on the right over the last year has talked about the need for a new party, as though Reform didn't even exist. Reform occupies the space but fails to inspire or enthuse. As such, I don't know why people take Goodwin seriously. He's trotting out his usual boilerplate shtick that could just as easily be a rehash of hist 2015 material when he was claiming Ukip had a several seats "in the bag".

The hope is that something will come along and bypass the Tories, simply because the arithmetic suggests there is a gap in the market, but that doesn't mean something will come along. I don’t think our politics lends itself to new movements. Ukip was a freak occurrence that simply couldn't have happened without Euro elections. This is because our ancient model of democracy is built around a two party construct and FPTP ensures their perpetual incumbency. There is insufficient national unity for a new movement to break the cartel.

As such, we're lumbered with the Tories and that's the choice; Vote for them or don't. But when the party offers so little, voters will simply stay at home. Reform will certainly benefit from the discontent, but will never achieve anything of note.

It's going to take more than bleating about immigration and Net Zero to get voters back to the ballot box. This is a psychologically depressed country that no longer believes democracy makes a difference. There is a sense that Britain has expired as a coherent country. What's needed is a new and inspirational vision for the country - one that dismantles divisive and wholly useless devolution, junks the ECHR and reaffirms national democracy and borders. Nothing short of a new constitution, and a programme of national renewal.

Ask anyone on the right why we need to quit the ECHR and they'll say it's so we can stop the boats, but the real reason we need to leave it, along with the Paris agreement is to reassert national democracy, and to put international law in the proper perspective, as opposed to treating it as superior in a legal hierarchy. Make democracy matter again - locally and nationally.

The general election should be a referendum on a new vision for Britain. We need some actual "one nation" Tories who believe we should be one nation, and that the democratic nation state and its parliament is supreme. As such, the mission of the party should be to "get Brexit done". It wasn't enough merely to leave the EU. It implied so much more than that - not least strong borders, a revitalised democracy, and a unifying sense of purpose where Britain comes first.

It means dispensing with the dogma of the "international rules based order", and putting British workers at the heart of policy. That means cheap, abundant energy, and not the posturing of Net Zero. But most of all it means a responsive democracy, where politicians know their place, and stop handing our money and our sovereignty away without our consent. I'll go out and vote for a coherent vision, but if more of the same managerial tinkering is all that's on offer, my polling card will go in the bin.

Ultimately, a spell in opposition is exactly what the Tory party needs. It needs to decide if it wants to be a conservative party and whether it even wants to survive. It is not owed its existence and “Labour is worse” just isn’t slam dunk argument it used to be. Right leaning voters are desperate for a champion who will take the fight to the enemy, and fight the battles that need to be fought. We want a party that will go to war with the blob. We want a party that will pick fights. We want a party that isn’t afraid to be seen as “the nasty party”. We want a party that will actually do something. Why is that too much to ask?