The Tories are looking like the default option again

It’s usually the case that when the Tory party wins an election, it’s in the absence of a preferable alternative. This is what makes them the natural party of government. Nobody especially wants them. It’s just what you have to put up with because the alternatives are worse. It’s looking like that will again be the case in 2029.

Regular readers will know I don’t have much enthusiasm for Kemi Badenoch or the Tory party. Ordinarily I wouldn’t revisit the subject, but take a snapshot of British politics today, and the Tories are the least dreadful option. Reform isn’t even pretending to be a serious party, and any suggestion that a Lowe/Habib alternative will usurp Reform is for the birds.

But in any case, for all I’ve written on the dysfunctionality of the Tory party and the inadequacies of Badenoch, I am still entitled to change my mind. I change my mind in politics quite often because I'm never quite sure about anything. I know what I want to see happening, but I know that's not what will happen, so I tend to look for the closest approximation. Grown up politics involves lowering your expectations, then lowering them some more.

It also changes your perspective when you understand that most of our problems are multifaceted, there is no single, neat elegant solution, and the solutions can be messy, suboptimal and time-consuming. You never get what you want in one go. Everything happens in stages. To get anything done, sometimes you just have to take what you can get even if it requires compromises. What needs to happen will not happen with a magical act of parliament. It will take years of battles - some of which you will win, and others you will lose - and you have to regroup and try another time.

As such, policy planning is as much thinking about what you will do and how, but also when. You need an order of execution, factoring in the levels of opposition, your likely majority, public opinion, and how the media will behave. You often find you can't get away with even half of what you would ordinarily do, so you have to prioritise accordingly.

This, especially, governs my thinking on leaving the ECHR. I wouldn't pull on that thread if it means spending an entire parliamentary term having protracted diplomatic negotiations with the EU over Northern Ireland. I would first look to see what can be done without going nuclear. You want policies with the maximum yield for minimal political outlay. In the first instance, you want to be banking as many small wins as you can get. The effect is cumulative.

Anyone can play fantasy politics, demanding hardline quick and easy solutions, but the people who do seldom engage in the technicalities, or think about operational implementation and the political obstacles. This is especially true of the slopulist right. They're as bad as the left for not thinking about second order consequences. Policy is evaluated on the basis of how it makes them feel over whether it accomplishes anything. Politics to them is little more than cathartic venting. I understand the impulse. I’ve done enough of it myself.

But this is why I can often appear quite schizophrenic. One minute I'm supporting the Homeland Party (what I actually want to see - remigration etc), but then I'm forced by my own logic to recognise only one of three parties are likely to form a government in 2029, and the most coherent option right now is one I would not normally recommend to anyone - especially given their most recent performance in office.

People will tell me the Tories cannot be trusted to do what they say they will, and there's strong precedent for saying that, but I believe it is also true of Reform. They've spent the last year throwing their base under the bus, moderating their message and softening their rhetoric.

Some believe this is a clever 4D chess strategy to win in 2029, and part of a bait and switch operation, but even if it was I still think Reform would u-turn on some of their flagship approaches. I do not think anyone in Reform really knows how to stop the boats and I think the operational realities of pushbacks would derail the policy inside a fortnight.

The problems we face are problems we must think our way out of, and having done at least some thinking on policy implementation, I don't see any quick, easy wins. It's going to take sustained hard work, requiring an intellectual depth that simply isn't present anywhere on the slopulist right. Nobody wants to do that kind of thinking. All they want to do is emote and make unrealistic demands like a spoiled toddler. You could give them properly thought out policies but they would slap your hand away.

As such, if Kemi Badenoch tells me we need a plan, and to think about policy instead of going off half-cocked, I'm going to listen to her. She might get it wrong, but at least she is thinking, which is more than you can say for anyone in Reform.

Many will say the Tory party cannot be salvaged, and there is plenty of evidence to support that view, but what else is there? With Reform being a complete intellectual vacuum, the Tories are looking like the default option again. I just don't see Reform ever presenting as a viable option for government. It's a clown car and Farage isn't fit to be PM.

Between Jenrick, Badenoch, Neil O'Brien, Nick Timothy and a handful of others, there's the makings of a serious government that might do something useful - if only fixing ILR and reversing the Boriswave.

You don't have to like it, but those are the facts. I'd prefer there was another option, but there isn't, and there isn't going to be any time soon. Any attempt to replace Reform will be another blowhard party so it's either Badenoch or five further years of Labour. There is no optimal outcome. But then again, I could change my mind. When the facts change, so do I. We’ll see what Badenoch has to say come conference time.