Torygeddon: taking back control

Politically, I have a lot of energy to invest in the right vessel. But like a financial investor, I won't invest without doing my homework first. That was partly why I put Reform under the microscope. My energy, like money, is not something to be wasted. I know a busted flush when I see one. Reform told us something yesterday. The closest they have to a big beast is Ann Widdecombe.

But then I'm not particularly impressed with the other alternative parties either. I admit to having a soft spot for Ukip, but it's just not a serious outfit. It will never again be an influential force in politics. Under its new leadership it isn't even a useful academic exercise. The search for better is futile.

As I've remarked in previous posts, all of the factional minnow parties on the right are symptomatic of the absence of a genuine doctrinal centre right democratic nationalist conservative party. It is therefore incumbent on us to create one out of the wreckage of the Tory party.

The first job is to clear out all of the dross. The election will remove a lot of the weaklings, but only by getting active in the party will we be able to clear out the rest of the wets. I've come to this realisation too late to oust the useless Tory oaf from my own constituency, but I do intend to make sure he is deselected before 2029.

Essentially, the right needs its own Momentum style entryist movement. That's how politics is done in a duopoly. Protest party politics only works if the main party doesn't have a deathwish. Moreover, it's the strategy most likely to succeed. Starting new parties isn't going to get us anywhere.

There are those on the right who are pushing for the obliteration of the Tories. "Zero seats" would be hugely satisfying, but in reality that isn't going to happen. A rump Tory party will survive, and the right's only path to power is by cleansing the Tory party of the "one nation" centrist losers. It must be a fight to the death.

Then, if we're going to take back the party, we need to be thinking well in advance about who is going to lead it. It cannot be Mordaunt, Badenoch, Truss, Frost, Rees-Mogg or Patel. I could be persuaded by Braverman, but we need to be looking for fresh talent. I've not yet seen anything that disqualifies Jenrick. Though I appreciate we don't have much to work with.

I might be wrong about this, but I don't see that we have another choice. I don't see Cummings coming to the fore with anything intelligent. He thinks we need to completely reinvent the wheel, and his design will be conceptually flawed. The problem isn't that people aren't voting for a conservative party. It's that there isn't one to vote for. It's a rudderless "broad church" husk that will entertain virtually anyone so long as they aren't conservative.

As such, debate is needed to establish a criteria for new leadership and new MPs. If, for example, they've ever been under the impression that a bloke is a frock is a woman, then they're done. Similarly anyone who has praised multiculturalism or supported green energy. Not only are they not conservative, they're not even adults.

If I'm wrong about this, I'm open to better ideas, but it looks to me like we are out of time and out of options. What’s encouraging is that a lot of the dead wood seems to be self-eliminating to save the humiliation of losing their seats. The party is losing quite a few of its big beasts. That’s no bad thing at all.

The problem isn’t just the Tory wets though. The Tory party is tired and its best known faces are tainted. Half the problem is that they’re relics from a previous age. It’s time for a new generation to take over, who aren’t steeped in the dogma of yore.

The landscape will look very different after the election. Reform will have underperformed and will wield no further influence, while the zeitgeist on the continent and across the Atlantic will point the way for a resurgent right. There will be new mood music. All we have to do is tune in.

Because of the Tory betrayal on Brexit (and many other issues) culminating in a Labour government that nobody actually wants, there’s unfinished business for the right. We were sold out by “one nation” Tories and screwed over by the incompetence of our own side. The purge will have to be ruthless, and the civil war will have to rage even if it costs us the 2029 election. Anything less than a fully reformed conservative movement is just more of the same. The work must start now.