1911, 1832, 2024. After the worse ever defeat, where next for the Tories? Some historical notes
It’s not the key or even an important question in British politics right now but the future of the Tories as the historic party of British capital remains of interest for the longer term. Of course another party could fulfil the function of property and capital or, historically, Church and King. The continued existence of the Tories is by no means certain
Depending on how you want to read the statistics the defeat of the Tory Party on July 4th, winning 121 seats, was the worst since 1911 or 1832. After the 1832 defeat the old Tory Party was rebuilt from the grassroots as a membership organisation. 1911 was an imperial crisis around trade and war and was resolved at enormous cost via World War One
Rishi Sunak remains as leader until the Tory Conference although he is off to California for a bit at the end of July. Pre-Election talk of a merger between the Tories and Reform, or a split from the Tories to Reform- in other words a realignment on the right is muted with a Tory leadership election in process and Commons summer holidays. Suella Braverman couldn’t get enough backing for a Tory leadership bid and she may defect to Reform in the Autumn. Presumably that would be timed for the Tory Conference. The question whether she has the support in the wider Tory Party to do this. Conservative Post which claims to represent hard right Tory members backed Braverman for the leadership and was posting pictures of Yaxley Lennon’s far right and fascist rally in central London on 27th July. A dangerous and unpleasant politics in flux
When Labour lost in 2019 the Labour right spun it as the worst result since 1935 (when the Party was recovering from the 1931 split- the parallel is too little explored) but that was on seats not total votes. It can hardly have been missed that Labour won in 2024 by getting less votes than Corbyn in 2017 but getting them in the right places. As an Election strategy it worked well..
This post is not about Labour however, simply to note that for a long while after December 2019 much of the media was full of stories and comment about Labour’s travails.
Once the Tories finally determine a new leader on November 2nd these may resurface. At the moment coverage of the Tory leadership campaign which began on 29th July is limited.
Of the seven candidates three are clean shaven men in suits with hard right politics (however they may describe themselves), Jenrick, Stride, Tugenhadt. Cleverly is distinguished by wearing a beard. Meanwhile Priti Patel is an MCC member and Kemi Badenoch is concerned about postmodernism.
Perhaps looking the right for a reconfiguration, based on that lot, is not the right question. It may be that Starmer has in mind the fulfilment of Harold Wilson and to an extent Blair’s mission of making Labour the natural party of Government.
However with the far and fascist right on the rise across Europe and Farage and Yaxley Lennon stirring it here, there could be trouble ahead if a close and active watch is not kept on what is happening.
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