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Throughout history when party chiefs have seemed moderately rational on the surface – and alternate phases where they have sounded wildly irrational, yet remained popular by party loyalists. Currently, it's far from such a scenario. One prominent Conservative left the crowd unmoved when she spoke at her conference, while she offered the divisive talking points of migrant-baiting she assumed they wanted.

The issue wasn't that they’d all arisen with a revived feeling of humanity; rather they didn’t believe she’d ever be in a position to implement it. In practice, an imitation. Tories hate that. A veteran Tory reportedly described it as a “jazz funeral”: loud, vigorous, but ultimately a parting.

Future Prospects for the Organization That Can Reasonably Claim to Make for Itself as the Most Historically Successful Political Organization in History?

Some are having a fresh look at one contender, who was a hard “no” at the beginning – but now it’s the end, and everyone else has departed. Others are creating a interest around a rising star, a 34-year-old MP of the 2024 intake, who looks like a traditional Conservative while wallpapering her online profiles with anti-migrant content.

Might she become the standard-bearer to counter Reform, now surpassing the Conservatives by a significant margin? Is there a word for defeating opponents by becoming exactly like them? Moreover, assuming no phrase fits, surely we could borrow one from combat sports?

If You’re Enjoying Any of This, in a Schadenfreude Way, in a Serves-Them-Right-for-Austerity Way, It's Comprehensible – But Completely Irrational

One need not consider overseas examples to know this, nor read a prominent academic's influential work, his analysis of political systems: your entire mental framework is shouting it. Centrist right-wing parties is the crucial barrier against the far right.

Ziblatt’s thesis is that political systems endure by appeasing the “elite classes” happy. I have reservations as an organising principle. One gets the impression as though we’ve been catering to the affluent and connected for decades, at the expense of everyone else, and they don't typically become sufficiently content to stop wanting to make cuts out of public assistance.

However, his study isn’t a hunch, it’s an comprehensive document review into the historical German conservative group during the Weimar Republic (along with the British Conservatives around the early 1900s). When the mainstream right becomes uncertain, as it begins to adopt the terminology and symbolic politics of the far right, it cedes the direction.

There Were Examples Comparable Behavior In the Referendum Aftermath

Boris Johnson associating with Steve Bannon was a notable instance – but far-right flirtation has become so evident now as to overshadow all remaining party narratives. Whatever became of the old-school Conservatives, who value predictability, tradition, the constitution, the UK reputation on the global scene?

Where did they go the reformers, who described the United Kingdom in terms of economic engines, not tension-filled environments? Don’t get me wrong, I didn't particularly support any of them too, but it's remarkably noticeable how those worldviews – the broad-church approach, the reformist element – have been erased, superseded by relentless demonisation: of newcomers, religious groups, welfare recipients and protesters.

Appear at Podiums to Melodies Evoking the Signature Music to Game of Thrones

And talk about what they cannot stand for any more. They portray protests by 75-year-old pacifists as “displays of hostility” and employ symbols – national emblems, Saint George’s flags, anything with a splash of matadorial colour – as an open challenge to those questioning that complete national identity is the highest ideal a person could possibly be.

There doesn’t seem to be any natural braking system, that prompts reflection with core principles, their traditional foundations, their own plan. Any stick the Reform leader throws for them, they follow. So, no, it’s not fun to watch them implode. They’re taking civil society into the abyss.