This week in Brexitland, June 29, 2023

What happens if the Tories get destroyed at the next election? To be clear here, I mean destroyed - less than 50 seats, maybe less than 10? What comes next for them and British politics?

The polls this week are bad for the Tories. Really bad. They appear to be inching back towards where they were under Liz Truss, which is to say, they seem to be approaching existential danger territory once again. Labour are opening up 20 to 25 point leads, with the Conservative party sometimes polling below 25%, which is arguably the point at which they’d start to shed seats in a way that would be perilous to their ongoing existence. While Westminster rabbits on about what Keir Starmer will do in a hung parliament, the polling data tells us the Tories are strapped on for one hell of a beating at the next general election.

To say that it was Brexit that broke the Conservative party, that it was the key component that got them to where they are now, on the brink of an election that could make them extinct, is almost a cliche. Like, I mean, duh, of course Brexit broke the Tories. Anyone who isn’t obsessed with Brexit somehow miraculously coming good one way or another, or the idea that the Conservatives will win the next election by some divine occurrence, can see that. You don’t even need to be particularly anti-Brexit to view it that way. The vote in 2016 triggered a series of events - and a series of Tory leaders - that got them to where they are now, at the bottom of a well, cut off from the rest of the universe, unable to even fathom a way out, comforting themselves by saying over and over agin that someone or something will save them.

With this in mind, I thought it would be worth looking ahead and seeing what might happen if the polling data over the last 18 months and all of the by-elections and local elections are in fact correct in telling us that the Tories are going to be destroyed at the next general election - and then imagine what happens from there. What if the Tories ended up with around 100 seats? Or less than 50? Or less than 10? As weird as all of these scenarios sound, they are far from out of the question given how bad the polling is for the Conservative party.

There are two questions that are of relevance here. One: would the Tories delve deeper into crazy Braverman-land after a hefty defeat, or would they finally come to their senses and realise not enough people want that National Conservative crap - and in fact, a lot of the people that do won’t vote Tory any longer anyhow - to get them a majority ever again? Two: if the loss suffered was great enough, would the Conservative party ever be able to recover and become the governing party?

Taking the first question: I think the idea that the Tories might renounce the ERG nuttiness and go straight, get off the Brexity sauce and go sober again, is being underpriced. Everyone’s faith in the Conservative party has fallen so far that the assumption is they would be totally incapable of learning from a crushing defeat and instead double down on their acreage in Toon Town. I think this is worth thinking about again.

The Conservative party is the most successful political party in the west for a reason. It is good at adapting to events. Also, it is actually run by the donors, who are wealthy men who want their taxes kept low amongst other things that make them heavily favour the Tories by default. They’ve gone along with the fruit loop hard-right stuff because they’ve been assured by many in the Tory ecosphere that they have to play some of that up to stand a chance of winning the next general election. However, when that falls as flat as a pancake, despite all of the excuses they’ll be hearing - Sunak was the wrong messenger! If we’d had a true believer in there, we would have smashed it! - I can see them calling time on the Braverman bullshit pretty fast. I genuinely think there might be more soul-searching within the power echelons of the Conservative party than people think if they lose the next election. I figure they’ll be looking for new faces in a hurry to dig them out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves.

Which brings me onto the second question: what if the Tories lose really, really badly? To take this discussion to its nth degree, let’s say for a moment that the Tories end up with 25 seats, while the Lib Dems land on 35 seats and the SNP around 35 as well. The Conservative party are now the fourth largest party in the House of Commons. That’s it, right? The Conservative party never comes back from that, surely? Are we now in a new era in which the Lib Dems usurp one of the big two as the new party of opposition, looking to one day become the party of government?

No, I don’t think so. If the Lib Dems ended up with 50+ seats after the next election - they won’t - and the Tories ended up with less than 10 seats - who knows, they might - I would still bet on the Conservatives to form a government way before the Liberal Democrats. The reason for this is simple - the Conservative party, for all its innumerable faults, is structured in a way that makes any such comeback at the very least not restricted by internal issues, whereas the Lib Dems are built to be a small party and nothing else. That difference is everything.

If the Lib Dems somehow became the official opposition after the next general election, they wouldn’t change in the slightest in reaction to this reality. I feel sure of this given they were in government and that didn’t change them one iota, not really. The Lib Dems want to be a party mostly of local government that is obsessed with niche issues. They have had chances to move away from that over the past 20 years and they have steadfastly refused to do so for any appreciable length of time. This, by the way, isn’t the insult to the Liberal Democrats many will take it as. Wanting to fill the hole in British politics that the Lib Dems eagerly wish to fill and have done over the last several decades is admirable, in its way. But it means the party has in-built issues with becoming something else, transforming into a party that aspires to govern the country all on its own.

Meanwhile, the Conservative party is filled with people who think their organisation is the rightful governing party of the country. And it is structured in a way that, although there will still be some internal impediments along the way, makes such a revival possible. They have the belief, the will, to make a comeback. That’s more important than anything.

If you want an example of how it can be done, look no further than the Labour Party over the last couple of years. Crushed, seemingly taken over by their extremist flank, it felt like it would take a decade at least for them to even threaten the Tories again. Now, they are 20 points ahead in the polls and firm favourites to form the next government. Sure, a lot of that has to do with the Tories falling apart, but Labour still had to be ready for such an opportunity. I wouldn’t write off the Conservatives being able to turn things around surprisingly quickly after a monumental defeat. Particularly if they realise fully how much damage Brexit has done to them. The Tories coming back on the wave of promising to rejoin the single market? I don’t think that’s as crazy as it sounds at the moment.

Thanks for reading. If you aren’t a subscriber yet, please subscribe. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber, even better. This is all the extra stuff you get with a paid subscription:

1. Semi-daily updates on the state of the country and where Brexit is going.

2. Sections from a book I partly wrote - and will complete for my paid subscribers over this year - entitled, How Brexit Gets Reversed. It is about what happened pre-referendum, during the referendum and then after it but pre-Brexit itself, with some inside stories about Farage, Vote Leave, and the Remain campaign, as well as what I think will happen in the coming decade(s) that leads to Brexit being slowly reversed - and most importantly, what pro-Europeans can do to help the process along.

3. Anything else I think might interest paid subscribers as they come up.

Thanks everyone and I’ll see you all again next week for the worst of Brexit.