George Kerevan: We need to temper any glee we feel about Tory misfortunes

The very fact that a considerable proportion of the parliamentary party is willing to resurrect the overgrown schoolboy Boris Johnson as leader and potential prime minister testifies to an existential split in the Tory ranks.

It is facile to describe this state of affairs as a family tiff, or down to personal rivalries. In fact, the Tory Party is now home to incompatible ideological camps. They are prepared to destroy the most successful political party in modern history in order to secure paramountcy over each other.

The original Conservative Party was founded in 1834 by Robert Peel, in his Tamworth Manifesto. Peel repositioned the new Tories as a party of the established order but – crucially – one that accepted (indeed led) calculated reforms as a bulwark against what he called “a perpetual vortex of agitation”.

Or as the Prince of Salina famously says in The Leopard: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

This traditional Conservative project is based on pragmatism, not ideology, even if it always champions vested interests.

During the 19th century, the Tories built up an almost impregnable electoral coalition of the landed class, the Church of England, the urban petty bourgeoisie, and City bankers – made possible by their pragmatic approach – while gradually ceding an extension of the franchise.

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After 1886, the Tories incorporated sections of the industrial bourgeoisie and skilled, Protestant working class into their political coalition by championing opposition to Irish Home Rule.

The only moment the Tory ascendancy was threatened (before the rise of the Labour Party) was when they fell into an ideological civil war over the vexing question of free trade versus imperial protection.

This was an early sort of Brexit debate and just as politically debilitating.

Thereafter, the Tories reverted to their traditional, pragmatic approach, positioning themselves as a bulwark against Labour radicalism. After the Second World War, and a daft flirtation with imperialism at Suez in 1956,

Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan made another swift accommodation with reality, junking what was left of the Empire and positioning the Tories as the party of the consumer and homeowner.

However, the decline of the old Tory foundations – religion, Unionism, empire – saw a gradual erosion of the Conservative electoral bloc. There was a temporary reprieve under Thatcher, but it did not last. Tony Blair’s New Labour won three famous election victories in a row.

The steady decline of Tory fortunes led to a desperate search for an elixir of electoral life. This took the form of Enoch Powell’s racist crusade against immigration and a nostalgic backlash against EU membership, with Brussels being turned into a catchall enemy of everything the Tories hated or feared.

At first this drift towards ideology seemed a fringe affair, with Tory grandees refusing to play either the anti-immigration or Brexit cards. But since Thatcher, a new libertarian, free-market ideology has made common cause with the racists and Brexiteers, forging a populist alliance that threatens traditional Tory pragmatism.

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Today, the old, winning Peelite model has been thrown into the dustbin of history by an unholy and opportunistic melange of parvenu hedge fund traders (eg Kwasi Kwarteng), mad libertarians (eg Jacob Rees-Mogg), diehard anti-Europeans (eg John Redwood) and xenophobic crazies (eg Priti Patel).

Tory “One Nation” pragmatists such as former chancellors Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond and even Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, were purged from the parliamentary party for refusing to vote for Brexit. All the victory of the populists and libertarian ideologues needed was a populist – or at least showman – leader. They got that in Johnson, a politically vacuous narcissist.

JOHNSON, of course, proved a liability for the libertarians. Always lazy, and always willing in practice to drift back into Big State solutions (ie printing money) Boris soon overstayed his welcome at Number 10.

Yet the populists and libertarian ideologues now seem anxious to have him back.

And this is the guy who was sunning himself in the Caribbean during a full parliamentary session while the Truss administration cratered, nearly taking the British pension industry with it. Why resurrect Boris?

It is clear – even if Boris does not return – that the libertarian, ideologue wing of what’s left of the Conservatives does not care if it destroys the party. In which case, a Sunak premiership resolves nothing. In all probability, Labour will form the next government, whether the election is soon (as it should be) or delayed till 2024.

In opposition, expect the Tory civil war to be fought to the absolute death. The party of Robert Peel is over, except in name. The two wings of the Tory Party cannot exist within a common framework.

The problem is that, in these circumstances, British party politics will undergo the same fragmentation as has occurred in Europe and with the same opening to the far right.

For starters, Keir Starmer’s prospective occupation of Downing Street is likely to have a short honeymoon. Labour will be forced by the financial markets to implement massive public spending cuts, leading to a swift fall in electoral support.

Into this vacuum will step the libertarians and right-wing elements of a discombobulated Tory Party, with their “instant” solutions.

We could see a libertarian re-alignment with the Faragistas to create a new “freedom party” of the right, while the Peelite traditionalists head for a retirement home with the Liberals or limp into historic irrelevance.

A good argument for Scottish independence? Except that the never-ending Westminster soap opera puts any sort of agreed referendum forever on the backburner. With a likely solid majority, Starmer will never play ball.

And about the only thing the Tories can agree about (apart from supporting Ukraine) is that they hate Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.

Indeed, a Sunak premiership would use Scotland as a punchbag in order to promote Tory Party unity. Whatever glee we enjoy at Tory misfortunes needs to be tempered by the realisation that Scotland faces a rocky road to independence.

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It is imperative, as a first step, that there is a UK-wide campaign to force a General Election as soon as possible. Whatever its avowed stance, Labour have a lot to gain from prolonging the Tory agony at Westminster and allowing the new Conservative administration to make spending cuts.

But in the meantime, ordinary folk will suffer. We need to turf out the Tories pronto. In their divided state, I doubt if the Westminster Tories can hold out indefinitely against their constituents’ demand for the ballot box.

The SNP is currently lying second in all the Tory Westminster seats north of the Border. That can and should ensure a Tory-free zone at the election. That is the best way to confront Starmer regarding Scotland’s right to a referendum.

If he refuses? It will not be long before a Labour government has the new, post-Conservative right-wing breathing down its electoral neck. Scotland is not a football. As the UK falls apart alongside the Tory Party, London will eventually have to be pragmatic about acceding to Scotland’s democratic rights.