The Tory party is worth fighting for
British democracy at present is about as roadworthy as a clown car. On Wednesday, MPS rushed a bill through all its stages in one day so as to delay Brexit – a “coup” without guns, said Andrea Leadsom, leader of the House. It passed by the margin of a single vote, swung by a disgraced MP who has only recently been released from prison. Yesterday, Remainer peers tried to ram the legislation through the Lords and Conservatives raised perfectly reasonable objections as to its constitutionality. Lord Howard argued that MPS had set a precedent that would have a “dire effect on our liberties”. As if in divine comment, the Commons chamber sprang a leak.
Parliament is a mess, but we are where we are thanks to the catastrophic mistakes of the Government, for which the Conservative Party as a whole is now being punished, perhaps unfairly. It was the Government that bungled the last election, destroying its majority; the Government that mishandled the EU negotiations, mismanaged Parliament and – even though it technically remains within its gift – ruled out the no-deal option. Theresa May has gone cap-in-hand to Jeremy Corbyn in search of a solution. Tory activists are tearing up their membership cards and reports from the doorstep suggest the party’s reputation among the voters is in tatters.
Perhaps this will translate into apathy and mass abstention. Why bother to vote for, let alone join, a party whose leaders promised Brexit only to hand it over to Remainers and a Marxist? An old joke springs to mind: if voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.
On the other hand, democracy is won by those who participate. If philosophical conservatives do give up on the Tories, if Leavers abandon them, they’ll hand the party over to the Remainers – and Mr Corbyn would be one of the greatest beneficiaries. Many Conservative Leavers have thus decided that, for all the damage done by Mrs May, they must struggle on because the choice faced isn’t just to be in or out of the EU but, depending on how well Brexit goes, between preserving a property-owning democracy and a catastrophic victory for radical socialism.
What the Tories need isn’t an elitist stitch-up but a proper leadership contest that produces both a fresh prime minister and a winning agenda for the future. It is a battle worth fighting.