The Tory party is vicious but it’s not vicious enough

LIFE is full of things that seem incomprehensible. Most of them, however, are things that seem incomprehensible to some of us, and shiningly obvious to others. A love of Greek lyric poetry, or Partick Thistle, or Chinese food, for example, or even things more fundamental than the merely aesthetic; a disposition towards pessimism, or liberalism, or religious belief, say. Some people get it, others don’t.

To comprehend something is not just to comprise or include it, but to grasp it by means of understanding. One of the strengths of human comprehension is – or ought to be – the ability to imagine enthusiasms we don’t share. You may not care for the work of Bob Dylan, or El Greco, but you should be able to see that other people do and, if you have any developed sympathy, even find it possible to think of reasons why they do.

The current state of politics, more divisive than ever, reflects a worrying dismissal of this basic human capability. If you smugly dismiss, for example, anyone who votes for Brexit or the SNP as a moronic bigot, it is your own political stance that is thoughtless and prejudiced.

That’s not to say you can’t strongly object to and oppose those (or any other) political positions, think them wrongheaded or even – though this judgment should be made with caution – wicked. If, however, you never pause to wonder why anyone might take a position contrary to yours, it doesn’t augur well for the foundations of your beliefs and, as a practical consideration, doesn’t give you the necessary equipment to build on them and withstand your opponents’ claims.

Which is why it is so baffling when something happens that seems genuinely incomprehensible. I refer, of course, to the 200 Conservative MPS who voted on Wednesday night to keep Theresa May as their leader. Try as I might, I cannot see any way in which this decision makes any sense.

I think we can take it as read that only one of those 200 votes – that of the Rt Hon Theresa May, MP – was cast out of any genuine conviction that the Prime Minister is the right person for the job. So what can have been the motivation for the others?

If you wanted to make sure that Brexit went ahead, but to avoid departing on WTO terms – the “no deal” exit those in the European Research Group either actively want, or are at least prepared to put up with – then voting for Mrs May guaranteed that you cannot get it. Of all the possible means of delivering Brexit, the one we know to be the worst, and the least likely to command support in the Commons, is the Prime Minister’s.

Even those who led the Leave campaign think that it’s a worse outcome than remaining. With the exception of halting free movement (one of the few good things about the EU), it fails to deliver any of the fundamental elements of leaving, while removing any UK say in the policies, and costs. And potentially permanently, if the Irish backstop were triggered. There is no equivalent of Article 50 for leaving the customs union, or the supervision of the EU Court of Justice, if that happens. So if the PM gets her withdrawal agreement through Parliament, you don’t get Brexit. And if she can’t, you get to crash out – in which case, you might as well have voted against her, so that some kind of preparation could be made.

If, on the other hand, you want to remain in the EU, or for some unfathomable reason think that a second referendum would improve matters, the only prospect of achieving those ends would have been to get shot of Mrs May, whose sole discernable quality is a pig-headed refusal ever to change her mind. A vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister might not have got Remainers what they want, but a vote for her more or less assured them that they won’t.

So much for the political positions or, if you’re charitable, principles. But, though it may shock you to consider such a thing, MPS do not always vote purely in accordance with their beliefs. Venial, and indeed venal, considerations may also play a part.

To put it bluntly, the question of whether they are going to hang on to their seats looms large in the thinking of most MPS, and Mrs May’s contribution to that ambition is hardly stellar. Quite apart from her record as the worst

Prime Minister since, at the very least, David Cameron, she’s also a shockingly bad tactician and an abysmal campaigner. This, remember, is the strategic genius who threw away a perfectly workable majority, and has since managed to annoy the DUP, on whose votes she now depends, more than any other group in the Commons.

Whether any other Tory leader would give them a better chance at the next General Election is an open question (though the answer is: yes, any other leader would be better). What a change would certainly have done, though, would have been to make a vote of no confidence from the Opposition much more difficult, probably allowing the Government to run its full term.

Of course, one way Mrs May seems to have talked round her backbenchers is by promising them that she won’t lead the party into the next General Election. While that’s welcome news, I’m damned if I can see why it’s any sort of recommendation. If she’s so chronic at her job that she is bound to lose it – even when the alternative is Jeremy Corbyn – why should that be a compelling case for staying in it pro tem, in order to deliver (or more likely, fail to deliver) something literally no one wants?

On Wednesday, the First Minister tweeted that the vote was “a stark reminder that the UK is facing chaos and crisis entirely because of a vicious civil war within the Tory party”. But alas, the lesson of the vote was exactly the opposite of Nicola Sturgeon’s claim. Unlike the ruthless Tory party of old, the current crop of Conservative MPS is not nearly vicious enough. If they were, they would have got rid of Mrs May as their leader on June 9, 2017. And even now, they don’t get it.

Try as I might, I cannot see any way in which the decision to keep Theresa May makes any sense