The British right stabs itself in the back

As it’s the August holidays, I am reposting the first piece I wrote for Substack, and not just for old times’ sake.  When I read the Tory press or talk to Conservatives today their despair and their hatreds are overwhelming. They despair for British conservatism and they hate each other far more than they hate their political opponents. (If you doubt me, read the Telegraph comment pages, which have become a veritable wailing wall for the betrayed British right.)

The only chance the Conservatives have of avoiding a wipe out is to work together, admit their mistakes and resolve to do better. I see no hope of them managing any of the above, let alone all three.

Ever since Brexit, I and many others on the centre-left have deplored the Conservatives’ stab-in-the-back myths. They blame the failure of their grand project on (in no particular order) the civil service, the Foreign Office, the judges, the BBC, business, the Treasury, the Bank of England, lawyers, Europeans, remainers, and what they call “the Blob”. Whenever I upbraid them in print on their buck passing I end with a rhetorical flourish on the lines of “Conservatives will blame anyone and everyone for their mistakes except themselves”.

Alas, although I am rather fond of the declamatory vigour of the sentiment, it isn’t true. Conservative blame plots by other Conservatives for all the ills that have afflicted them and the poor country they so misrule. Only rarely does Westminster gossip and backstabbing acquire a national significance. This is one of those occasions. The Conservatives are so paralysed by self loathing they cannot function as a coherent government.

Boris Johnson and his supporters blamed his fall from power on Rishi Sunak. They then campaigned to foil Sunak by putting Liz Truss and Kwazi Kwartang in power, who proceeded to crash the economy just for the hell of it.

Now supporters of Johnson and Truss hate supporters of Sunak and vice versa. The remaining moderate Conservatives Johnson did not purge in 2019, hate Suella Braverman and the other far rightists Sunak has brought in to shore up his position, and, of course, they hate the supporters of Truss and Johnson as well.

I put up this piece at the end of last year. If you want to know why UK politics will be stymied until the next election, it can still provide an answer.

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Boris Johnson’s poison lives after him

1 Dec 2022

Now Boris Johnson is out of power he’s performing the only role that ever suited him. He’s an entertainer again. An amusing and an essentially harmless figure. Or so you might think.