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July 7, 2024 - 1:00pm
When did the Conservative Party begin its life? The conventional account locates its founding to the first part of the 19th century under Robert Peel. Others go back much further, to William Pitt the Younger and even to the English Civil War, painting āa continuous tradition from Strafford, Laud and Charles Iā to the present day. The only true answer seems to be that no one really knows: its origins are simply lost in the mist of English history, with which its destiny has been intertwined over the centuries.
Until Thursday night, before the exit polls offered a last-second commutation, the country was faced with the prospect of the Tories ā the worldās oldest continuously existing political party ā being wiped out entirely. It responded that it did not care. A quarter of 2019 Tory voters said the party deserved zero seats. Another poll showed that 0% of girls between the ages of 16 and 17 supported them. The party looked as if it was, quite literally, going to die out.
It is difficult to imagine England without Tories. It would be like Trollope without the steeples, Dickens without London, Wodehouse without mad baronets. Yet in many ways it is already a reality. As Samuel McIlhaggaās recent tour of Conservative clubs showed, large parts of the centuries-old social infrastructure of the party have long collapsed, like the ruins of the temples of some ancient religion denuded of meaning. A party which once seamlessly commanded support from the highest classes to the lowest has essentially abandoned the urbanised, the university-educated, and anyone below the state pension age.
Perhaps Toryism has been running on fumes which have just run out. Then again, people said the same sort of thing a century ago, when the long-dreaded universal suffrage became a reality ā its one great casualty actually turned to be the Liberal Party. And though it will command over 400 seats, Labourās vote share in England has barely budged upward; in parts of the country (as well as in Wales), it actually fell. Without Reformās last-minute intervention, the result might have looked very different, though defeat would not have been averted.
Tomorrow, there will still be a Tory Party. It can take comfort in the fact that it has not been superseded by Reform ā yet. It should worry that it came so near to dying with barely a murmur of protest from anyone. It should dread the fact that so many of its traditional supporters not only turned against it, but wished for its total destruction. Deep roots are not reached by the frost; the question is whether the ground has thawed permanently.
Yuan Yi ZhuĀ is an assistant professor at Leiden University and a research fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford.
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SubscribeMuch of the rhetoric of the so called One Nation wing of the Conservative Party since the election – the likes of George Osborne, Ruth Davidson, Jo Johnson and Gavin Barwell – has been of the āno surrender to the electorateā variety. Their siren calls are a 5% strategy – similar to the experience of the Republicans in France who slumped to 20% (then considered a disaster) in 2017 presidential election, but refused to give up their ācentristā shibboleths, and are at 5% now, having watched remaining voters decamp to the RN. Nevertheless it is striking also how large the combined Labour, Lib Dem and Green lead over the Conservatives and Reform is, and unsettling to see rural voters in Suffolk and Herefordshire collate behind the very radical Green Party, just to give the Tories a kicking. Uniting the Right may be practically impossible when its electorate is moving in different directions.
Just like the terms “left” and “right”, the party terms “Labour” and “Conservative (Tory)” are built on shifting sand. One of the great survival mechanisms of the Tories has been its ability to adapt to survive, based upon the prevailing conditions during the industrial and technocratic revolutions.
Labour, for instance, is so clearly no longer a party based upon its roots in the industrialised swathes of manual labour which gave rise to trades unions, despite the remaining affiliation. The leader most responsible for this desertion of its roots was, of course, Blair.
If the Tories can find someone with the same kind of (initial) appeal, they could eventually regroup. The question is: what are the chances of that?
As Mary Harrington alluded to in yesterday’s article, Boris Johnson had just such an opportunity which was squandered due to the almost immediate impact of Covid and his own bewilderment of what ‘government’ involved.
What will be interesting over the next parliamentary term is how the process of a ‘right of centre’ regrouping evolves, and the kind of people attracted to a career in politics. Reform, with it’s foothold of five MPs shows promise in that each of those MPs has something about them other than just the usual parliamentary fodder. Can they attract a younger element? The very name of the party suggests something other than Toryism, which either may prove a burden since a party can try to become a constant source of reform or will die by that sword. I thought it was an unfortunate choice to make when it evolved from the Brexit party.
In the end, as per my opening point: do labels matter? If the parliamentary performance of Reform proves to be as effective as its leader suggests it’s going to be, a crucial test will come in the first by-elections; impetus will be everything.
Barely a murmur of protest? The Conservatives are a political party, not an aged and infirm auntie. No political party has a right to exist. It is up to them to re-win the trust of the people.
What’s altogether more interesting is why North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley went Green. The Greens think of themselves as the real Socialists these days. But in 2019, the Conservatives won two thirds of the vote in both constituencies. So, what happened? Have these rural folk been on a political journey at breakneck speed, or what?
I think the dreadful pollution of the River Wye stirred people in N. Herefordshire. I’m not sure if those constituents have spent much time reading through the Green party’s manifesto on the website. They might not like much of what they find there.
People were voting AGAINST the Conservatives, however that might best be accomplished locally, for a number of different reasons. Since the government was obviously an utter shambles. There was mostly no particular enthusiasm for the alternatives, except possibly Reform (who however haven’t any track record in office yet) .
Are there in fact any mad baronets, specifically, in Wodehouse?
Important point. Spode, of Black Shorts fame, became Lord Sidcup. Sir Gregory Parslowe -Parslowe was a baronet, but no more deranged than any other Shropshire pig-fancier. Any other candidates?
God save Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse an unjustly maligned man in his own time and a great remedy for our present discontents.
Sir Derek Underwood in “Jill the Reckless,” I think. But he’s a rotter, rather than deranged.
Much like the Church of England/Scotland they no longer have the courage of their convictions. They have taken the moniker āThe nasty Partyā , applied by their foes, to heart, lest they be confused with a similar sounding German named party, and done everything to avoid it.
They should look across the pond, and see what having some conviction š means , even for a crass, boorish, orange man.
Leadership rule101, you need to believe in yourself before asking others to do the same.
The problem is that the Tory MPs have had too much belief in their own personal advancement and damn all in Conservative principles and values. Cameron was the epitome of this but it started long before.
Indeed, the Tories seem to have rather enjoyed the tradition. first pioneered by King Harold in 1066, of rushing down foolishly to join with the enemy on a ground of their choosing.
Perhaps it’s because they are a party of old men , living in past glories of the old empire, and their myths of greatness, who have lost all understanding of current realities and the problems of young people, and who offer no hope for the future.
Fair reflection of the Unherd audience tbh.
Robbie, this kind of mindless misjudgement reflects only on yourself, no-one else.
Macmillan dumped what was left of the Empire and tried to join the EEC. He was old but not living in past glories.
Your caricature is seventy years out of date…
But doesn’t having to reach 70 years back rather support the point of those current members being out of date and building on fictitious pasts?
The complaint isn’t about the past but the present.
Evidence
If only! We would be well placed indeed if more people were alive to the fact that the Empire is the crucial interpretative tool for understanding the future of British Society.
We might be better placed to make the best fist of our shared future it if more young people were taught about, for example, Palmerston and India and British statecraft in West Africa than Selma and the American Civil Rights Movement.
Why āmenā? Are there no Tory old women?
I do wish people would stop saying that itās only old people who supported the Tories. A lot of younger people, including those who are legal immigrants and their children, believe in the Britain they emigrated to and not what Britain is becoming under the global communofascist dictatorship of the elites.
The only reason labour ended up in this position is that the SNP vote collapsed.
If you look at the margins in England and wales, there is very little difference.
Please write about these things clearly, or make it clear that you are espousing your opinion only. For a site that supports clarity and integrity Iām disappointed.
There may be no appetite for the conservatives to represent Britain but that doesnāt mean there is no appetite for a centre right party built on the Christian values that have served this country well for two millennia.
Ehh?
This column reads like the essay of a bright sixth-former who naturally hasn’t lived long enough, or done enough research, to do any more than reproduce what he has learned from his teachers and limited sources.
‘Its [the Tory party’s] origins are simply lost in the mist of English history’? Oh yes, those notoriously foggy English mists. Don’t be silly. The origins of the party are complex but they are well known. They belong to a period of English history that is blessed with abundant source material. Wikipedia could have enlightened our author very quickly.
Trollope, Dickens, Wodehouse, check, check, check … has our author ever actually read any of these men’s books?
‘0% of girls between the ages of 16 and 17’ … what? There is no age between 16 and 17. Girls are either 16 or 17 and at that age in any case one has rather unformed ideas about politics.
‘A party which once seamlessly commanded support from the highest classes to the lowest has essentially abandoned the urbanised, the university-educated, and anyone below the state pension age’ … wouldn’t it be more accurate and natural to say that these groups have abandoned the party, rather than it abandoning them? On the other hand, the party has certainly abandoned some groups who might have hoped for its protection – e.g. non-urbanites, the self-employed, those who believe in the reality of biological sex …
This is terribly thin stuff for an assistant professor, even if his work at Leiden prevents him from taking the political temperature in the UK very often.
An excellent response expressing almost exactly the thoughts and feelings that came to me as I was reading the article.
The Tories never explain to the public what the benefits of conservatism are, whether Burkean, Anglican, Scrutonian – or of any sort –
I suspect this is because they have little understanding of this material themselves OR / AND presume the lumpen electorate have no interest
Zoomers just see bloated old windbags.
Corrupt, incompetent, self serving
We know that conservatism is non-doctrinal and a broad church and all that jazz.
But there is still good stuff in there that can sell itself.
What we need is a new wave of intelligent, articulate young political minds who can offer something appealing to a disillusioned public.
Of this, there is no sign.
Just a Left with their stale student union talking points on one side and some bickering old spivs on the other.
Weāll have to wait and see if Starmer manages to keep this aspect of the Labour Party under control. A tough job because itās the reason for a lot of people joining the Labour Party n the first place. Feminists, in particular, seem to see it as their party.
The very etymological obscurity of the name ‘Tory’ contains the germ of it’s own beautiful and self-denying strangeness.
It is, in point of fact, a Scotch Calvinist ethnic slur on Irish Episcopalian Loyalism. From the Gaelic Toraigh meaning brigand or bandit. From a time when the Gaelic Irish were rebels in arms for God and King against Scotch and English Presbyterian fundamentalists.
The fact that Toryism can still be coherent when the political and historical realities in which it was birthed are now so utterly inverted indicates that it is rather a pre-political tendency, rooted in the folk memory and soul of the nation,
It is nothing more or less than the political expression of the Ubi Sunt motif in creative tension with Great Amen . It’s origin lies deep in the English psyche. It is the basis of our most ancient and beautiful poems – Where has gone the horse? where the rider? where the giver of gold? It is John of Gaunt’s deathbed speech, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…, Donne’s Anniversary – ‘For there’s a kid of world remaining still…’ Wordsworth’s initmations on childhood, It is not now as it hath been of yore.
That is not to say the sentiment is uniquely English, I wouldn’t be qualified to argue whether it is or it isn’t but it is particularly strong and persistent in our national psyche.
As long as there is that in the heart of Englishmen which can recognise beauty and mourn it’s passing there will always be Toryism.