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There have been times when party chiefs have sounded reasonably coherent on the surface – and alternate phases where they have sounded wildly irrational, yet continued to be cherished by party loyalists. Currently, it's far from that situation. A leading Tory didn't energize the audience when she addressed her conference, even as she presented the provocative rhetoric of migrant-baiting she believed they wanted.

The issue wasn't that they’d all arisen with a revived feeling of humanity; more that they lacked faith she’d ever be able to follow through. In practice, fake vegan meat. Conservatives despise that. One senior Conservative was said to label it a “New Orleans funeral”: noisy, animated, but ultimately a goodbye.

Future Prospects for this Party Having Strong Arguments to Make for Itself as the Most Historically Successful Democratic Party in Modern Times?

Some are having another squiz at one contender, who was a hard “no” at the beginning – but now it’s the end, and everyone else has departed. Others are creating a interest around a rising star, a 34-year-old MP of the latest cohort, who presents as a Shires Tory while filling her social media with border-control messaging.

Is she poised as the figurehead to counter the rival party, now surpassing the Tories by a significant margin? Can we describe for defeating opponents by becoming exactly like them? Moreover, assuming no phrase fits, maybe we can use an expression from combat sports?

If You’re Enjoying These Developments, in a Schadenfreude Way, in a Consequence-Based Way, One Can See Why – Yet Completely Irrational

One need not examine America to grasp this point, or consult Daniel Ziblatt’s groundbreaking study, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: every one of your synapses is emphasizing it. Moderate conservatism is the essential firewall resisting the extremist factions.

The central argument is that democracies survive by keeping the “propertied and powerful” happy. Personally, I question this as an guiding tenet. It feels as though we’ve been catering to the privileged groups for ages, at the cost of the broader population, and they rarely appear adequately satisfied to cease desiring to take a bite out of social welfare.

Yet his research goes beyond conjecture, it’s an thorough historical examination into the pre-Nazi German National People’s Party during the interwar Germany (in parallel to the British Conservatives around the early 1900s). Once centrist parties becomes uncertain, when it starts to adopt the rhetoric and symbolic politics of the extremist elements, it transfers the direction.

There Were Examples Some of This Throughout the EU Exit Process

Boris Johnson cosying up to an influential advisor was a clear case – but radical alignment has become so evident now as to eliminate competing Conservative messages. What happened to the established party members, who treasure continuity, preservation, governing principles, the national prestige on the international platform?

What happened to the reformers, who defined the nation in terms of economic engines, not powder kegs? To be clear, I wasn’t wild about either faction as well, but it’s absolutely striking how such perspectives – the one nation Tory, the modernizing wing – have been eliminated, replaced by ongoing scapegoating: of immigrants, religious groups, welfare recipients and protesters.

They Walk On Stage to Melodies Evoking the Opening Credits to Game of Thrones

And talk about positions they oppose. They describe rallies by elderly peace activists as “festivals of animosity” and display banners – national emblems, English symbols, all objects bearing a bold patriotic hues – as an direct confrontation to anyone who doesn’t think that being British through and through is the ultimate achievement a human can aspire to.

We observe an absence of any built-in restraint, where they check back in with core principles, their historical context, their own plan. Whatever provocation the Reform leader presents to them, they’ll chase. Therefore, no, there's no pleasure to watch them implode. They’re taking democratic norms into the abyss.