It’s been years since elections were called “the celebration of democracy” but in the UK they still know how to turn elections into a party. In London’s most political clubs they prolong the whisky at dinner as long as necessary to follow the countdown as if watching a football match. It’s a long time and, consequently, there may be a lot of drinks, but in a country with a passion for betting, watching live whether Chichester remains conservative or North Somerset swings to Labour is accompanied by the cheers we usually reserve for penalty shoot-outs.
In the conservatory toryIn the Pall Mall, there was never more cheering than at the election in the autumn of 2019. At three or four in the morning, when the drinks gave way to the sausages and bacon of an English breakfast, the satisfaction was exuberant. There was no need to wait for more results. Boris Johnson won with a majority not seen since the most glorious days of Thatcherism. Constituencies that were left-wing before Labour was invented had voted Conservative. The north of England, the hard and sallow part of the country, forgot its historical grievances with the Toriesto do what had never been done before: vote for them. They trusted in the promise that Boris Johnson had made to flatter their protectionist instincts, that is, to complete a successful Brexit. That was a night of brilliance for the Conservatives: they remained, as they have imagined themselves since the time of Disraeli, “the party of the nation”. The defeat toryis proportional to the misappropriated trust.
The ToriesThey have had bad times: the last one, under Blair, lasted a decade. The current defeat, however, is of a devastation that threatens to be existential. In retrospect, that glow of the last majority was the last flicker of light before going out. If anyone thinks it was easy to beat Corbyn, they must be astonished that the Conservatives have handed victory to a man like Starmer, who yesterday was their laughing stock and today has seen his insipidity, his moderation and his attachment to forms claimed as virtues. There is something counterintuitive here: let us remember that Johnson did everything – even aesthetically – to look like Winston Churchill. Now we can only remember it by closing our eyes, but it is more than an anecdote: in large part the Toriesdrunk on the past, have been in recent years an anachronistic and nationalist caricature of what they were.
In a democracy there is no such thing as “national parties”: nations vote as they please. The proof is this Thursday. But, in addition, the nation is changing and the ToriesThey have not realized it, immersed as they were in their solipsism. Their power machinery has degenerated into internal power games: it is difficult to know, beyond the acronyms, what could have united Cameron with Sunak or Truss in the eyes of the voters. And if the European question took several prime ministers down — Major, Cameron himself — whoever wonders if the effects of Brexit have been so negative, may well start by looking at what we have before our eyes: the destruction it has caused in a party-institution such as the ToriesIt is no consolation to think that a just Sunak is paying for sinners like Johnson and Truss, because the diagnosis now being followed is not good either: Brexit and its trimmings – protectionism, nationalism, and so on – constitute an autoimmune disease. We have already seen that it can corrode a giant. And, when it comes to being a pub loudmouth, Nigel Farage has no competition.
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