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There is always hope! 
No Parliament can repeal the laws of economics. Whilst, to quote Hirohito ‘We must endure the unendurable.‘, there is a real Prester John in the faraway land of Argentina, where a zero weekly inflation rate in food prices has been registered for the first time in 30 years, and a truly libertarian President is doing great things.
So let us adapt and cherry-pick the words of Winston Churchill:
‘…And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, it will carry on, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old…‘.
But if that doesn’t come to pass, it will just be more of the same, faster, until what can’t carry on any longer, doesn’t.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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You British are so contrarian! Europe votes for right-wingers, and you go left!
Nicholas,
It actually is more a case of apathy overwhelming the anti-Left vote and the turn out of around 60% was the second-lowest in a General Election in recent years. So the tide of anti-Left votes has fallen and the core Left vote has remained (relatively) buoyant. Many seats had incredibly close races, one was decided by 20 votes.
But maybe we will look over the water to France on Monday and see another ‘stitch-up’ as the Left manoeuvre to avoid a RN victory.
The Conservatives and Reform split-the-vote – including here in Kettering.
As a result of that vote splitting the United Kingdom will get even higher government spending, taxes and regulations and far more “Woke” (“Critical Theory”) censorship and persecution.
It is indeed quite possible that this blog (samizdata.net) will be closed down as “ist” and “phobe” (“racist-sexist-homophobic-transphobic-Islamophobic”) and “climate denying”.
If the Conservatives and Reform do not merge there is no hope for liberty in the United Kingdom – there may be no hope anyway, due to the tidal wave of censorship and persecution that is coming, but there is no hope at all unless we unite our efforts.
I remind people that I always type under my own name – both here and on X (formally Twitter) and Facebook.
If my dear friends at “Central Office” do not like the truth – then they can do their worst in attacking me, as they have led the Conservative Party to its worst defeat in history. I collapsed on Thursday afternoon, I “lost” several hours passed out, but I still went to the count and did not leave to about 0630 this morning – and I am typical of ordinary Conservatives around the country who did all we could (in spite, in many cases, severe health problems – in some cases far MORE severe than my health problems) – did all we could in impossible circumstances due to the division between Conservatives and Reform in the voting.
I repeat – if there is to be any hope for liberty in the United Kingdom, any hope for the British people, then this vote splitting, this “division on the right”, must be ended.
As a British Army colleague of mine always used to say about election promises: “More of the same… only better!“
Paul:
No, Reform did not split the vote.
The Conservatives forfeited any expectation of a vote from anyone who voted Reform (some of whom might be apolitical or formerly Labour in any event) by their conduct over the past 14 years, spending every second of every day in power over £3,750 a second from borrowing and adding to the National Debt, plus all the other fringe benefits.
Your statement suggests a sense of entitlement to a vote that has to be earned. The sooner that accursed, groaning Party fades away, the better.
You cannot merge a cake with a cowpat and hope to have a more appealing offering.
Yes Mr Ed – Argentina shows that rolling back the state is possible, if the right is united.
The vote splitting must end – but for the vote splitting to end the practice of giving in to officials and “experts” must also end.
For example, despicable people are laughing at the defeat of Liz Truss – but this lady did NOT lose because of her budget, she lost because she gave in to the blackmail of the Bank of England and the rest of the Corporate State and, in effect, reversed the budget (far from “the budget crashed the economy” the budget never went into effect).
The idea that a Bank of England that did not bat an eyelid at over 400 Billion Pounds of counter productive (it most certainly did NOT “save lives”) Covid spending (on lockdowns and so on), was really concerned by “the deficit” supposedly to be caused by tax cuts is an obvious lie.
The Bank of England and the “private enterprise” international corporations that depend upon the drip feed of Credit Money were lying – they were obviously lying. They were making a point, not about the deficit, but about the international tax cartel they hope to create – with much the same tax rates everywhere, international tyranny (sorry international “governance”) – on taxes, government spending and regulations. With democracy, they hope, reduced to a hollow farce – with people still being allowed to vote, but however they vote much the same taxes and regulations (for example on “climate” and “health) enforced all over the Western world.
The fatal error of Liz Truss was to give in to them – although, yes, it is a lot easier to demand that other people show courage rather than to show courage one’s self – in the place of Prime Minister Truss I might well also have given in, the pressure put upon the lady was savage. And her name reduced to an insult – by an international propaganda campaign that showed what the powers (both government and corporate – not that there is any real distinction any more as they are joined-at-the-hip by the Credit Money system) are really like. Just how utterly vile the international establishment is.
In what parallel universe is the current Conservative Party on the right? They had every hallmark of an incompetent ultra left wing government. I was supposed to vote for them anyway because voting Reform would let Labour in? It is the people who still voted Conservative anyway despite how bad they are that are to blame.
Paul,
Just accept the fact that voting for your conservative candidate because he was a jolly good bloke was a bad idea.
Mr Ed – you can not repeal the laws of mathematics. And if you read my comments you will see that there was no “sense of entitlement” regarding votes – quite the contrary.
The “right” vote was split between the Conservatives and Reform – with the Conservatives getting most of it, but Reform getting a large slice of it.
That is the truth whether “Central Office” likes it or not.
That is why the parties must come together – and YES that coming together must be on the basis of rejecting the power of officials and “experts” (both government and corporate) including on high government spending which you RIGHTLY condemn.
But I should have mentioned Mr Andrew Bridgen – and I did not, for which I apologise.
Mr Bridgen hoped that his brave stand on exposing the injustice done to the postmasters, and his brave stand in trying to expose the harm done by the Covid “vaccines” would translate into votes – it-did-not.
In North West Leicestershire the election was much the same as it was elsewhere – with the right vote being split, the Conservatives getting most of it, but Reform getting a large slice of it. Hence Labour wins.
Ignoring mathematics and ignoring political history, how political parties are built up over centuries (yes centuries) via local networks, is a fatal error.
Mr Bridgen is a brave man – but courage did not lead to victory, indeed his vote (in spite of all his brave stands over the years) was quite small.
The vote splitting must stop – the Conservatives and Reform must come together.
But that can NOT be on the basis of endless giving in to officials.
Suella Braverman, and some others, understand this (at least I believe they do) – they understand that the power of officials must be rejected.
Whether enough senior Conservatives understand it remains to be seen.
If (if) they do not, even now, understand it – then Mr Ed is correct and the Conservative Party will cease to exist, but that will NOT mean a Reform Party victory.
The only path to victory is for the parties to come together (especially at the local level – the local support networks) – but that must be on a basis of rejecting the power of officials, both nationally and internationally.
It was tragic to see people at the count (indeed the counts up and down the country) who should be working together, being opposed to each other.
Labour laughs at this division – and they are correct to do so.
What was done in Alberta Canada must be done here – the parties of the right must come together to defend liberty.
It may already be too late for the United Kingdom – but we still must try.
John.
Philip Hollobone was a “Spartan” – he was one of the group of Members of Parliament who rejected Mrs May’s sell out deal with the European Union.
He also voted against the Equality Act – and given the vicious campaign against anyone who dared question that Act (screams of “racist” and so on) it took incredible courage to vote against the measure.
At this time the United Kingdom needs people who can help bring the right together – not people who think I (or anyone else) vote for someone because they think they are a “good bloke”.
Writing this comment I have had to remind myself to be polite – and I hope I have succeeded.
I must choke back anger, as many other people must do so – if we are to have any chance of bringing the right together.
It may be too late for the United Kingdom – but we must still try.
The Conservatives aren’t a party of the right. What evidence makes you believe they are?
The Conservatives do not come within the class ‘the parties of the right‘. At £3,750 a second of National Debt added over their last 14 years, they are simply the seat warmers and water-carriers for the parties of the Left.
Stuart Noyes and Mr Ed.
Please read my previous comments.
I get what Paul is saying about the mathematics of our voting system, in my constituency the sitting Conservative almost lost to Labour, Reform came third. Maybe some individual Conservatives are on the right but collectively the party are now on the Left and that is where I feel that Paul’s argument falls down. The right vote isn’t being split by the existence of Reform because Reform are the only party that are currently on the right. I refuse to vote Conservative because they hate and despise me and in return I hate and despise them. In the absence of an alternative I would have spoiled the ballot again. I would like to see Reform become an established centre right party, the only way that is going to happen is if they keep getting a significant proportion of the vote as something to build upon. I don’t see any way that our current near terminal decline can be halted.
I’m sorry Paul. You assert the Conservatives are on the right. I fail to read any evidence from you that the party is right wing. Public debt has risen. The country has been flooded by foreign people. The number of ways we can be criminalised has risen. Wokery has run amock. Foreign jurisdiction has continued in the uk.
You haven’t answered the question but then your loyalty is to the Conservative party. A party member?
Writing this comment I have had to remind myself to be polite – and I hope I have succeeded.
I must choke back anger, as many other people must do so – if we are to have any chance of bringing the right together.
It may be too late for the United Kingdom – but we must still try.
I am angry though. Angry at people too scared to vote for the only party that was guaranteed to give the status quo the mother of all shakings. But no, as I said before, they kept a’hold of nurse for fear of meeting something worse – which was always going to happen anyway after 14 years wasted by the Conservative, Spartans included.
Reform may have only won five seats but came second in over a hundred. How many timid Tories finally developing a backbone and putting their country first would it have taken to multiply those seats five or even tenfold?
Reform came second in nearly 100 constituencies, in the next election they will be the challengers for wobbly Labour seats not the Conservatives, perhaps it is time for the Conservatives to bow down and not stand and let their votes go to Reform, simply because people now see Reform as a real right-wing alternative.
Paul – You’re delusional.
Reform did not win this election by “splitting the vote”. The Tories lost it by being failures even on their own terms and being rejected by their own base.
Same with the SNP, their failures in government, their championing of laws that the general public objected to (Gender ID et al) and their failure to move Independence forward meant they were abandoned by their own base.
Was that the fault of Reform as well? Clearly not.
Labour support barely twitched the dial, even in Scotland it was largely apathy that “won for Labour”.
The Tories were told, time and again what they needed to do to motivate their own support and they refused to do it (or felt unable to do it).
That’s why their own supporters abandoned them.
Unfortunately, it’s quite possible that under a Conservative party led by somebody on the centre-right within the Tory party (i.e. to the right of the Tory centre) such as Robert Jenrik or Kemi (she’s not on the right no matter what the BBC say), will talk the talk and manage to substantially increase their number of MPs next time round, at the expense of Reform.
It would be nice if the party could be led by Suella and the two parties make a pact at the next election, but I see this as highly unlikely.
Reform’s best hope lies in tacking to the left on economic issue, and staying to the ‘right’ on immigration. We may not like it but there is no alternative. The Richard Tice image of a genteel mildly libertarian conservative has not got a big fan base in this country.
The tories had a majority of 80, and they lost 250 seats (let that sink in!) mainly to a party that had so disgusted a significant section of its core that they switched to the tories. This was unprecedented (I’m not sure if that was absolutely true, but it can’t have been far off).
Within 5 years, this has been turned into, I think, the worst tory defeat ever.
Who’s fault is that other than the tories themselves? How can it possibly be anybody else’s?
Just consider how little they had to do to retain, if not all of the red wall, at least some of it, and probably most of the “spilt” vote as well (and there likely would be no reform).
For the first time since 1992, I voted tory in 2019 “to get brexit done”. I would have voted for them yesterday (postal actually) if I had seen the slightest hint of some genuine attempt to even consider it.
@John Galt
Yes, they simply REFUSED to do ANYTHING. They wanted to lose, what other possible conclusion is there?
As for merging with reform. These are political parties, not farms, and we are not livestock who can just all be put in the same pen (although that is clearly how we are viewed!)
I think Paul and Mr Ed are arguing at cross purposes. The VOTERS who voted for the Conservatives and for Reform are broadly on the right. The creatures that were elected to Parliament under the “Conservative” banner in 2010, 2015, 2017, 2019 were – in the main – not on the right. Thus the Conservative Party in Parliament doesn’t have much in common with its own voters, or the voters of the Reform Party.
I have not seen the line up of surviving Tory MPs, but I doubt there are more than a dozen who could reasonable decribed as on the right.
The driving impulse of the Conservative Party since 1997 has been fear of being seen as out of touch with the modern world. They are terrified of BBC interviewers. But since 2010 a second fear has arisen – the fear of the Faragists (anti EU and on the right, though hardly “hard” right.) Cameron decided that they were rubes who could be fooled into supporting him in 2015 in exchange for an EU referendum that he was bound to win, he thought.
But he lost. But the Tories under Mrs May decided that they would pretend not to have lost and that they would therefore, very very slowly, pretend to leave the EU.
Farage folded his tent and went home after winning the referendum, naively assuming Brexit would happen, so this shows that the Tory party in Parliament will only move to the right when it is faced with a scourge. Which – after three years of their pretending to pursue an EU withdrawal, returned in the EU elections of 2019 when they got 9% of the vote. The immediate fear of being outflanked by the Faragists temporarily overcame their primal fear – the fear of being called fuddy duddy on the BBC.
Which is how we got Boris and, amazingly, Brexit. But then they reverted to type. And here we are.
The point is – the problem with unifying the right (ie the representation of vaguely right wing and centre-right voters) is the Tory Party in Parliament. Not the Tory Party per se. And history shows that the Tory Party in Parliament will not budge unless it temporarily fears Farage more than it fears the BBC.
The trouble now is that the Tories will see an enemy on the right (Reform) and an enemy that has stolen a lot of “their” seats on the left (the Lib Dems) and the existence of the second enemy will dilute their fear of the first. They will assume that Farage will lose interest again and Reform voters will return to the fold. I see little prospect of sorting out the Tory Party in Parliament – although this is, because of the election result, the perfect time to do it.
If I were elected Tory leader (ha ha) I would clean the stables – it matters not whether there are 120 Tory MPs, or 60. I’d just clear out the bulk of those who are irredeemable Lib Dems, make sure no Lib Dems get selected as a candidate, and fight the next election as an actual Conservative Party.
PS Of the very many stupid and incomprehensible things that Boris did, one of the stupidest was to pardon several of the Tory MPS who broke the whip to try to prevent Brexit. It was a perfect opportunity to get em out and keep em out. It would also have served to encourager les autres, and leaving aside the complete incompetence (which nobody at all expects Labour to have any difficulty in topping) – the complete breakdown of party discipline in the Tory Party in Parliament 2019-2024 is a major contributor to people perceiving them as a useless shower.
While they have the likes of Alicia Kearns, Rishi Sunak and Tom Tugendhat as MPs, the Conservative Party is not on the ‘right’, and Reform should resist blandishment from the Tories. They will only betray Farage and his voters.
I thought this was a somewhat good ‘normie’ take on the Tories:
https://conservativehome.com/2024/07/05/requiem-for-the-lotus-eaters/
The UK has just decided to have Mr Thompson from Atlas Shrugged as Prime Minister.
The Conservative Party’s obsession with pandering to people who would never vote for them is what destroyed them. STOP PALLYING UP TO PEOPLE WHO THINK YOU ARE SCUM.
Lee Moore,
A very interesting analysis.
Much of what we see is simply emergent behaviour arising from the voting system. FPTP naturally favours a two party system, and in a two party system the way to win elections is to ignore your base, because they have nowhere else to go, and play for the middle. When both parties follow this strategy it inevitably leads to two indistinguishable centrist parties.
One thing I think we should import from the US is to elect the executive separately from the legislature. I thoroughly detest the practice of governing parties casually replacing prime ministers.
Rouè:
Keep in mind, however, that governing parties casually replacing PMs (or PMs casually changing coalition partners, which has pretty much the same result) is much easier with proportional representation.
Is it reasonable to think that Farage made a strategic mistake in running so many candidates, instead of focusing on constituencies where the Tory candidate is “wetter” than the median voter?
“…if we are to have any chance of bringing the right together.”
The conservative party’s mechanisms of control have been centralised over the last thirty years, in fact the selection of Tory candidates has been wrested from the local constituency party to the control of CCO. The Tory party talk a ‘good book’ about localism but when it comes to the organisation of their own party, they prefer central command. Then that repulsive shit Cameron introduced ‘reforms’ ( changed the form of ) the selection of candidates, to make the party even more WOKE.
All that work, corralling the ‘right’ into one convenient easily manipulated operation, going down the drain, it must be quite frustrating to watch.
The last thing Reform should do is to put itself under control of, or affiliate to, Conservative party Central Office.
Is it reasonable to think that Farage made a strategic mistake in running so many candidates, instead of focusing on constituencies where the Tory candidate is “wetter” than the median voter?
That would be most of them. Given that the polls and projections implied the Tories would finish with 80-140 MPs – even before Farage stepped in as a candidate – then maybe there was something to be said for identifying the, say, 80 most Reform-friendly sitting Tory MPs and not fielding a Reform candidate against them. Maybe that could have saved say 50 Tory MPs who lean Reformist and so influenced the electorate for the next Tory leadership contest, and the conduct of business thereafter. As it is I suspect the Tory rump is even “wetter” than the pre-election lot.
But even those Tory MPs who lean right / Reform have spines of jelly (with a handful of exceptions.) And part of the problem is jelly-spine. As Mary Harrington points out in the piece above – there was not a lot of speaking out about the last Tory government’s follies, from Tory MPs.
Piers Fletcher-Dervish is not a caricature, he’s a portrait from life.
Following on from Lee’s comments, this question seems to be predicated on the assumption that the purpose of Reform is to get the Conservative Party ‘back on track’ and make (rather than ‘keep’) it honest. Underlying that is the assumption that the Conservatives have a ‘Divine Right’ to rule, which they only occasionally forfeit for a while to Labour. Reform had absolutely no reason to spare any Conservative MP, and one rumour is that Mr Sunak called a snap election in the hope of catching Reform and Labour on the hop, and so make them falter (the other rumour I am aware of is that he had been told war with Russia may be imminent and he wanted out before it got kinetic and he was a target).
Just look at the Conservative Manifesto for this recent election, what a pile of crap.
Here is the full pdf.
May I emphasise:
So Lenin-style forced labour for young people, because the schools we run are crap and we can’t change that.
Just who has been in charge of ‘roads’ for the last 14 years? Why not cancel the whole HS2 (High Speed Train from London to Birmingham)
How come this didn’t happen when you had an 80-seat Commons majority?
I.e. we’ve lumbered you with these costs and we won’t add any more, but FU if you want them gone.
Translation: We are going to f*ck you over again at the drop of a hat and we caused the inflation to cover the £400,000,000,000 we blew, allowing our friends to get lucrative contracts and we know we have shafted your children and grandchildren. That is around £5,700 per person (not taxpayer) in the UK.
I can’t be bothered to go through any further points from the Conservative Manifesto, which was in its own right, the UK’s Death Warrant.
Thanks to Lee Moore and Mr Ed.
I’d like to clarify that my idea of Reform focusing on constituencies with “wetter” candidates was not meant only to save the seats of “drier” Tory MPs, but also to allocate more Reform resources where they can make a difference, and none where they can’t.
Snorri,
I think that for Reform, this was all about ‘establishing a beachhead’, never about winning. Knowing that the Conservatives would lose and that there was no fundamental peril from that, as the Conservatives carrying on and Labour getting in were the difference (politically) between an aggressive cancer and a degenerative disease of the nervous system, the latter is inevitably fatal and the former highly likely to be, they had to start from somewhere and that time had come. It made no difference if they won 5 or 25 MPs, they had c. 4,000,000 votes and they have a narrative and a presence. The end of the beginning, that is what it is for them.
It made no difference if they won 5 or 25 MPs, they had c. 4,000,000 votes and they have a narrative and a presence.
Somebody said on one of the Election TV shows that if you get 6 MPs you get a deluge of taxpayers’ money. They’ll be missing out on that. I wonder if Sinn Fein have to turn up to collect their cash, or whether they can just ask for a cheque in the post ? Or maybe they prefer cash – they certainly used to.
It might also be noted that Reform didn’t do a great deal better than UKIP in 2015, though back then they had rather more of an organisation and ’twas pre referendum, to give them a bit of wind in their sails.
Lee M,
You are referring to what is called ‘Short Money‘, after the MP who brought in the wheeze in the 1970s. A party with 2 or more MPs, or 1 MP and over 150,000 votes gets around 20p per vote (in blocks of 200) and so that makes around £871,986 p.a. for Reform, plus around £21k per MP, so that fifth MP brings in another £21k, making over £975,000 pa in State funding for Parliamentary work.
But a party’s MPs have to swear the oath of allegiance, so Sinn Fein lose out on their potential share of the funding. They do get some funding for MPs offices and travel, but much less than what they might get.