Who can retool the Conservative Party (UK) post-May?

[DaWN]

The Conservative party survived Blair, it'll probably survive this. With how terminally useless Corbyn's Labour is, they might not even end up leaving government for a while yet (although admittedly they're crap enough that they will probably do the best they can to make sure he does win).

But who to take it forward? Considering the clear lack of anyone who could even remotely both do the job and be acceptable the broader party? That's a difficult one.

In terms of May's immediate successor, it'll be whichever senior cabinet minister the party hates the least by the time she goes. If I had to put money on it, at the moment I'd say Hunt, but Javid or anyone else who's name isn't Philip Hammond is a possibility. I won't envy whoever it is, going into what is the most poisoned of poisoned chalices, with the only respite being an easy time at PMQs because Corbyn will probably forget what country he's in or do something else crap and useless.

In the long term, it of course depends what happens - if Brexit causes the entire political establishment to just wash away (like I'm desperately hoping it will, which means there's 0% chance it will happen) then it's probably irrelevant what the husk of a party does. If God hates Britain, then we're stuck with these idiots for a while yet, and the party will have to choose it's direction. At the moment, I'd say the 'loony right' option is the best bet for what'll happen. The membership probably wants it, there's going to be no shortage of Rees-Mogg wannabees in the future, and if (when) Brexit goes tits up, the 'we should have had an even harder Brexit!' brigade is going to have a very influencial voice. And besides, many of them must be thinking 'if Labour can turn into complete nutters, why can't we?' Importantly, what other wing of the party is going to take over? The Cameronites are utterly discredited, the one-nationers are irrelevant, anyone associated with May will be toxic for a long time.

So, TL;DR, in the short term the answer is 'whichever cabinet minister draws the short straw' and in the long term the answer is 'the Rees-Mogg brigade.' Fascinating stuff if you're not British, and more than enough to make you want to look and see what other countries it's easy to get citizenship of if you are.