This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

Deputy Chair of the Tory Party.

https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1628472782450294786?s=20

He's obviously going to get a GB News gig after his leaves politics.

[Zinneke]

Reversing Cameron’s reforms feels like an express route to reliving the 8 years in the bleak, sub-200 seat wilderness that preceded his leadership. Nothing prolongs time in opposition like a purity spiral.

I just mean - vacating the centre-ground, as Labour races to claim it seems… tactically flawed.

And yet, what is different from the 2000s is that people won't stand anymore for bland Cameronite centrism. It's why Starmer's boring "I'm not the other guy" act means he isn't reaching the dizzy heights of personal approval rating as he should.

If the Tories go back to being what Cameron made them they will only win under similar circumstances to these : the alternative is so disastrous that they are just seen as a good stop gap.

But anyway there are clear contradictions between the libertarian southerners and Johnsonite northern Tory Mps with loads of subfactions. Will be interesting to see if the Tory party survives. Boris Johnson might actually have inadvertently earned himself forgiveness from God for all his sins by wiping out the disgusting institution almost single handedly.

[EastAnglianLefty]

But anyway there are clear contradictions between the libertarian southerners and Johnsonite northern Tory Mps with loads of subfactions.

This is a common belief, but there is in fact very little evidence that the (deep and severe) divisions in the parliamentary Conservative party map on to the geography of their seats in any coherent manner.

[Blair]

Yeah lots of the 2019 intake are right wing partisans because many are former Tory staffers who stood in these seats they never expected to win, or where needed at the last minute.

The other category is bone headed local councillors who were often made to run outside of their own council patch which errrrr tends to be a sign.

[Torrain]

Suspended Conservative MP David Warburton has stumbled into the news again:

Investigative reporting by the Times has unveiled a £25k donation to his campaign in 2019, which Warburton has now declared in the parliamentary register, *4 years late. As he never registered the cash with the Electoral Commission, there’s a chance this will lead to another criminal investigation into Warburton (who has allegations of both drug and sexual misconduct offences against him).

There’s also trouble back in his constituency of Somerton and Frome - where Frome Town Council has unanimously passed a resolution declaring no-confidence in Warburton (non-binding, just making a point). They claim he hasn’t held a single constituent surgery in the town since he had the whip withdrawn in 2022. Warburton denies this allegation.

[CumbrianLefty]

You might have thought he would actually have been charged with something by now....

[Torrain]

Another deselection:
https://twitter.com/JAHeale/status/1629212866308894721
Clarke resigned as a trade envoy in response to Johnson's handling of the Pincher affair - so this seems to be another round of Johnsonian revenge. She's currently on maternity leave (which she *claims* has been a source of tension with local membership, and a potential trigger of deselection).

Edit: Worth noting that locals have complained about constituent service from Clarke for several years, and about inadequate replacement for Clarke during her maternity leave, so this may be more straightforward than the original reports I read.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

This has nothing to do with any ambitions of his I'm sure.

https://twitter.com/journoontheedge/status/1629150518944714752?s=20

[CumbrianLefty]

A claim today that he wants the top NATO job

[Torrain]

Suella Braverman is having trouble finding a safe seat to run in, under the new boundaries, according to the Times.

She put herself forward for the new Fareham and Waterlooville constituency, but she's having to run against Flick Drummond, who's mounted a stiffer campaign, and is understood to be the frontrunner.

She also applied (as her backup option) to the candidate list for Hamble Valley, but she'd have to push out Paul Holmes (apparently a more plausible win for her), who been representing the area since 2019. If that fails, she's apparently looking at Windsor (where Adam Afriyie is retiring) as her last-ditch attempt (not sure that would be an ideal plan, given it's a Lib Dem facing seat that may not take kindly to her brand of politics).

One MP for a nearby seat said: “Suella struggled to get selected anywhere. She’s not a good selection performer. Her views are in line with the membership but she’s not very good at charming them, I’m not sure she’s member-friendly. She’s also been in the cabinet for quite a long time and that means your engagement with grassroots issues diminishes.”

The MP said the constituency she was eyeing up was “quite a home counties seat”. They said: “It’s a bit posher than you’d think, a bit less pro-Rwanda than you’d think. Even if the members there basically agree with her, they want to hear about softer stuff, not Rwanda. They’d rather have someone who they can have a nice chat to at an event about what was on TV that weekend.”

[Torrain]

A claim today that he wants the top NATO job

I'm sure that was met with a chuckle or two in Paris and Washington.

[Torrain]

Conservative Councillors in Blackpool South appear to have passed a motion of no confidence in Scott Benton, their 2019 intake MP.

I say appear, because they released a letter with uneven font, that, at one point mistakenly refers to their city as "Blackpoo". Which, I hasten to add, is something you should discuss with your GP.

It's all so weird that it could just be a hoax - but given the demographics of the Conservative Party these days, it may well just be an elderly councillor struggling with Microsoft Word.


If this is real, it'll be a tad ironic, given that Benton (someone who's gone full culture warrior, and railed against both "cultural marxism" and "cancel culture") will now have been "cancelled" himself.

[Conservatopia]

Of course Benton himself is a very weird MP. A gay pro-life culture warrior who was criticised by his (gay) Brexit Party opponent for being a (gay) homophobe.

[Conservatopia]

Every few months I take a break from my usual posting habits (puns, feuding with PQG, jokes about LolDems, puns, making fun of yankees, cynicism and puns), and instead attempt to produce something of value to the forum and stimulate discussion. I would appreciate it if the Britposters would have a read because, for once, I put some effort into this post.

Today I present my own personal theories on Tory factionalism. I will attempt to be impartial, hating everybody equally.

Factions of the Conservative Party

When reading this analysis it is important to remember that factionalism within the Tory party is not really very pronounced. The party is certainly divided, it always has been a coalition of ideas, but those divides are not as straightforward or as pronounced as those in the Labour Party. Perhaps this is because conservatism as an ideology is more fluid and less easy to define than socialism and social democracy are. Furthermore, because the Conservative Party is essentially the only party of influence on the British Right, this is more accurately a discussion of factions within British right-wing politics than of the Conservatives alone.

Division in what is now the Conservative and Unionist Party and the wider British Right stretches back to the Civil War in the 1640s, the divisions between Whigs and Tories in the 1700-1800s, the founding of the Conservative Party in 1843, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, the battles between Gladstone and Disraeli throughout the Victorian period, the decline of the Liberals and their gradual absorption by the Conservatives in the early to mid 1900s, the rise of Powell and Thatcherism in the 1970-80s and the more recent debate over the UK's place in Europe.

Each of these issues and divisions has left their mark on British right-wing politics. A politician today is not a Roundhead or a Cavalier, he isn't Gladstonian or Disraelian, he isn't even normally a Wet or a Dry, however, the heritage of these divisions marks an individual's politics, perhaps without them realising it. The easiest right-winger to analyse in order to illustrate this concept is the person I know best: myself.

My politics, like all right-wingers, are influenced by these divisions. The Civil War accounts for my republicanism and distrust of establishment institutions, whilst many Tories come down on the Cavalier side - monarchist and institutionalist. The split in the Conservative Party accounts for my relative progressivism when it comes to alleviating poverty and also my support for free trade. The division between Gladstone and Disraeli, accounts for my belief in the state's responsibility for morality and also my support for decentralisation. Everyone has a position on each of these issues and each of these issues has been a source of major division at some point in Britain's past. Thus anyone with consistent political beliefs can link their stance on a particular issue with a historical struggle.

Before I present my theory on what the amorphous factions actually are, it is perhaps necessary to discuss the issue of the European Union.

Historically much has been made of the splits within the Conservative Party over Europe. This is for good reason, divisions over Europe famously led to the downfall of Thatcher, Cameron and May and certainly played a role in the struggles faced by Major, Hague and Johnson. The reality now is different. Whilst Brexit may never be truly 'done', the divisions over the issue have largely dissipated. Those who were Remainers in 2016 have either left the party or become Brexiteer zealots and the actual question of EU membership is settled.

I have sought to divide the British Right into two amorphous camps. The membership of these camps is very fluid and certainly up for debate and there are wide internal divisions within the camps. The Historical PMs section in particular is very subjective. These factions should definitely not be taken as seriously as the more defined Labour factions but I will attempt to define them nonetheless. The names I have given the factions are based on a combination of how these people refer to themselves and how the press defines them. Note that these factions have as much to do with style and rhetoric as they do with actual policy. Such is often the case with British politics.


Common Sense Conservatives
The Johnson-Truss Axis
The Swashbuckling Pro-Growth Coalition
Headbangers and Lunatics
Populist Hooligans

Alignment: Centre-right to Far-right
Organisations: Tufton Street, Blue Collar Conservatism, Conservative Way Forward, Free Trade Forum
Prominent figures: Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Lee Anderson, Esther McVey, David Davis, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel
Religion: Catholicism, Islam, Money
Leadership votes: Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Cameron or Davis. Beyond this it gets very blurry.
EU Referendum: Generally pro-Leave but with a surprising number of Remainers.
Media: Spectator, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, GB News
Historical PMs: Winston Churchill, Robert Peel, Henry Temple, Benjamin Disraeli. The inclusion of the latter two shows how nebulous this group can be.

Built on the remains of the Thatcherite right of the party and now including more centrist figures attached to Boris Johnson (himself an arch-centrist) this faction was ascendent from 2019-22 and still holds considerable influence within the cabinet. It is also the faction that a large majority of the membership would align with and probably has a majority amongst backbenchers.

Profoundly populist and obsessed with the fabled "red wall" this faction really is a marriage of Thatcherism and Vote Leave. It takes a conservative stance on most social issues but shows its centrist influences when dealing with domestic financial issues. On the issue of free trade it is divided with both Trussite free-traders and those more supportive of protectionism.

This faction also seeks the culture war as its primary crusade and its members will typically be found on TV railing against "wokism" than discussing monetary policy. The libertarian obsession with reduction of taxes conflicts with their belief in the more progressive and populist "Levelling-up" agenda.

Tories for Stability
Cameron's Corpse
The Adults in the Room
Strong and Stable
Shiny White Teeth

Alignment: Centre to Right
Organistations: One Nation Group, Tory Reform Group, Bright Blue
Prominent figures: Rishi Sunak, Gavin Williamson, Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt, William Hague, Liam Fox, Damian Green, Grant Shapps
Religion: Irreligion, Church of England, but I repeat myself
Leadership votes: Rishi Sunak, Hunt or Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron.
EU Referendum: Mixture of Leavers and Remainers
Media: The Times, The Economist, Financial Times, mainstream TV
Historical PMs: Harold Macmillan, Stanley Baldwin, David Cameron

An expansion of the old Europhile wets who opposed Thatcher, but shorn of their more nationalist contingent and welded with technocratic economists and sprinkled with Cameroons. The fact that Rishi Sunak and Ken Clarke would both be members of this faction shows that it spans a broad spectrum.

In many ways these are the true conservatives in that they wish to preserve the status quo rather than breaking things like the other faction. Generally this faction is socially liberal but many of them simply don't care for the whole culture war and don't take any fixed position on its issues, but there are some who are strongly on the "woke" side like Caroline Nokes. Others like Michelle Donelan sometimes stake out a more conservative position.

As a result of this diminished focus on culture wars and also because Boris Johnson isn't part of this group, these people are often seen as the adults in the room, the better media performers, the ones who know what they're on about. This isn't unfair - after all these people didn't vote for Liz Truss.

Despite their preference for talking about economic issues they too don't offer much clarity on their views. True wets like Clarke have left the Commons and Sunak himself is undoubtedly a dry. Typically they show what we might describe as "fiscal caution" - keeping tax rates as they are, seeking to balance budgets, not tinkering with social programs, never scaring the markets. They also tend to be more "globalist" in their thinking, seeking to work with rather than against the EU and not seeking independence from US foreign policy.

Due to their being a more quiet, reserved group you would be forgiven for thinking that they are a small minority in the Conservative Party. This isn't the case and while their numbers may be declining, they still make up at least 35% of backbench MPs.

There are, of course, multiple unaligned politicians who are difficult to accurately place. Many historical politicians such as Thatcher or Gladstone are almost impossible to place into one faction or another and their ideas can be found in both camps. Indeed, it would be as foolish as describing a modern politician as a "Canningite" or a "Rockingham Whig". Factions are usually a product of their time. Nevertheless, to try and make my constructed factions easier to understand I have assigned some former PMs to the factions. I am therefore a fool, but a well-meaning one.

Conservative Prime Ministers typically build their cabinet from all the factions in their party and then rely on the loyalty of their faction on the backbench to get their word out and persuade colleagues. When Boris Johnson came to power he did not have a faction because he was a Eurosceptic One Nation Tory. However, by the time he left office the old factions had been upheaved and a Johnsonite faction had clearly begun to crystalise. This became more pronounced in the leadership race and government crisis that followed.

I believe these factions will last beyond the next election. I think the Conservatives will have roughly 260 MPs, fairly evenly split between the factions as it will be mainly red wall MPs who lose their seats, thus balancing out the two factions. The final two candidates in the leadership election of 2024 will probably be easily identifiable with the two factions. For example the matchup could be between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick (it won't be). Which faction will come out on top is difficult to say for certain but I imagine it would be the Johnsonite one, Sunak having just lost the election and the membership leaning towards the right. After that the new leader may cause another shift in the boundaries of the Tory factions as they seek to leave their mark on the party but unless they are a transformational leader, their lasting impact on the factional landscape will be fleeting.

[CumbrianLefty]

If this is real, it'll be a tad ironic, given that Benton (someone who's gone full culture warrior, and railed against both "cultural marxism" and "cancel culture") will now have been "cancelled" himself.

It seems real enough, however several signatories are apparently based in the other Blackpool seat.

[Torrain]

Not the biggest news this week - but we have another retirement:
https://mobile.twitter.com/WalkerWorcester/status/1631679809075003392
Walker represents one of those seats that was Tory under Thatcher and Major, Labour under all three Blair wins, and has voted Conservative ever since.

A one-nation conservative (so much so he married the CEO of one of Tony Blair’s foundations), he’s another loss for the centrist wing of the party - although, with a majority of only 6,700, in a classic bellwether seat, he was probably gone anyway.

He’s also part of an odd small faction who pushed to hold an EU Referendum in 2014, but ended up backing Remain in 2016.

**

Also, worth saying - intrigued by Conservatopia’s breakdown of the factional war in the party. It really does seem like the party is doomed to stay split between some variation on Thatcher’s infamous “drys” and “wets”, generation after generation.

[Cassius]

Not the biggest news this week - but we have another retirement:
https://mobile.twitter.com/WalkerWorcester/status/1631679809075003392
Walker represents one of those seats that was Tory under Thatcher and Major, Labour under all three Blair wins, and has voted Conservative ever since.

A one-nation conservative (so much so he married the CEO of one of Tony Blair’s foundations), he’s another loss for the centrist wing of the party - although, with a majority of only 6,700, in a classic bellwether seat, he was probably gone anyway.

He’s also part of an odd small faction who pushed to hold an EU Referendum in 2014, but ended up backing Remain in 2016.

**

Also, worth saying - intrigued by Conservatopia’s breakdown of the factional war in the party. It really does seem like the party is doomed to stay split between some variation on Thatcher’s infamous “drys” and “wets”, generation after generation.

As an addendum, Walker happens to be the son of Thatcher’s ex-Viceroy of Wales and all-round Heathite and Wet Peter Walker, who also represented Worcester for many years.

Anyway, I enjoyed Conservatopia’s take on the Tory factions. My two pence would simply be that most of the Tory ‘moderates’ are either posh or people who’ve done the traditional uni-to-professional-career-in-London pipeline (or both) and thus want to remain on good terms with the liberal establishment in this country, whereas the headbangers generally very much aren’t either of those things. Isn’t a fixed rule of course (see Rees-Mogg, Jacob) and there is an age and time of election divide (much older posh and/or professional MPs being more likely to be headbangers). There’s also an element of sinistrism at work (Hague used to be considered much more right-wing, but now that he’s achieved ‘grandee’ status he’s now a leading ‘Tory moderate’).

I’d also argue that it’s pointless to try and categorise people like the Tub of Lard and E.T. in Drag, given that their North Star is ‘gib me attention pls’ and thus will say and do literally anything.

[Blair]

The Conservatives are quite funny in that their civil service (the collection of bag carriers, CCHQ staffers, 'think tank researchers') is generally more economically right wing but generally progressive on LGBT rights and other issues.

Meanwhile in THIGMOO for years the civil service was seen as largely brownite and then err weirdly right wing in a rather aggressive sense- it does seem to be reverting back to type.

[Blair]

Not the biggest news this week - but we have another retirement:
https://mobile.twitter.com/WalkerWorcester/status/1631679809075003392
Walker represents one of those seats that was Tory under Thatcher and Major, Labour under all three Blair wins, and has voted Conservative ever since.

He's also chair of the Education Select Committee and someone who did ministerial gigs under May/Bojo and Truss- if he think there's no chance of him having a career in Parliament (he's only 44!) it's clearly a sign of the times.

I do think though that retirements will get more & more common due to the nature of MPs jobs and the constant demands placed on them even compared to a decade ago.

[Cassius]

The Conservatives are quite funny in that their civil service (the collection of bag carriers, CCHQ staffers, 'think tank researchers') is generally more economically right wing but generally progressive on LGBT rights and other issues.

Meanwhile in THIGMOO for years the civil service was seen as largely brownite and then err weirdly right wing in a rather aggressive sense- it does seem to be reverting back to type.

I wouldn’t say that the social liberalism is particularly surprising, given the vast overabundance of gay men and posh women in university Conservative associations, the pipeline from which many of the bag carriers are recruited. As for the free market fetishism, again, not hugely surprising given that young Tories are often drawn into the party via a passing acquaintance with the Thatcher administration, whilst the Think Tankers (like all Think Tankers from any part of the political spectrum) are unencumbered by the need to keep one foot in the reality based community, unlike most MPs.

[Conservatopia]

Anyway, I enjoyed Conservatopia’s take on the Tory factions. My two pence would simply be that most of the Tory ‘moderates’ are either posh or people who’ve done the traditional uni-to-professional-career-in-London pipeline (or both) and thus want to remain on good terms with the liberal establishment in this country, whereas the headbangers generally very much aren’t either of those things. Isn’t a fixed rule of course (see Rees-Mogg, Jacob) and there is an age and time of election divide (much older posh and/or professional MPs being more likely to be headbangers). There’s also an element of sinistrism at work (Hague used to be considered much more right-wing, but now that he’s achieved ‘grandee’ status he’s now a leading ‘Tory moderate’).

I’d also argue that it’s pointless to try and categorise people like the Tub of Lard and E.T. in Drag, given that their North Star is ‘gib me attention pls’ and thus will say and do literally anything.

My factional breakdown is, of course, my opinion. But, I was working on the theory, though not explaining it well, that the factions are fluid enough that each individual leader with a bit of clout (Johnson, Thatcher, Macmillan, Churchill, Baldwin etc) can shape the party into a pro- and anti-leadership faction, but that those factions will still be largely built on the old factions that date back to Gladstone-Disraeli, and if we really squint at it, Peel.

Therefore I think that if we are going to classify Boris and Liz into factions (no easy task with the legacy factions) we must start by placing them in a faction of their own and building the rest around them, rather than shoehorning them into "wets and dries". Wets and dries as a concept is dead but its legacy lives on in other factions, just as Latin is dead but it has a legacy that lives on in other languages.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I'd argue that the Tory party is best understood not primarily in terms of factions but in terms of much smaller groupings round networks of particular individuals or organisations. These then broadly congeal into a pro-leadership faction and an anti-leadership faction, but it's fairly easy for whole groupings to jump from one side of the divide to the other, and as most people are part of several networks it's also easy for these networks to have a foot in both camps.

[Torie]

Glancing at all the trans threads, it does seem the GOP on a scale of 1 to 10, is at about an 8 as to the degree to which it has succumbed to the culture wars. I wonder what score the Tories would be these days. Sunak from afar seems like a culture warrior free zone.

Thanks to Conservatopia for to his tour de horizon post on the history of the Tories. A friend of mine once commented to me that what holds them together is a lust for power, as the "natural" place power "should" reside. Whatever traction that myth had, I think Boris Johnson finished that off once and for all.

Cameron still remains my favorite of the lot.

[Torrain]

We have a prominent retirement - Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee. Full statement here.

Brady was at risk - his Altrincham and Sale West constituency came down to only a 6,100 vote majority over Labour in 2019. While it has remained Conservative since its creation in 1997, good cycles for Labour have seen it won by as little as 2,000 votes in the past.

Also worth noting - his nearby constituency neighbour is fellow retiree William Wragg, with both sitting in marginal parts of Greater Manchester vulnerable to even a small decrease in Tory support.

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

We have a prominent retirement - Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee. Full statement here.

Brady was at risk - his Altrincham and Sale West constituency came down to only a 6,100 vote majority over Labour in 2019. While it has remained Conservative since its creation in 1997, good cycles for Labour have seen it won by as little as 2,000 votes in the past.

Also worth noting - his nearby constituency neighbour is fellow retiree William Wragg, with both sitting in marginal parts of Greater Manchester vulnerable to even a small decrease in Tory support.

I saw a comment on Twitter a while ago that Brady is probably only one more bout of Tory leadership turmoil away from being a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.