It's Not An Election

The Tories are tryng to pretend their provincial leadership race is an election. It ain't.

The biggest challenge facing the next premier will be rekindling interest in the Tory party, says a political expert who expects voter turnout to fall well below projections.

"The number of voters will be a lot fewer than candidates estimated back in September," Steve Patten, a University of Alberta political scientist, told the Sun yesterday.

Three months ago, the camps of top Tory leadership candidates Lyle Oberg, Mark Norris, Jim Dinning and Ted Morton all expected to sell upwards of 100,000 party memberships.

"Add up all their claims and we're talking in the neighbourhood of 500,000 memberships sold to people who would be expected to vote for the next premier," Patten said.

"Nothing close to that kind of number has materialized."

Patten said he's interested to see how close voter turnout will be to the 78,000 who cast ballots in 1992, when Ralph Klein won the premiership on a second ballot.

Since 1992 our population has grown to be 3.5 million. And it is still growing.

Edmonton is expected to gain 83,000 residents by 2011

Although many former Saskatchewan residents return home for a visit, there are still far too many heading for black gold in Alberta."Pretty much everyone is moving to Alberta these days," said Fritsche, who thinks Saskatchewan should try and capitalize on the growing population that lies right next door.

So when Klein was elected leader 78,000 PC members voted. Even though more memberships than that were sold.

Today we know that the membership sales will not be reflected in those who vote. For instance business and unions have bought up memerships to hand out to get out the vote for their candidates. The Building Trades unions are supporting Oberg, despite his right wing views, because he is promising them jobs with his position on increasing funding for infrastructure.

The Edmonton Business community has gone all out in buying memberships in bulk to hand out to their employees and friends to support Mark Norris. Its a campaign to get an Edmontonian elected leader. They have abandoned Hancock the other Edmontonian because he is a Red Tory, and Norris has pull because of his political family connections.

So less than .o5% of the population will make the decision on who will lead the party and thus elect the leader of the One Party State in Alberta.

When Klein ran it was against Red Tory Nancy Betkowski. A second ballot was needed because he lost to her by one vote. He had sold more memberships than her but his supporters did not come out on the first ballot. This is the fear the Dinning folks have.

That vote was then spilt between the Calgarian For Leader and the Edmontonian for Leader factions. The Red Tories lined up behind Betkowski, the social conservatives behind Klein for the second ballot.Still in the final tally more memberships were sold than came out to vote.

In this race the front runners are Dinning and Oberg.

But the race is split this way;

Dinning represents the Calgary Establishment, a centerist candidate, a liberal fiscally and politically as was Lougheed who supports him.

Norris represents the fiscal conservatives, social liberals, business establishment of Edmonton. Its the anti-Calgary Tories he represents.

Hancock is a Red Tory to the left of the other candidates. His support is really limited to Edmonton to those not supporting Norris. Whom he throws his support behind on a second ballot will be important.

Oberg, Morton, and Doerkson split the social conservative vote between them.

Oberg relies upon the rural anti-urban anti-Calgary voters, based in Southern and Central Alberta. He also has the support of the traditional Liberal Building Trades unions. Though how many of their members will vote is questionable. As it is boom time and the tradesmen are busy working, working, working. Lots of OT versus taking time to vote.

Morton has organized the grass roots social conservative base, and is getting support from Manning, Harper, Day, Kenney, etc. So he poses a second ballot threat to Oberg. Failing that he and Doerkson could combine to push Oberg past Dinning on the second ballot.

Doerkson is a spoiler, taking votes away from Oberg, but a late comer so his campaign is really about anybody but Lyle. His supporters will go to Morton.

Ed Stelmach, farmer, rural vote, fiscal conservative, in this race a centerist compared to the social conservative gang above. His chances are zip, nada.
Though on the second ballot who he throws his support behind could be telling.

Advance polls opened yesterday. The vote is this weekend. Place your wagers.

See:

Conservative Leadership Race

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The Return of the Red Tories?

Canada’s upcoming election could spell the renewal of a long-dormant brand of blue-collar conservatism.

WE CALL HIM LIBERAL LITE 

LIKE THE BEER

By NATE HOCHMAN
September 17, 2021 

Canada’s opposition Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole speaks during an election campaign tour in London, Ontario, Canada, September 17, 2021. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

O'TOOLE ROLLED OUT EX PM BRIAN MULRONEY HIMSELF A RED TORY OR AS THE ECONOMIST CALLED HIM; A BLEEDING HEART CONSERVATIVE FOR HIS ENDORSEMENT

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE

Could this Monday be the end of the road for Justin Trudeau? While Canada’s snap federal election was originally called by the prime minister himself in a bid to regain a majority in the Canadian parliament, the incumbent’s Liberal Party has quickly found itself playing defense instead. Trudeau’s decision to call the Monday election amid a surge of coronavirus-related hospitalizations was met with widespread anger in Canada and derided as an irresponsible political stunt that put the prime minister’s “own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” in the words of his Conservative Party challenger, Erin O’Toole. As it stands today, polls show Trudeau and O’Toole in a dead heat — and many observers say it’s still anyone’s race to win

“They’re both just hovering right around each other right now,” says Adam Harmes, a political-science professor at Western University in London, Ontario, in an interview with National Review. “We’ll have to see if there are any sort of late-breaking things that shove things one way or the other, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money either way right now. It’s entirely possible the Liberals pull it out with another minority, but it’s equally possible O’Toole takes it.”

That toss-up is partially owing to the backlash to Trudeau’s decision to call the election in the first place, which now looks highly unlikely to produce the majority that the Liberals had hoped for. But the race’s uncertainty is also the result of an exceptionally well-run Conservative insurgency, led by what many say is the most competitive Tory candidate since the party’s last prime minister, Stephen Harper, was unseated by Trudeau in 2015.

The surprise surge of O’Toole, a 48-year-old former Royal Canadian Air Force helicopter navigator, in the early weeks of the 36-day race revealed an unexpectedly canny political shrewdness beneath the candidate’s affable, easygoing exterior. Perhaps most notably, his campaign has been one of the farthest-reaching efforts to date at formulating a coherent policy platform for the kind of populist, pro-worker “realignment” that is sweeping right-wing parties across the West. Were the Tories to triumph on Monday, that could prove to be instructive for like-minded conservatives south of the Canada–U.S. border.

On economics, O’Toole’s rhetoric is not too dissimilar from that of Donald Trump. But unlike his American counterpart, O’Toole has a meticulously written, 48-page policy agenda to match his worker-friendly rhetoric: The Conservative leader’s “Canada First economic strategy” includes mandatory worker representation on the boards of large corporations, a ban on executives’ paying themselves bonuses while managing a company going through restructuring unless company workers’ pensions are fully paid, and a skeptical, protectionist stance on international trade. He has also made explicit overtures to private-sector labor unions — and staunch critiques of big business.

“I believe that GDP alone should not be the be-all end-all of politics,” he told viewers in a Labor Day video message. “The goal of economic policy should be more than just wealth creation, it should be solidarity and the wellness of families — and includes higher wages.”

That campaign message has been widely hailed as the return of “Red Toryism,” as it is often called in Canada and the United Kingdom. While usually stopping short of the transformative central-planning schemes favored by today’s progressives, Red Tories are more skeptical of big business — and more comfortable with communitarian-oriented economic policies — than has been the norm in conservative circles for decades. At the same time, this heterodox brand of small-c conservatism — which traces its roots to Benjamin Disraeli’s “one nation” conservatism in the latter half of the 19th century — is far more traditionalist in its cultural philosophy than the modern Left, emphasizing patriotic attachments, religious traditions, and social order over radicalism and upheaval.

Those themes, which have been largely dormant in Canada and the United Kingdom since at least the 1980s, sit at the forefront of O’Toole’s candidacy. “In terms of the substance of O’Toole’s policy platform, it’s very much a blue-collar conservative vision,” as Ben Woodfinden, a Montreal-based Red Tory writer and political theorist, told NR. “There’s all sorts of stuff that kind of points to the fact that he’s trying to move the policy agenda in that direction.”

There are important differences, too. By American standards, O’Toole is no social conservative: Although he has courted pro-life voters by promising to allow free votes for members of his caucus on life issues and backing conscience rights for doctors and nurses who do not want to “refer or participate in an abortion or euthanasia,” he describes himself as “pro-choice.” And he made an explicit appeal to LGBT voters in his acceptance speech for Conservative Party leader. But he is a kind of cultural conservative, in line with the Red Tory tradition: His political rhetoric is shot through with an affirmation of Canada’s essential goodness — a more soft-edged and less assertive kind of patriotism than its Trumpian alternative, to be sure, but still a firm rejection of the unending national self-flagellation prescribed by woke progressives, in both Canada and the U.S.

There are few better foils for this brand of blue-collar conservative politics than Justin Trudeau. A child of opulent privilege, the silver-spoon-fed son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau epitomizes the hypocritical, schoolmarmish brand of elite progressivism that has come to define left-leaning parties throughout the Anglosphere. “He’s a very polarizing figure,” says Woodfinden. “A lot of people have a visceral dislike and disdain for him here.”

That visceral dislike has as much to do with the class of people that Trudeau represents as it does with the prime minister himself. The “realignment” goes both ways: Even as Canada’s Conservatives make a bid for their country’s working class, Trudeau’s Liberal Party has come to represent the worldview and interests of the highly educated, upwardly mobile urbanites that increasingly make up its voter base. This demographic is more comfortable with neoliberal market-friendly economic policy than older left-wing worker parties, but is simultaneously committed to a far more radical kind of cultural leftism, replete with all the symbols and performative pieties of campus wokeness.

To many working-class voters who feel increasingly alienated from the parties that traditionally served as their home, this brand of politics looks laughably disingenuous. In Canada, Trudeau waxes indignant about the horrors of racism and then is pictured in blackface in a 2001 yearbook; in the U.S., Democrats style themselves the defenders of the marginalized and oppressed and then make repealing the SALT-cap deduction — a state-based tax write-off that almost exclusively benefits the top quintile of earners — a top legislative priority. For all the talk of social justice — and the subsequent demands for sweeping changes to the social contract — the progressive ruling class seems unwilling to sacrifice any of its status or privilege for the common good.

This presents a significant political opportunity for conservative parties throughout the English-speaking world. To his credit, that seems to be something that O’Toole recognizes. Both his economic and cultural agenda are predicated on a recognition of the working class as the Right’s natural ally in the current political moment. A conservatism that recognizes this alliance is committed to advocating in behalf of the interests of workers, just as it defines itself in opposition to what James Burnham called the “managerial elite” — i.e., the credentialed beneficiaries of society’s bureaucratization who “exploit the rest of society as a corporate body,” both in the bureaus of big government and the boardrooms of big business. It is a distinct brand of politics that shares the Reagan-era Right’s suspicion of government bureaucracy but is far less friendly to corporate power than its older counterparts.

Whether it works, of course, remains to be seen. In spite of the polls, Monday’s election could still prove to be an uphill battle for O’Toole’s Tories. “The weird dynamic you get in Canada is that when it looks like the Conservatives are about to win, a lot of the voters for the further-left party, the NDP — kind of the equivalent of Bernie or AOC in the U.S. — start to get worried, and shift their vote to the Liberals,” Harmes tells NR. “That always happens when elections look really close. It’s a constant phenomenon.”

But regardless of whether O’Toole perseveres, his brand of conservatism will likely be a potent force — both in Canada and in the rest of the Anglosphere — for the foreseeable future. “In some ways, the Conservative Party in Canada is ahead of the curve,” says Woodfinden. “The base for the Conservatives here is very much blue-collar workers these days.”


NATE HOCHMAN is an ISI Fellow at National Review. @njhochman

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

It strikes me as hilarious that folks that claim to be libertarians like Harper and Solberg and other members of the New Canadian Government will do the most unlibertarian things when in power. Like cutting the court appeal program for minorities. That allows the little people without the big bucks to take Constitutional Challenges to the Supreme Court. That is they get to challenge the State. the citizens right to challenge the State, not limited to their financial ability to do so. Something I thought the neo-cons used to differentiate themselves from the old Edmund Burke style conservatives who of course value and uphold the State. I will leave the last word to a Red Tory who surprisingly spoke out on this....

"In my opinion, it shows the difference between Conservatives: true right-wing Conservatives and Progressive Conservatives," Williams said in St. John's. Williams distanced his provincial Progressive Conservatives from the federal Tories. "You know, when you start taking away funding from minority groups just because they're going to sue government, that means you're saying, `We're not going to give you any money if we've done something wrong to allow you to sue us.' "So then (do) you take away legal aid at some point down the road so people who commit criminal offences don't have the right to have legal counsel?" Tories slammed for court program cut



Red Tory Old Tory

See

Harper

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UK
Rishi Sunak facing red wall wipeout at general election, shock poll shows

Archie Mitchell
Tue, 22 August 2023

Rishi Sunak faces losing all 42 red wall seats won by his predecessor Boris Johnson, polling seen by The Independent shows (Getty/AP)

The Tories are facing electoral oblivion in the red wall as a shock poll reveals they will lose every single seat.

Polling from Electoral Calculus, shared with The Independent, reveals all 42 red wall seats held by the Conservatives are set to return to Labour at the next general election.

The scale of the rebellion against the government appears to in part be driven by the spiralling cost of living, with a separate analysis seen by The Independent showing the crisis is having a devastating impact on Tory-held seats in the red wall.

The data, compiled by analytics firm Outra, show 15 Conservative-held red wall seats, which were won at the last election but have historically supported the Labour Party, are among the 50 constituencies with the highest number of financially distressed voters in the country.

Such as Great Grimsby, Blackpool South and Walsall North are among those with the highest portion of voters deemed financially vulnerable.

In total, 15 of the top 50 seats in which voters are at risk of falling behind on their bills were won by the Conservatives in 2019.

It follows research by investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown that shows the northeast has been hit hard by the cost of living crisis – with the joint lowest level of savings in the country, and just a third of households reporting they have enough cash left at the end of the month.

The figures will set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street, with experts warning that voters facing financial distress will make their voices heard in the ballot box.

Pollster and political analyst Robert Hayward pointed to a defining phrase from Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run to unseat George HW Bush as US president: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

He told The Independent that the economy is “always the most important issue” on polling day across all age groups, social groups and genders.

Lord Hayward said it was especially important for the Conservatives, having historically been considered better managers of the economy than Labour.

“The government has to restore that credibility,” he warned.

Pollsters predict a landslide Labour victory at the next election,

 with the Tories losing all of their red wall seats (PA)

Lord Hayward added that Mr Sunak’s party may be doing so “slowly”, with inflation finally falling, but without further progress before an expected general election in October 2024, the Conservatives will lose.

Almost two-thirds of voters believe the economy to be one of the top three issues facing the country, putting it significantly ahead of health and immigration, YouGov polling shows.

The risk of a red wall wipeout will also raise fears in Conservative HQ, with Lord Hayward warning it will leave Mr Sunak facing “serious difficulty” securing an overall majority.

Addressing the collapse in support facing Tories in the red wall, Lord Hayward said that while the party has achieved majorities without the voting bloc in the past, “it delivered the size of that majority last time around”.

He added that the failure to win those seats next year “would leave the Conservatives in serious difficulty trying to find an overall majority”.

Electoral Calculus chief executive Martin Baxter pointed to former PM Mr Johnson’s acknowledgement that red wall voters had “lent him” their support in 2019.

“And it looks like they are taking it back,” he said. “The Conservative tide went up that beach in 2019, and it looks like the tide is going out again.”

The pollster is forecasting that the Tories will lose all 42 of their red wall seats.

And Mr Baxter said that while the economic figures “underline” the struggle in voters in those areas for the Conservatives, the prospect of the party holding on to power in the general election is already “not likely”.

Nationally, Electoral Calculus predicts a landslide Labour victory, winning around 460 seats, with the Conservatives reduced to just 90 seats.

Many red wall seats were turned blue in 2019 as voters repulsed by the Labour leader at the time, Jeremy Corbyn, backed Boris Johnson to “Get Brexit Done” and “level up” neglected towns and cities.

But Outra’s figures show that in many of those seats, voters are now feeling the pinch of the cost of living squeeze.

In Great Grimsby, which Mr Johnson loyalist Lia Nici won from Labour’s Melanie Onn in 2019, more than a quarter of constituents are at risk of financial distress.

Ms Onn, who is Labour’s candidate hoping to win back Great Grimsby next year, told The Independent the figures “laid bare the reality of life under the Conservatives”.

“Areas like ours that placed trust in the Tories have been hit the hardest,” she added.

Ms Onn said: “Their economic mismanagement has caused incomes to nosedive, revealing a disregard for ordinary working people.”

In Blackpool South, held by suspended Tory MP Scott Benton, just under a quarter risk not being able to meet payments. And in Walsall North, represented by Eddie Hughes, 23.1 per cent of voters are at risk of financial distress.

Other Tory MPs believed to be vulnerable to losing their seats include Jonathan Gullis, Johnny Mercer and Jack Brereton.

RED TORY

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Keir Starmer would be welcomed by the Tories with open arms

“He must be among the most ardent of Eurosceptics, a member of the ‘Go for Growth’ movement, a Thatcherite – a Trussite even – a capitalist, a sensible, free market Conservative.

“I’m of course talking about the leader of the Labour party – the socialist party – Sir Keir Starmer.”

Archie Mitchell
Wed, 6 December 2023 


Sir Keir Starmer would be welcomed into the Conservative Party with “open arms”, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.

The top Tory and arch-Brexiteer said the Labour leader’s recent article in the Telegraph, in which Sir Keir praised Margaret Thatcher, sounded like a Conservative minister launching a leadership bid.

Sir Keir’s article, under the headline “voters have been betrayed on Brexit and immigration”, read like something by “the most ardent of Eurosceptics” or a “Trussite”, Sir Jacob added.

He added: “As a Tory member, I would like to extend a welcome to the Leader of the Opposition with open arms.”

The Tory former minister was commenting after Rishi Sunak suggested Nigel Farage would be welcome to join the Conservatives – insisting his party was a “broad church”.

“The more pressing question is not whether Nigel Farage will join the Tory Party, but whether Keir Starmer is planning to defect and launch a Tory leadership bid,” he told GB News.

A Labour spokesman said: “What Jacob Rees-Mogg knows is that the travel is all in the opposite direction with former Tory voters backing Keir Starmer’s changed Labour Party to end thirteen years of Tory decline and give Britain its future back.”

The Labour leader sparked a backlash with his article, in which he said Mrs Thatcher had effected “meaningful change” and “set loose Britain’s natural entrepreneurialism”.

He also sought to outflank Mr Sunak by appealing to Tory voters on Brexit and migration.

In a shift from his staunch opposition to Britain leaving the EU, Sir Keir said the Tories have “failed to realise the possibilities of Brexit”.

He said he “profoundly disagrees” with the idea Labour should duck topics such as small boat crossings and immigration.

And he added: “This is a government that was elected on a promise that immigration would ‘come down’ and the British people would ‘always [be] in control’. For immigration to then triple is more than just yet another failure – it is a betrayal of their promises.”

Sir Jacob, who served as business secretary under Lizz Truss, said: “A man wrote an article for The Telegraph last week entitled ‘Voters have been betrayed on Brexit and Immigration.’

“This reads as if it were vintage Farage. The man in question went on to hail Margaret Thatcher, as the leader who dragged Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.

“He then went on to criticise the wasted money, the high debt and the record-high tax burden. He sounds as if he could be a member of the ERG!”

Sir Jacob added: ““So, who is this man? This great Conservative-sounding figure? Is he a cabinet minister waiting in the wings for a Tory Party leadership bid? One setting out his stall – along with a number of other ministers who seem to be circling.

“He must be among the most ardent of Eurosceptics, a member of the ‘Go for Growth’ movement, a Thatcherite – a Trussite even – a capitalist, a sensible, free market Conservative.

“But – the man I’m referring to is not Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or even me, for that matter.

“I’m of course talking about the leader of the Labour party – the socialist party – Sir Keir Starmer.”

Return of the Progressive Conservatives

On CTV's Question Period yesterday ousted Nova Scotia Conservative MP Bill Casey called himself an Independent "Progressive" Conservative, "emphasis on the progressive", he said.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams also declares himself a "Progressive" Conservative in opposition to the Harpocrites and is carrying out a Anybody But Conservative federal election campaign.

Add to that this weekends rejection of the Conservative Governments equalization bait and switch by the "Progressive" Conservative Premier of Nova Scotia and we see the beginnings of a new movement to recognize the political reality of truly "Progressive" Conservatives.

The party that former Nova Scotia PC leader Peter Mackay opportunistically scuttled, after agreeing in writing not to, in order to try to be leader of the political Frankenstein known as the Reform/Alliance/PC/Conservatives.

Bill Casey is breathing a sigh of relief after Premier Rodney MacDonald called on Nova Scotia members of Parliament yesterday to vote against the federal budget.

"Premier MacDonald called me today and told me," the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley MP said in a phone interview from his Amherst home yesterday.

"I was just really surprised," he said.

Casey won support from many Nova Scotians last week after voting against the federal budget.

He was immediately tossed out of the party after the vote.

Casey now considers himself an Independent Progressive Conservative.

Also glad is Progressive Conservative Association of Nova Scotia president Scott Armstrong.

"It makes things very easy for people in northern Nova Scotia if the premier and our MP Bill Casey are singing from the same song sheet," Armstrong said.

"Bill Casey's really done Nova Scotia a favour."

With the Liberals abandoning Nova Central, MacKays riding, to Elizabeth May and the Greens, her brand of "Progressive" conservatism will likely appeal to Conservative voters disgusted with the Harpocrites and Howdy Doody MacKay.

In Nova Scotia, satisfaction with Ottawa declined from 50 per cent in February to 37 per cent in May, while dissatisfaction rose from 41 per cent to 56 per cent.

A Red tide could sweep the Maritimes next federal election, not just Liberals but Red Tories; the "Progressive" conservatives, Casey, May etc.

Nova Scotians have long memories – and the Conservative government knows it. There are people down here who are still bitter over the fact that Stanfield, the late Progressive Conservative leader, never became prime minister. To this day Stanfield is commonly referred to in these parts as "the best prime minister Canada never had."

The Tories' expulsion of Casey, who was first elected in 1988, has upset Nova Scotians.

People say they elected him to represent their interests, not play the part of a trained seal in Ottawa.

In Truro and elsewhere in the riding, Casey is being cast as the quiet-spoken constituency man who stood up to the bullies in Ottawa.

"It seems to have struck a nerve because I'm getting emails from all over Canada. ... I am truly overwhelmed because all I am doing is asking the government of Canada to honour a signed agreement," Casey told the Star yesterday.

Meanwhile, angry callers to talk radio shows want to know why fellow Nova Scotia Tory MPs Peter MacKay, who is foreign affairs minister, and Gerald Keddy (South Shore-St. Margaret's) didn't have the guts to stick up for their home province.

See:

Tory Cuts For All

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Red Tories Are Progressives

Conservatives New Nanny State

No Room for Red Tories

Canada's New Progressive Right

Elizabeth May and Red Tories

Liberals The New PC's

PC=Liberals

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UK

Senior Tory MPs Privately Admit They're 

Going To Lose The Next General Election

Some have joked about “managing decline” while others warn of a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron

By Sophia Sleigh
10/12/2022
HUFFPOST UK

Senior Tory MPs are privately admitting they have already lost the next general election, HuffPost UK can reveal.

One former Tory cabinet minister said that a Conservative Party defeat in 2024 is fast becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.

Other top Tories have drily commented that the current government led by Rishi Sunak is “managing decline”

HuffPost has been told about multiple cases in which senior Tories and even ministers have openly predicted or joked about losing the next election.

Some outgoing MPs will state publicly that the party is going to lose including Sir Charles Walker who said it is “almost impossible” for Sunak to win.

It comes amid a mass exodus of Conservative MPs - including former cabinet ministers Sajid Javid and Matt Hancock - announcing they will stand down at the next election.

“There will be more big names who throw in the towel this summer,” one former cabinet minister predicted.

Fifteen Tory MPs have announced they will quit at the next election - including rising star Dehenna Davison who is a junior minister at just 29.

Others stepping down include vice-chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers Will Wragg, 34, and former cabinet minister Chloe Smith, 40.

A Conservative Party insider added: “MPs are accepting the view that it’s going to be tough or they are going to lose next election.

“If you get names like Iain Duncan Smith standing down - more will join the bonfire.”

An MP added: “I think it’s pretty clear there’s a lot of job hunting going on.”

Tory MPs have been spooked by some recent polls that have given Labour a 25-point lead over the Conservatives.

A recent by-election in Chester saw a 14-point swing towards Labour which pollsters say would give Labour a comfortable majority at an election.

The local elections in May 2023 will give MPs a further indication of where the public is heading at the next general election.

However, one Labour frontbencher said that while the next general election is “ours to lose” there was plenty of time for them to “screw up”.

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has even told his MPs to tattoo “no complacency” to their heads.

“It is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy,” one former Tory cabinet minister told HuffPost UK.

“If colleagues keep saying we’re not going to win the next election - then that’s what’s going to happen.

“Although, it is also hard to see how we bounce back from those polls. The party is tired and we’re out of ideas. We won’t hold on to most of those red wall seats.

“And Labour voters who stayed at home last time because they didn’t like Corbyn will feel they can vote for Starmer.”

Another Tory former minister agreed, adding: “Where are the ideas? We’re not actually doing anything.”

However, MPs on the right of the party are less worried about Labour and more worried about former Ukip and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage staging a comeback.

One Tory MP said: “If Nigel was serious then that could take a lot of votes from us. I would be really worried about that - it would result in a Labour landslide.

“But I really don’t think Nigel could handle the rejection again - he’s tried seven times to become an MP.

“I’m not sure he’d seriously do it again. And Richard Tice [leader of Reform UK] just doesn’t have the same appeal.”

However, the MP might have a point after Tice told The Telegraph he was having conversations with Tory councillors and MPs about joining his party.

And earlier in the week a Barnsley councillor resigned from the Conservatives to join the Reform party.

Nigel Farage.
IAN FORSYTH VIA GETTY IMAGES

While the Tory civil war seems to have publicly abated, senior MPs warn that it is merely a ceasefire.

There is a strong sense of mistrust in the party with a lot of MPs still loyal to Boris Johnson blaming the people around Sunak for taking him down.

There is even a number of “diehard” Johnson fans who still see him as their only hope of electoral success - although MPs say such colleagues are “deluded”.

“People think we’re mad for getting rid of him,” one Johnson backing MP said.

“Boris could walk down the road naked in my constituency killing the first borns and people would still love him and vote for him.”

Some Tory MPs are keen to have Johnson campaign in their constituencies at the next election because he is a “vote winner”.

“You can see the true believers sit around him in the chamber,” one Tory staffer said.

There are even MPs who think there is a slim chance Johnson could stage a comeback if he survives a privileges committee probe into whether he misled MPs over the Partygate scandal.

However, one Tory backbencher hit back: “Some of my colleagues have this delusion that if we do really badly in the local elections Boris will have this Second Coming as we’ll all be begging for him to come back.

“It’s for the birds, frankly. He was never fit for office.”

The Tory MP said they did not have “buyer’s remorse” for backing Sunak despite their position in the polls and added: “Rishi is our best hope, our only hope, there is no viable alternative.”

Rishi Sunak
PETER NICHOLLS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Other MPs repeat the saying that “divided parties don’t win elections” and warn that the party remains ungovernable due to its diverse factions.

“That majority we won in 2019 saw so many people elected that aren’t actually proper Conservatives,” one backbencher said.

“There’s a big section of our party that didn’t have that experience or background.”

Such divisions are already causing Sunak headaches with rebellious MPs forcing him into U-turns over everything from house building targets to onshore wind.

Against this backdrop, businesses, PRs and donors are now seeking to establish relationships with the Labour Party.

Meanwhile, donations to the Tory Party have slumped to their lowest level in two years and the party is reportedly considering hiking its membership fees as it struggles to raise funds.

However, not all Tory MPs share the view that their party is doomed with one former minister saying: “We need to keep our heads down and focus on the economy.

“When the next election comes around we will have been in power for 14 years. We really lost our hand with the Truss government, we need to rebuild that.

“We’re in a better position than we were with Truss but it’s going to be tough. If we can turn the economy around then perhaps we are in with a shot.

“A few weeks ago I’d have said Labour were going to win the next election, now I am not so sure. It all depends on the economy.”

Another more optimistic MP said his party needed to stop scoring “own goals” and that their election hopes were not over until the “final whistle blows”.

A fresh poll by Savanta ComRes, released on Friday, might provide some comfort for Tory MPs after it found a 10-point swing from Labour to the Conservatives - a gap of just 11 per cent.

“Yes, people are annoyed with us but but I don’t think it’s a done deal with Labour” a Tory MP said.

UK

SIR KEIR THE RED TORY

 

LABOUR HUB EDITORS

Starmer goes to Dover to ‘stop the boats’

“Keir Starmer is today unveiling Labour’s latest proposals to reduce small boat crossings, pledging to end the Tories’ ‘talk tough, do nothing culture’ on the issue with proposals including a new ‘Border Security Command’ – using cash currently allocated to the Rwanda scheme,” Labour List reports.

Rather than address the complete immorality of current Conservative migration policy, Starmer is focusing on the  “rank incompetence” of the government. He promises to make Britain’s shores “hostile territory for people-smuggling gangs” by introducing a new Border Security Command, which would bring together existing agencies.

The new unit would be funded by diverting £75m from the Rwanda scheme, which Starmer believes is ineffective as a deterrent as it deports too few people. Instead  he is pledging to hire hundreds more specialist investigators and cross-border police and use counter-terror powers against organised immigration crime, including the power to search people suspected of being involved in people smuggling, close bank accounts, restrict their travel and trace their movements before any offence has taken place.

Insiders say the proposal echoes plans drawn up by Alexander Downer, a former Australian foreign minister, who was commissioned by Priti Patel in 2022 to devise plans for a rejigged Border Force.

Starmer’s speech says nothing about Labour’s earlier pledge to provide “safe and legal routes”. It is the absence of these that compels so many people seeking refuge to take to small boats in the first place.

Refugee Action responded, tweeting: “Here’s an idea for an ‘anti-terror’ measure. Prevent refugees going through the terror of crossing the Channel by offering safe alternative routes.”

Asylum Matters Director Lou Calvey said: “A proposed response to a safe routes crisis doesn’t include the introduction of safe routes. It’s sheer madness. And it means that the enforcement measures will escalate again when irregular migration continues as it will.”

Asylum and immigration lawyer Alasdair Mackenzie tweeted: “This rhetoric – associating refugees with terrorism and existential threat, and framing the answer as ever more coercive measures – feeds far-right narratives and opens the door to Tory calls to abandon international law and our moral duties to refugees. Myopic, dangerous and abject.”

As refugee and asylum expert Zoe Gardner pointed out: “We have to take away the market for the people smugglers… You take away the market by providing people with safe ways to travel… that would solve the problem much better than either the Rwanda plan or another elite police force.”

Insiders suggest that Starmer’s speech will have done its job if it outrages the charities and organisations working in the field, thus reassuring right wing voters that Labour is taking a ‘tougher’ stand on the immigration issue.

A progressive approach to migration would  expand safe routes for refugees, scrap the multitude of recent Tory legislation, establish a fair, effective and speedy asylum determination process and abolish the hostile environment.

These latest proposals reveal a very different Keir Starmer from the one who said in 2020: “If I’m honest, the Labour Party has been a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration for quite a number of years. And I think we need to turn that round.”  “Defend migrants’ rights” was one of Starmer’s ten pledges when running for the Labour leadership four years ago.

Mish Rahman, Labour NEC member and Momentum Vice-Chair, said: “Four years ago Keir Starmer promised to defend migrant rights and make a positive case for immigration. He has proceeded to dump this pledge, like so many others, engaging in a race to the bottom with the Tories on migrant rights and this week welcoming a hard-right, anti-refugee Tory MP into Labour. More than ever, we need a progressive Labour Party which stands up to Tory demonisation of migrants. That does mean ending dangerous boat crossings – but the way to do that is by expanding safe routes for refugees, not treating them as a threat to be neutralised.”

Members upset at Elphicke welcome

Tellingly, Starmer’s announcement on immigration was made in the Dover constituency of Natalie Elphicke. Two days ago, the Tory MP, who was a member of the Eurosceptic European Research Group, nominated Liz Truss for Tory leader and just last year described the Labour leader as “Sir Softie” on immigration, was welcomed by the latter with open arms into Labour’s ranks.

Momentum tweeted: “Starmer’s machine has blocked countless left-wingers from running for Parliament on the most spurious of charges. Meanwhile a hard-right Tory beset by scandal is welcomed with open arms. This isn’t due diligence. It’s a massive shift to the Right.”

NEC member Jess Barnard called the welcoming of Elphicke “a colossal error of judgement”. She pledged to raise the issue at the next Labour NEC meeting.

The Labour Leader of Dover Council expressed his “horror” at the decision and the Folkestone and Hythe CLP executive said it was “appalled” and described Elphicke as a “toxic and divisive figure”. Labour List reported that more than three-quarters of its readers thought Labour was wrong to accept Elphicke into the Party.

Many members are deeply disturbed by the welcome given to Elphicke by a Party leadership that cannot bring itself to restore the whip to veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott. On the same day, however, the whip was finally returned to Kate Osamor, who was suspended after reportedly calling Israel’s attacks on Gaza a “genocide”, a remark for which she later apologised.

Image: Demonstration in support of refugees, London, March 2924. c/o Labour Hub.

MAY 10, 2024

Natalie Elphicke: One CLP passes motion urging Labour to kick out ex-Tory MP

Daniel Green  

 \14th May, 2024

Photo: @Keir_Starmer

At least one Constituency Labour Party has now passed a motion condemning the decision to welcome Natalie Elphicke into the party, calling it “galling” when some left-wing MPs are suspended.

Controversy has continued to swirl after the former Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, seen as one of the most right-wing parliamentarians, crossed the floor last week.

The motion, said to have been passed almost unanimously by members of the City of Durham CLP, expressed “strong protest and dismay” at the acceptance of Elphicke into Labour.

The motion read: “Accepting someone into our ranks who clearly does not share the values of the Labour movement is a retrograde step and even more galling when we see long-standing socialists excluded from the parliamentary party at the present time.

“This grubby move by our party’s leadership debases our values and what we stand for. The Labour Party should be in the business of changing the country, not saving the careers of Tory politicians who the British public are rejecting because of the damage they’ve done to communities across our country.”

The CLP called on the party leadership and the party’s national executive Committee to reverse its “misguided” decision to welcome Natalie Elphicke into Labour.

After the CLP posted the motion on social media, a number of individuals claimed they would be leaving the party over the decision to allow Elphicke into the party.

One wrote: “I cannot remain a member of the party under its current direction and accepting a Tory MP who is so opposed to Labour values was the last straw for me.”

It comes as the Folkestone and Hythe CLP, which neighbours Elphicke’s constituency of Dover, posted on social media that it was “shocked and appalled” by the decision, describing the MP as a “toxic and divisive figure who has no place in the Labour Party”.

“While it might have been temporarily headline grabbing to accept her, tremendous damage has been done to the party’s reputation in doing so,” the CLP said.

Elphicke has faced claims from former justice secretary Robert Buckland that she tried to lobby him while her ex-husband Charlie Elphicke faced trial for sexual assault. Charlie Elphicke was jailed in 2020 for two years for sexually assaulting two women.

A spokesman for Natalie Elphicke has described Buckland’s claims as “nonsense”.

However, Labour MP for Canterbury Rosie Duffield is among those to have called for the party to suspend the Dover MP while investigating the allegation, only a few days after she welcomed the fact she was no longer the only Labour MP in Kent on social media.

Speaking to the BBC, Duffield said: “I think that if the shoe was on the other foot, if she was still officially a Conservative MP, we would rightly be calling for this to be thoroughly investigated and that’s what should happen in this case.”

The Labour Party was approached for comment.

SEE

Defected ex-Tory MP Natalie Elphicke’s worrying voting record

Adam Boulton: No one likes a turncoat, but Labour is gambling Tory MP's defection shows which way political wind is blowing