The Tories crying crocodile tears over the Northern Ireland Protocol would do well to remember that in the Referendum they so revere, the people of the Province voted to remain in the EU, that at the last NI Assembly election, over 50 (out of 90) seats were won by parties who accepted the Protocol.
It is not the people of NI who want rid of the Protocol. It is the “Wee Noes” politicians of the DUP.
Rishi Sunak’s appointment of Lee Anderson MP as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative and Unionist Party has confirmed, to me at least, what I have been thinking for some time. It is that that Party is totally misnamed. Its is neither trying to conserve anything but its hold on power nor is it trying to unite the country, even its own Party. So for clarity, I will call it the Tory Party in this post.
Making Anderson, MP for Ashfield, Deputy Chairman (and the job title includes the “man”, which already tells you much about the Tories) shows how far towards the extreme of Politics in the UK the current Tories have travelled.
This is a man who espoused the Death Penalty, made (under Parliamentary Privilege) racist remarks about traveller community, had been investigated for Anti-Semitism over membership of a FB group that promoted George Sorts conspiracy theories and is being sued for libel by Jack Monroe & Michael Hollis who runs a food bank in Ashfield. Anderson (whose CV include being a Labour Councillor on Ashfield Council before defecting to the Tory Party) bases his political platform on appealing to the bassist instincts in what is a former mining area that has suffered much in the last 40 years. He attacks anyone who looks or sounds different, he offers simplistic solutions to complicated issues and seems to take pride in not caring what his opponents think. He is the model of a populist right-winger you could meet in a pub, plenty of obnoxious opinions & simplistic solutions that have never worked or are based on racism & intolerance.
I can’t imagine any Tory leader, from Churchill through to Cameroon who would give Anderson the time of day, let alone appoint him to help run the Party. It is only after the European Research Group took over the Conservatives and drove it further and further to the right, that people like Anderson have found a political home in it and changed the Party of Major, Heseltine, even Hague into an extreme right-wing Party that has adopted the language and policies of the BNP. No wonder so many Conservatives are fleeing what was their Party, disgusted by the polices & behaviour of those who now lead it.
While having such people running the governing Party is a worry, the save grace is that they are making the Tories unelectable in the coming General Election (and the current projections point to the Tories being reduced to a rump in the next Parliament). Such a defeat will give them time to reconsider what sort of Party the want to be. Are they really the extremist Party with few principles & even fewer workable policies that Johnson, Truss & Sunak have created? Or are they the Party of the centre Right, the Party that looks to conserve the best in our society and strengthen the Union?
I am not a Tory & have never (nor ever will) voted for the Conservatives but for political balance and good Government we need a Party of the centre Right that will help counterbalance the centre against extremists on either side of politics. Currently we don’t have one, & with Anderson in a leadership role, the Tories don’t look capable of being one.
Mantonite - A Worksop Liberal 