Tory Fantasy Politics

The Sunak Tory Government has entered the realms of fantasy politics.  In so many areas, they are putting forward policies they know won’t work (and may actually make the situation worse) , they know simply can’t be implemented, they know are just being put forward to make it look like they are dealing with a problem when they are not.

Just look at this week, Sunak’s policy to deal with the refugees arriving via small boats across the Channel.  With an ever-increasing crisis in dealing with Asylum Seekers already here in the UK (and many are waiting months in hotels & temporary accommodation for decisions), they need a distraction from that with a “new” policy for those arriving via irregular means.  Having closed nearly all the legal routes for refugees to claim asylum in the UK, they now want to punish these desperate people for taking the only way possible for them to arrive here. 

Never mind it doesn’t make any attempt to clamp down on the people smuggling gangs, never mind it is probably illegal under the UK’s International Commitments, never mind many are desperate people fleeing war, famine ort persecution in their home land, never mind most refugees are dealt with in other countries, the Sunak Government has (after the failure of their last policies) now want to simply to lock them (at great cost) up before return these people to somewhere else (actually no-one is clear where this will be as the UK no longer has agreements with other European countries to return them).  All that matter is good headlines and supportive coverage from the right-wing media. 

The practicalities are glossed over, those who oppose the new policy (which is in reality a rehash of past failed polices) are accused of not having solutions (even when they do have good workable ones), the Tory motto seems to be just keep repeating the Party manta on the issue and ignore those pointing out where it is not going to work.

The Tories have used the same formula of fantasy polices or claims time and time again, from Johnson’s promise to get 40 new hospitals built, claims to have increased spending on schools by over £5000 a pupil, to the promise to build 300,000 new homes a year, and of course Brexit.  All were made and trumpeted but the reality is very different.

For the Tories, the reality is that after 13 years of being in Government (& 8 years of not having the Lib Dems to restrain them) they have run out steam & ideas, not helped by the 2019 cull of all Tory MPs who would not back Johnson’s suicidal Brexit agreement.  All we have left in Government is mediocre politicians who owe their Ministerial position to blind loyalty to the failed Brexit ideology.  No wonder they are failing to deal with any of the problems of the UK and its people, just crashing from one crisis to another, desperate to get hide their failures by announcing more fantasy polices in search of a headline.  Roll on the next General Election to allow the Tories to go away and rediscover their Conservative past.

The Tories & the Wee Noes

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.

Conservatives no more just hard right Tories

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.