The Coming Collapse of the Conservative Party

What's interesting about Stephen Castle's "Labour Ekes Out a Win Over Brexit Party in a Local U.K. Vote" is the contortionist nature of the piece. The headline should read "Tory Collapse Continues at the Polls," but, per usual, Castle, for the most part, buries the onrushing collapse of the Conservative Party beneath a narrative of the Brexit Party's Golem-like rise and Labour's dissipation.

Fortunately, the facts manage to shine through the burlap of Castle's reporting:

In a closely watched by-election that was narrowly won by the opposition Labour Party, Mrs. May’s Conservatives were pushed into third place, behind the Brexit Party, led by Nigel Farage.

The result follows the Conservative Party’s disastrous performance in elections for Europe’s parliament last month. Mrs. May’s Tories finished fifth, with just 9 percent of the vote, one the worst performances in their long history.

The defeat in the Peterborough constituency marks another low point for Mrs. May as she ends her leadership of a Conservative Party that has been deeply wounded by her failure to extricate Britain from the European Union, as she had promised to do by the end of March. The election took place on Thursday and the results were declared early Friday.

Peterborough is 75 miles north of London. A majority of its constituents supported Brexit in 2016. The Labour MP who had held the seat was forced to vacate it because she was jailed for lying about a traffic offense. According to Castle,

For Mrs. May’s Tories, there was little to cheer because, under normal circumstances, they would have expected to do well in Peterborough, as Labour and the Conservatives have competed closely there in recent elections.

In the general election in 2017, the Conservative candidate lost by just 607 votes and, given the circumstances of Ms. Onasanya’s departure, the by-election would normally have been an ideal opportunity for the Conservatives to recapture the seat.

All in all, the Tories were well placed for a pick-up. The fact that they ended up third augurs ill for the party headed into a leadership struggle to replace Theresa May.

Who is going to win the Tory poll to succeed May? Boris Johnson is running as the crash-out candidate. Michael Gove is running as a May clone (fudge Brexit). Rory Stewart is running as a Remain Tory. I don't know about Jeremy Hunt. Probably another May clone.

Whoever ends up winning the contest, the Conservative Party is going to be totally fractured and absolutely incapable of delivering any version of Brexit.

The principal purpose of the party at this point is to avoid a general election because in any general election the Tories are going to lose and lose big. I think avoiding a general election becomes impossible now. That's the importance of May's resignation.

The question is when is a general election going to happen. Before or after October 31? Probably after. Does that mean crash-out is inevitable? No, I think the EU grants another postponement pending the outcome of a general election.

A Silver Lining in Britain's European Parliament Elections

Those polls from a couple weeks back showing the Conservative Party placing fifth in elections for the European Parliament proved to be accurate. According to Stephen Castle in "Nigel Farage’s Populist Brexit Party Wins Big in European Parliament Elections":

With many of the votes counted, the Brexit Party was ahead with 31.5 percent of the vote. The Liberal Democrats were second with 20.5 percent, followed by Labour with 14.1 percent and the Greens with 12.1 percent. The Conservatives pushed into fifth position with 9.1 percent of the votes.

The Conservative Party’s dire performance will increase pressure on those campaigning to succeed Mrs. May to take a hard-line approach to Brexit that could result in the country leaving the European Union without any agreement.

At first glance the results do appear to favor a crash-out. On the other hand, if the Tories end up selecting a Leave ultra, then the opposition in parliament could coalesce to torpedo the government, triggering new elections. May's particular zombie genius was to fudge, dither and burn the clock; it's going to be hard, I would imagine, for whomever ends up as the new prime minister to replicate that.

New elections, as Nigel Farage boasts, would not likely lead to a Brexit Party as a member of a governing coalition. Look at the vote totals. Evening assuming the 9.1% Tory vote is all Leave, that means the Brexiters are at a little less than 41%. Add the Remain vote together (the assumption here is that Labour can be categorized entirely as anti-Brexit) and you get almost 47%. Not a majority, but significantly larger than Leave. There is a possibility that Labour could form a new government.