As a veteran 'No, honestly, Labour MPs who are willing to break the whip and vote to make sure Brexit happens will always outnumber Conservative Remainers', I really didn't think I could be surprised at the Tory party's (non-existent?) intellectual immune system, yet here we are. - ThreadSky

stephenkb.bsky.social • 48 days ago

As a veteran 'No, honestly, Labour MPs who are willing to break the whip and vote to make sure Brexit happens will always outnumber Conservative Remainers', I really didn't think I could be surprised at the Tory party's (non-existent?) intellectual immune system, yet here we are.

Reposted from Roland Smith

Meanwhile, over in the "sensible Conservative" camp...

Comments

da.videvans.uk•48 days ago

Is it now the case that you can’t ever move anything other than to the right in the Tory Party? Or is that just what they think?

davidashleyowens.bsky.social•47 days ago

They have been called out for whom they are & Keir has rattled their bigoted bones they don't like it. They gave up their position of being middle ground Tories under May, since then they have moved further to the right on the political spectrum. So Keir told the truth they are a right wing party.

viscousboredom.bsky.social•48 days ago

The Brits need to sort some stuff out with the writers, you can't name your jackasses "Cleverly" and expect me to take you seriously

xenmonkey.bsky.social•48 days ago

He is also the MP for Braintree...

viscousboredom.bsky.social•48 days ago

No! No, you stop that right now! We don't live in a children's book you can't give people blatantly ironic names *and* titles, this is why the British Empire is gone, no one else is putting up with this nonsense

welshborat.bsky.social•47 days ago

Do you know what trump means in the uk?

mr3402.bsky.social•48 days ago

Is the Telegraph the new most radicalising force in British politics?

jsewtz.bsky.social•47 days ago

How depressing.

benroynon.bsky.social•48 days ago

Do they really think that desperately courting the reform vote will work for them? They really are finished at the next election if so.

adsquires.bsky.social•47 days ago

"when will Keir Starmer and Labour learn?" says Cleverly whose party went for a strategy of dishonest culture war populism at the last election and lost by a landslide to Keir Starmer and Labour.

eucorinne.bsky.social•48 days ago

It’s interesting that all those quick to focus on grooming from Asian Muslim men - there are cases indeed - never mention the biggest children sexual abuse cases in this country & many others, covered up for decades: abuse by catholic priests. Why not mention those which are still often covered up?

mrsrhino.bsky.social•47 days ago

Given the goings-on at the CofE I fear it's not restricted to Pope Club.

My suspicion is all religious groups who seek to 'inspire' are just as guilty. I was OK: the team at my local Presbytery were fantastic. Not all are so lucky.

nutedawn.bsky.social•48 days ago

The most baffling part to me is their evident belief that they are opting for a path of brilliantly ruthless cynicism by explicitly adopting positions which cause more problems for their own party more than any of its rivals...???

worgztheowl.bsky.social•48 days ago

Is it cynicism though or a combination of radicalisation and institutional hollowing out? Like Badenoch, a tranche of senior MPs & friendly commentators clearly believe the 'civilisational war' radical right narrative and simply aren't enough calm heads left to say 'chill and have a hard think lads'

worgztheowl.bsky.social•48 days ago

And the few that are left, like Cleverly, know doing so won't help as don't have any kind of numbers so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in for a penny in for a pound.

nutedawn.bsky.social•48 days ago

"This may be bad for my personal position in the party. It may be bad for my ideological tendency within the party. It may be bad for my party's position in the country. But at least it also makes life easier for both Labour and Reform"????

aspirationalbob.bsky.social•47 days ago

He has always loved being agro online despite not usually being that way in office tho aint 'e

aspirationalbob.bsky.social•47 days ago

Which, v consistent for users of these platforms

onelifestand87.bsky.social•48 days ago

You are expecting political skills from the man who managed to come behind both Badenoch & Jenrick though

miklosgyalog.bsky.social•47 days ago

To be fair though, the votes were coming from the literal bottom of the barrel. He's rubbish, and he lost to those two, but these two facts are almost unrelated.

jtatlife.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yes, still struggling to see how normalising racism again is good for Kemi Badenoch or James Cleverly.
Really 5D chess, that

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•48 days ago

Never mind the health of the party, I can't understand why Cleverly thinks this is a smart message for him personally to put out. His future career prospects need Badenoch to fail and it was under his watch that the Jay recommendations weren't implemented. What's his theory here?

brennick.bsky.social•48 days ago

They’re all right wing nutters. Anyone in the party after 2019 is.

andrewwr235.bsky.social•48 days ago

Badenoch was minister for local government and also equalities minister. Surely following Jay's recommendations was part of her remit too?

ianrobo.bsky.social•48 days ago

I don’t get it at all he is smarter than this .. have they all lost their collective minds ? Esp as not bound by shadow cabinet ..

paul-e24.bsky.social•48 days ago

Smarter, really!

ianrobo.bsky.social•48 days ago

Comparative

zzypt.bsky.social•48 days ago

They just seem to be living in an increasingly small intellectual circle.

leongreen.bsky.social•48 days ago

He’s showing terrible judgment here; he has no reason to wade into this. Should sit it out and bide his time…

dsquareddigest.bsky.social•48 days ago

someone seems to have learnt from somewhere that if you grab hold of a serious issue and weaponize the living hell out of it, no bad consequences will ever accrue to you because you can just scream bloody murder at anyone who points out what you're doing and claim they're minimising it

centristmum.bsky.social•48 days ago

Kearns jumping in with both feet feels odd to me too, it's like the entire party has lost its mind somehow

alunephraim.bsky.social•48 days ago

I think part of the issue is that, whether directly or indirectly, they're still imbibing the polluted water of twitterx. I've noticed this with people who are Con members elsewhere: just casually linking to really extreme accounts without quite getting it.

alunephraim.bsky.social•48 days ago

Real 'you are aware that the man in that accounts avatar is Jean-Marie Le Pen, right?' territory. Not a hypothetical example.

centristmum.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yes I definitely think that's a big part of it. They need to snap out of it or they're cooked though.

centristmum.bsky.social•48 days ago

But if even Kearns is going this way then it feels like they're a lot further gone than I'd realised

molynj.bsky.social•47 days ago

They are cooked.

dogpatchryan.bsky.social•47 days ago

Lord have mercy

molynj.bsky.social•47 days ago

It has.

heartinamber.bsky.social•48 days ago

I think with the polls where they are he may now be at the stage of 'nervously checking the Reform result in his own seat' tbh

heartinamber.bsky.social•48 days ago

Everyone goes on about the threat Reform pose to Labour, but if we're taking the prospect of Reform over 20% seriously then there really aren't that many remaining Tory seats that can comfortably withstand that

aardgoose.info•48 days ago

He can't reverse from his leadership contest stance now.

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•48 days ago

What did he say about grooming gangs in the leadership contest? I can't remember it coming up.

aardgoose.info•48 days ago

Nothing specific, but he went for the Reform curious part of the membership, small boats etc.

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•48 days ago

I don't expect it, but it's going to be hilarious if Braverman does defect and then finds herself in a party that frequently outflanks the Tories on the left.

stevewelling.bsky.social•48 days ago

because he needs membership to like him just in case?

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•48 days ago

I don't think they'd notice if he just kept silent, whereas if he wants support from more liberal Tory MPs then I doubt this is going to do him any favours and they're much more likely to remember what you did when.

brennick.bsky.social•48 days ago

Liberal Tory MPs?

stephenkb.bsky.social•48 days ago

Yes, obviously. 'Liberal' isn't just a generic word meaning 'people you like'.

brennick.bsky.social•48 days ago

Tempted to employ the old “Name 5” challenge 😉

cllrdent.bsky.social•48 days ago

What I'm starting to wonder is whether there are any more liberal Tory MPs left. A lot of people I had respect for have set fire to their principles of late, i.e. Tugendhat, Kearns, etc.

wilf69.bsky.social•47 days ago

Last week he sounded quite reasonable on LBC, and certainly better than Suella Goebals, but the worse is that neither feel embarrassed about spouting their utter ignorance.

alunephraim.bsky.social•48 days ago

As well as all the other obvious things (the last moderate Conservative with fight was... Michael Heseltine? And he was a tactical idiot with it, for all his other abilities) I wonder how much of this is a case of still being properly on twitterx and all the crap leaking into timelines.

alunephraim.bsky.social•48 days ago

The harder/creepier right edge of the substackers were already a bit too influential at points during the last government because far too many advisors and junior ministers were reading that sort of thing, after all. You mix in certain circles and it determines what you assume normal is.

joxley.jmoxley.co.uk•47 days ago

In a different way, that last sentence basically encapsulates why Truss was so bad.

onelifestand87.bsky.social•48 days ago

That plus cowardice being the most high profile attribute on the centre right for years now. I can’t really think of any fights they’ve picked for more than a weekend before caving

alunephraim.bsky.social•47 days ago

It's the old 'they're called Wets for a reason' issue, alas.

thewilderobin.bsky.social•47 days ago

Getting Marxist about it, if you are a Tory moderate who can go back to being a company director or whatever at any time, there is not a great economic incentive to fight and fight and fight again, whereas if you're an ex-Labour MP you can, maybe, aspire to run a small charity or do some consulting?

worgztheowl.bsky.social•47 days ago

But...take for example Jeremy Hunt, who fought incredibly hard to keep his seat despite being a multi-millionaire, and now *crickets*.

onelifestand87.bsky.social•47 days ago

And given the seeming lack of ideas on the right for years it’s not like there’s anything else to lure them other than power just to have it

realhistoryguy.bsky.social•47 days ago

Maybe that’s why they cave and cave in order to try to stay in power…

willcooling.bsky.social•47 days ago

Ed West for example has let not a particularly thick mask slip considerably since the election

leithmotive.bsky.social•48 days ago

Anyone under 40 who is a card carrying Conservative party member would more likely than not have read and contributed to the comments sections on Guido or Unherd or the Telegraph while a student. Is that demographic now the spads and strategists and so on?

matthewgreener.bsky.social•47 days ago

Its as if they've had a lobotomy. It's not great for the UK to have such a poor opposition, beginning to think Sunak may be the Conservatives Asquith

leafymorgan.bsky.social•47 days ago

A chap who makes jokes about date rape drugs might want to sit this one out.

andraswf.bsky.social•48 days ago

nominative determinism is dead

tjmarsden.bsky.social•48 days ago

Any 'Tommy Robinson Party' is a 5% party, troubling that the Tories seem desperate enough to chase it.

Horrible vision of a future where we're worrying if a Meloni-shaped Reform Party might coalition, or worse, merge with an ever more extremist Tory rump...

dogpatchryan.bsky.social•47 days ago

Desperate times and all that

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