Even after election wipeout, the Conservatives are too blinded by ideology to see their voters don’t want a Reform merger, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee
The group was formed in 1989 and, in case you weren’t around back then, ignited the great split in the Tory party, after Margaret Thatcher made a speech in Bruges calling a halt to any closer federalism in Europe.
Though she was never mad enough to be a leaver, this group used her words to send the first Brexit snowball rolling downhill until it turned into the avalanche that finally broke the Tory party into pieces.
Most were for Farage – ending net zero, cutting taxes, quitting the European convention on human rights, shrinking the state, stamping out “wokery” and, of course, “maximising the benefits of Brexit”.
Tim Bale, one of the survey’s authors, told me the idea of “uniting the right is flawed”: many more Conservative voters would flee a Reform merged party.
Successful populist parties in Europe are social and cultural conservatives, especially on immigration, but in Hungary, the Netherlands, France and Italy they all moved left on the economy, the size of the state, pensions and public services according to the Financial Times’ data cruncher John Burn-Murdoch.
But since right economics are burrowed deep in their DNA, it would take a gigantic political somersault to abandon their principles of free markets, a small state, and cuts to taxes and public-sector spending.
The original article contains 1,137 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The group was formed in 1989 and, in case you weren’t around back then, ignited the great split in the Tory party, after Margaret Thatcher made a speech in Bruges calling a halt to any closer federalism in Europe.
Though she was never mad enough to be a leaver, this group used her words to send the first Brexit snowball rolling downhill until it turned into the avalanche that finally broke the Tory party into pieces.
Most were for Farage – ending net zero, cutting taxes, quitting the European convention on human rights, shrinking the state, stamping out “wokery” and, of course, “maximising the benefits of Brexit”.
Tim Bale, one of the survey’s authors, told me the idea of “uniting the right is flawed”: many more Conservative voters would flee a Reform merged party.
Successful populist parties in Europe are social and cultural conservatives, especially on immigration, but in Hungary, the Netherlands, France and Italy they all moved left on the economy, the size of the state, pensions and public services according to the Financial Times’ data cruncher John Burn-Murdoch.
But since right economics are burrowed deep in their DNA, it would take a gigantic political somersault to abandon their principles of free markets, a small state, and cuts to taxes and public-sector spending.
The original article contains 1,137 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!