With British Conservatives Facing Political Annihilation, Neither Sunak Nor Farage Seem Willing To Compromise on the Right
‘When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind,’ said Sam’l Johnson. He forgot about the Tories.
With Parliament dissolved by Charles III on Thursday and Britons going to the ballot box on July 4, polling of voting intentions paints a devastating picture for the governing Conservative Party. With political annihilation staring them down, circumstances dictate dynamic thinking.
“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight,” Samuel Johnson said, “it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The Tories’ trouble may be that with five weeks remaining before judgment day, they are resigned to their fate.
In the first major poll conducted since the election was called, the Daily Mail reports the Conservative Government is projected to win no more than 66 to 77 seats in the new Parliament.
With Labour projected to win 46 percent of the vote (against the Tories’ 19 percent), they are on course to form the next Government with between 476 and 493 seats — 300 more than their rivals combined.
This would give Sir Keir Starmer a “bigger landslide” than won by Labour’s Tony Blair in 1997 — 419 seats to 165 won for John Major’s Conservatives — and the “largest win by any party in modern parliamentary history.”
For Brexiteers fearful that a Labour Government will undermine the results of the 2016 Referendum by implementing pro-EU policies, there is insult added to injury.
Despite the Conservatives’ continued mean-spirited responses to Nigel Farage, last week he “magnanimously” offered them what assistance he could, to keep Sir Keir and the Labour Party from office.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister rebuffed the olive branch. “Pride goeth before destruction,” King Solomon wrote in Proverbs, “and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
In conversation with Harry Cole of the London Sun’s politics podcast, Mr. Farage disclosed he had been set to stand as a Reform UK candidate. The fact that Mr. Sunak announced the election date before his announcement scuppered the launch.
“It’s even harder to win when you’re Nigel Farage because the other side will cheat,” he stated. “There’ll be third-party outside influencers, and I needed a really good run at this. And six weeks wasn’t enough.”
Never disheartened, strategic thinking kicked in. “I thought, well, rather than being stuck for six weeks in a constituency, why not travel around the country?” To wit: “Not just supporting Reform candidates, but try and get a proper debate going.”
Mr. Farage even “conceded he’d be willing to strike a deal with Mr. Sunak to help him save the Conservative Party from a catastrophe,” the Daily Express hinted.
“I got rid of Mrs. May with the Brexit Party,” he said. “I stood aside for Boris [Johnson] to help him win a massive majority. I’ve done them some huge favors over the years as a party.”
Now may be time for some reciprocity, especially in aid of Brexit. “Give me something back,” Mr. Farage says to the Conservatives. “We might have a conversation.”
If this were a trial balloon to gauge Tory thinking, it was a bust. For Mr. Sunak, nothing doing. “There’s only going to be one [of] two people who’s going to be prime minister on July 5,” he said. “It’s either Keir Starmer or me.”
Mr. Sunak added that “a vote for anyone who isn’t a Conservative candidate, is a vote to put Keir Starmer into No. 10.” Nevertheless, when the Daily Express “pressed to confirm whether he was ruling out a deal with Reform,” Premier Sunak was emphatic: “Yes.”
In the end, it was all a moot point as Mr. Farage later rowed back on his remarks. “My reply was deeply sarcastic. What are they ever going to give me?” he clarified. “There is no deal with the Conservatives whatsoever.”
As it is, Mr. Farage may have something more like a hostile takeover in mind for the Tories than a mutually beneficial discussion.
Alluding to the MAGA vs. RINO phenomenon, he told Mr. Cole: “What Trump did of course, is he was able to hijack the conservative party in America. I’d love to have had a crack at that here in this country.”
As for that Daily Mail poll, Reform UK is projected to win 12 percent of the vote but no seats. Nor are Mr. Farage’s constituency any more conciliatory than he, as “less than a quarter (22 percent) of Reform supporters are likely to vote tactically to support the Conservatives.”
Seems there is more than one haughty spirit on foot in the land. Sooner or later, however, the parties of the right will have to work together. Until then, conservative-minded Britons are left to their own devices.
“Put not your trust in princes,” warned the Psalmist, “nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”
