Organising for Brexit and beyond
Across the country conservatives need to start getting together to push for Brexit and keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Number Ten
The Conservative Party has fought Nigel Farage repeatedly since the mid-2000s, and with the result of the EU referendum thought that it had found the ideal way to send him off into retirement: implement the choice of the people, show that the elite took the man on the street seriously, and return the country to calm government of itself. Instead the party finds itself facing something unbeatable at the European Parliament elections in May: the truth that the result of the referendum hasn’t been respected. Brexit has become a question of how we are governed.
Mr Farage is going to tell Britons again and again that they can’t trust the main political parties and that the temple needs to be pulled down and rebuilt. He’ll tell that story through the European elections and on to the next general election. The Brexit Party could swallow conservative politics for years, with Marxists getting into Number Ten in the process.
As the Conservative Party continues to flail around, conservatives and any new Leave friends must take the initiative to push for Brexit and impede Jeremy Corbyn’s path to power. That starts by accepting that Brexit has become a question of trust, but offers a chance to renew the right and rejuvenate Britain’s constitution.
The Brexit Party’s message is already working. Recent polls suggest that support for the Conservatives has dropped nationally to under 30 percent, and its position at the European elections is under great threat from the Brexit Party pushing UKIP down and becoming the one, pro-Brexit anti-system party. Even Conservative associations seem likely to back the Brexit Party. The new party’s candidates mix competence in their professional lives with the most valuable thing in British politics right now: not being associated with rejection of the referendum result.
The displeasure of the people needs to be voiced, and all of the main parties are going to hear it loudly at the EU elections. It’s going to be tough for Conservative activists: torn between campaigning for a party in which one already seems to have invested a lifetime of Saturday mornings, and standing up for Brexit and against the Withdrawal Agreement. There is one way out: let the Brexit Party do its work at the EU elections and use the shock of the result to discipline minds.
As the effects of the Brexit Party start to unfold over the coming few weeks, all conservatives need to get organising for how we are going to deal with the question of trust. Nobody knows what to do at the moment, least of all the people that have tried to push through the Withdrawal Agreement. Debating our options now will put us all in a better position to know which leader to choose, pick the candidates that can be straight with the electorate, and align the right in a way that voters can trust.
At some point we’ll need policies that manifest that reach for constitutional renewal and trust. Onward’s recent research on the electorate’s priority issues would be helpful guidance for a future election manifesto in normal times, but these aren’t normal times and the question is now about who on the right should be given the permission to govern.
But how to start? Groups like Leavers of Britain look to me like they’ve got an ideal setup for getting local groups of leavers together and organising them to campaign for Brexit. If you’re in the capital like me, their next London meeting is on 25th April at 19:00 in Westminster. I’ll be there.
Come on, let’s get going.
