Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Senior Tory MPs Defect to Reform
While the Trump administration has been creating chaos from Venezuela to Greenland to Minnesota, politics elsewhere has not stopped. Over in the UK, the right-wing in-fighting continues between the Conservative Party and newly minted Reform.In the last few days, former Home Secratary Suella Braverman and shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick have quit the Tories and joined Reform. Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch is saying "good riddance" rather than trying to calm the waters. If past is prologue, the split on the right will mirror the split on the left in the 1980s. The only thing certain at this point is that Labour benefits from this.
The Conservative Party was always going to face this sort of re-organization. Having lost the last general election decisively, a time in the wilderness is the price one must pay to return to relevance. It does not always work. There is the Reform Party trying to poach Tory voters and leaders, and keeping people in the Conservative Party is not easy as a result.
Reform, though, has only 8 MPs and has failed to make much headway in by-elections. The Scottish National Party at Westminster is bigger with 9, and the SNP only campaigns in Scotland. Credibility it what Reform needs, and defections like these can help. At the same time, someone pointed out that Reform now has more former members of the Liz Truss government than the Conservatives. Given that government lasted only a brief time (famously compared to a head of lettuce in that regard), the suggestion is that the Reform talent pool is not the best from which to draw future leaders.
Tory Party leadership is not in a conciliatory mood right now. PoliticoEU reported:
The Tory leader laid into those former colleagues, accusing them of having "a tantrum dressed up as politics."
"I'm sorry you didn't win the leadership contest. I'm sorry you didn't get a job in the shadow cabinet. I'm sorry you didn't get into the Lords," Badenoch said, accusing them of "not offering a plan to fix this country."
At the same time, a new center-right Conservative grouping called Prosper UK came into being yesterday vowing to provide a home for non-rabid-rightist Tories. Since Ms. Badenoch is an ideologue, and a tought one at that, one is unsure of how she will react to their work. Having purged the right, she may want to purge the left as well.
The main thing to remember in all of this is that the Labour Party has a working majority in the House of Commons that is well over 150. It is bigger that the largest majority Margaret Thatcher had after the 1983 election. Labour should be untouchable from here to the general election due by 15 August 2029. That is a very long time for the right to turn its guns on itself. It is only the gneral ineptitude of Labour with such a majority that gives the Tories and Reform any hope.
The parallel with the Labour-SDP split in 1981 is increasing. The Social Democratic Party was composed of former Labour ministers who felt the die-hard socialism of Michael Foote was too much to bear. The SDP formed an alliance with the Liberal Party, which finished third in the general election of 1983. But it came within 700,000 votes of out-polling Labour. But it would not be until 1997 that the Labour Party overcame the problems of 1983.
It is far too early to predict the outcome of a general election more than 3 years away. However, if history rhymes today with the 1980s, the left will succeed because the right cannot get itself sorted -- the exact mirror image of the previous age.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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