The Conservative party conference assembled in Manchester yesterday as StopBrexit# protesters marched through the city centre past the venue where the conference is being held as a reminder that the 48.1% still believe in the EU (HERE). We heard rousing speeches from Vince Cable, Stephen Dorrell, Alastair Campbell and others and it was a thoroughly enjoyable albeit rather grey day. Even the misty rain that came in the afternoon didn't dampen our spirits.
The "Brexit is a Monstrosity" float (left) led the protest march and sums up what we all think about Brexit. The Conservative conference cannot be an entirely happy event for what is in essence a shrinking and divided party. The website Conservative Home carried an article last week (HERE) talking about the membership slipping to below 100,000 next year. The last reported figure was in 2014 when membership was 149,800 but no figures have been reported since. It is claimed that membership is down by a quarter in Tory heartlands and perhaps more in areas where the party has little support. The article muses on why no figures have been published for three years. I think we can guess.
I read also the average age of the membership is 72 and that the party is trying to attract younger voters (HERE), acknowledging their problem among the 18-35 age group (HERE) with some former ministers (HERE) warning Tories they risk losing the youth vote permanently. They pursue policies, particularly like Brexit and tuition fees, that turn younger voters away and it's hard to see how they will reverse party fortunes whilst moving ever more to the extreme right. I cannot see how the party can bridge the huge divide between UKIP and Corbynism. For at least ten years they have been trying to satisfy UKIP leaning voters - the referendum was an attempt to outflank Nigel Farage's party - and thinking that Labour were unelectable. Now they find themselves with a popular opponent as the mood of the country changes.
Alastair Campbell asked yesterday if anyone could name a successful country which had ever pursued policies that ignored the young? And there isn't one, for obvious reasons.
Brexit is the pursuit of a policy that will come to fruition when the majority of the cohort in the electorate that wanted it the most will have passed away. The Conservatives are implementing policies for the dead and ignoring the living. Perhaps this won't matter if the party itself is dying and we may be closer to learning its fate this week as managers desperately seek to keep the two factions together. If they do it will only delay things - by 2020 they will be two parties.
