Friday, 19 January 2024

The Tories are finished

To say the government is beginning to fall apart is an understatement. All governments tend to end in disarray of course. John Major struggled with divisions over Europe, something that doesn’t affect the current dismal crop of Tory MPs but which has now transferred to the whole country thanks to Brexit. Nothing went right for Brown in his three years at the helm but Sunak’s problems are far worse. What he is doing on the Rwanda policy is simply jaw-dropping. There’s an actual war going on in Europe, two-thirds of the population think we will see a recession this year, nothing works anymore and we’re going through a cost of living crisis, but Sunak is fixated on a few asylum seekers.

Public inquiries are going on revealing stuff that would embarrass a banana republic. In the middle of all this, the UK prime minister is pandering to a bunch of swivel-eyed racists in trying to get a few poor wretched unfortunates transported. We stopped shipping people off to Australia in 1868. Sunak seems intent on resurrecting the idea but the destination is now a small impoverished nation in Africa that suffered a genocide just thirty years ago and still has highly dubious human rights.

The Rwanda bill eventually went through the Commons comfortably but not before all kinds of threatened rebellions, mainly from the usual suspects on the hard right who don’t think it will work and isn't quite cruel enough.  Even Sunak himself doesn’t think anybody is going to find themselves with a one-way ticket to Kigali this side of the general election. It’s certainly the case there won’t be any afterward, so that’s another £400 million down the drain.

As a deterrent, it’s like spending multiples of the cost of a real nuclear submarine on an inflatable replica. Anybody who’s prepared to risk a 26-mile crossing of the world’s busiest shipping lane in winter in a small overcrowded boat isn’t going to be put off by a 1-2% chance of being sent to Rwanda.

Sunak and presumably his advisors think he’s creating a wedge issue that will appeal to a certain kind of knuckle-dragging voter, heavily tattooed, shaven-headed, foreigner-hating, and struggling to articulate a sensible thought on any subject. But the polls show that isn’t working either.

I am sure there is a section of the population in Britain who would be happy to see the boat people sent en masse anywhere rather than offer them safe refuge or even just a legal route to apply for asylum. A lot of voters seem to think the majority of immigrants arrive here illegally when it's a tiny, tiny fraction of the total.

Check this piece from Sky News where Sam Coates describes the press conference Sunak called yesterday afternoon, begging the Lords to pass his Rwanda bill quickly:

It really is remarkable. He actually said: "There will always be circumstances in which it is right that facts are considered”.  What does that even mean?  Robert Peston drew attention to it telling us that Sunak was "talking about the circumstances where ministers won’t automatically ignore the European Court of Human Rights when it issues an order to delay an airlift of asylum seekers to Rwanda."

So, if the ECHR resorts to using 'facts' UK ministers won't automatically ignore the court. What a relief.

This unwholesome fixation with a few immigrants is costing the Tories a lot.

The latest poll by YouGov for The Times puts Labour on 47% against the Tories who are on a mind-blowing 20%! These are stunning figures and show how badly Sunak will struggle. Some people have calculated a result anywhere near that could put the natural party of government on 30 seats. It’s not impossible they could come third behind the LibDems.

Worse, The Independent has looked at YouGov's poll and suggests it shows only 10% of voters under 50 intend to vote for the Conservative at the next general election:

"The poll lays bare just how unpopular the party is with young people, with just 4 percent of those aged between 18 and 24 saying they intend to vote Conservative and only 12 percent of 25- to 49-year-olds. It also shows that support for the Conservatives is at its lowest level since Liz Truss’s final days as prime minister."

I know I’m biased but I would put the blame for much of the party’s troubles on Brexit. It has been the focus of their attention for eight long years when they could have been doing things to try and improve the lot of ordinary folk. 

They didn't and it's going to destroy the party. We are looking at the end game.

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