I didn’t think I’d ever say this: let’s hope the Tory party can be saved | Polly Toynbee

Britain badly needs a grownup party of the centre right. It won’t come from Badenoch – it may come from a new generation of one-nationersBritain needs the Conservative party. That’s a line I never expected to write. For most of my life under their fiefdom, the “natural party of government” has commanded the media, business and political donations. It has presided, especially since the 1980s, over capital supremacy at the expense of labour, sky-high inequality, public service degradation and me-first individualism.So it should be a joy to read its obituary everywhere, as it apparently faces “oblivion”, “the abyss” and “extinction”. The prospect of Britain without a Tory party is hard to grasp. But we may miss them if they are replaced with something worse. The next iteration of the right risks being the Trumpist, foreigner-persecuting world of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. Kemi Badenoch’s opening conference speech walked her party further along that plank: mimicking his policies, she makes Faragism respectable, a small step for Danny Kruger defectors.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

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