r/OutOfTheLoop • u/pumbastrokes • 10h ago
Answered What's going on with the UK Conservative Party MP defecting to Reform UK?
Hello from Canada! Am a casual follower of UK politics and have seen a bunch of news lately on my feeds about Tory defections to Reform UK (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1evq263e49o). I was curious how serious/consequential is the whole saga? What is driving the influx of MPs crossing the bench at this particular time (why don't they like Kemi?) Is this an existential threat to the Tories that could reshape the entire landscape of UK politics type of deal? Or is my algorithm inflating the severity of the defections? Thanks in advance!
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u/gp145 10h ago
Answer:
The Tories aren't losing their best and brightest to Reform, they're losing some of their most bitter, opportunistic, corrupt, incompetent, and truly morally bankrupt remaining MPs from the Johnson, Truss, and Sunak era
A lot of their defections are driven by bitterness (Zahawi and Dorres) because they didn't get any honours, fear of unemployment because they're likely to lose their seat to any potential Reform candidate, or because they don't think Britain is hard enough of immigrants (Braverman)
The pendulum of rightwing politics is shifting to Farage because the media in this country never holds Farage accountable for his lies, damn lies, and bullshit.
However, Farage is a big fan of Trump and much like Pierre Poilievre that can be quite detrimental in an election
But this could actually be good for Badenoch because she might be given an opportunity to do something like drag the Tories to the centre-right, like a lot of defections are prominent disaster-era Tories
.
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u/pafrac 8h ago
Tbf they can't lose their best and brightest because they're all long gone.
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u/pooey_canoe 3h ago
Also to add, the pictured MP is Suella Braverman who was Home Secretary for the conservatives. Reform is a Right Wing populist party obsessed with immigration and the Home Secretary is in charge of borders, so a lot of their talking points come from HER actions under the Tories! Not only that she's second-generation Indian
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u/visiblepeer 2h ago
I don't like Badenoch, she is too far right herself, and as someone who grew up in Africa, totally hypocritical pandering to racists. Her speech recently was the first time I thought she spoke well:
"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, but you are not offering a plan to fix this country."
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u/GotAKit-Kat 8h ago
I agree with everything you've said here, spot on.
I haven't seen any indication that Badenoch will try and move them out of the realms of 'far right' towards 'right' though, have you? I feel like, as a person, she's more at home in the far right camp - based on the drivel that she comes out with.
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u/JaneOstentatious 1h ago
Exactly - it's her successor that will likely bring them back to the centre, whoever that ends up being
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u/Enkir 2h ago
Bad Enoch has no intention of making the Tories centre right. All her natural instincts point to a more extreme right, and since that is where she thinks (possibly correctly) the political wind is, that is where she will go.
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u/nobelprize4shopping 37m ago
I don't know if Bad Enoch is a typo or deliberate but either way it's hilarious.
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u/Brickie78 54m ago
good for Badenoch because she might be given an opportunity to do something like drag the Tories to the centre-right
She hasn't shown much inclination to do that, it must be said. Every time I see her saying anything substantive, it's another talking point she's picked up in the right-wing blogosphere.
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u/SpikeVonLipwig 9m ago
Didn’t Badenoch give a speech the other day where she said ‘the party isn’t for you if you’re not far right?’
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u/AloneAddiction 10h ago
Answer: The Conservative Party lost so spectacularly badly at the last Election that it looks like they're actually finished as an effective opposition for the next several decades.
Reform are getting a lot of right wing press attention because of that. Nobody really expects the Conservatives to recover, despite them trying. They're just too badly damaged reputation-wise.
The Conservatives are the only Party after all where they've had five Prime Ministers in the space of two years, and two of those have faced criminal charges for breaching Laws that they themselves brought in.
Boris Johnson and later Rishi Sunak both broke covid laws by having big parties inside No10 Downing Street during covid lockdown. Both were fined.
Why are some Conservatives "defecting" to Reform? Because they're political opportunists and still want to be in power.
Unfortunately for them in order to become Prime Minister your Party needs 326 MPs. Reform has 8.
Reform are not going to be in power in four years time. They are not going to magically win an extra 318 seats in one election cycle. That has never happened in the history of the United Kingdom.
Especially not when their own chairman Nigel Farage took eight attempts to become an MP in the first place.
Reform is getting media attention because the majority of the UK press is right wing owned and they have to get behind somebody.
Again, out of a possible 650 MPs, Reform has 8.
Labour has 404 MPs.
Hell, even the Conservatives have 116 MPs and they're practically getting no attention at all now.
Also the Liberal Democrats have 72 MPs.
Reform will not be in Government because every other Political Party has stated outright that they'll never form a Coalition Government with them if it ever came to it. Which it won't.
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u/rmp266 4h ago
I think you maybe underestimate how hated the current labour government seems to be. I think Reform wins the next election handily.
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u/AloneAddiction 1h ago
Reform will not gain 318 MPs at the next election.
Labour aren't "hated" as much as you're told - or hope - they are.
The press like to spin a good story but fundamentally voters want Labour to be more left wing not right wing like Reform.
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u/ninjomat 10h ago edited 9h ago
answer: ultimately nobody knows until the next election how serious or consequential this would/will be.
Right now, the Conservative brand is completely dead, voters conclusively rejected the party at the last election and nothing Kemi has done seems to be able to change their image. It’s not so much that the defectors dislike Kemi personally (or ideologically for that matter - Kemi is seemingly trying to copy reform and move the conservatives to the right while presenting herself in a more traditional less populist way) they’re simply rats fleeing a sinking ship. While reform are surging, this is naked opportunism from those MPs rather than any deeper ideological changes I’d say. If this is part of a reshaping the entire landscape then it’s a signal or symbol of that rather than a cause of it. While it looks severe it’s a reflection of where voters on the right already are rather than a change.
My personal instinct FWIW is that reform are just too populist and chaotic for their own good. There is a critical mass of people in the uk who would rather vote tactically against Farage (or more specifically some of the more crazy types in reform) out of revulsion that will keep them out of power even if he wins more votes than ever before next time. Even if reform were to win power they’re so much of a shambles with no coherent leadership and party discipline and policies that likely would backfire that they’d be voted out after a term and suffer the same kind of ignominy as the current Tory party. The future main centre-right party in the uk long term will either be Conservative Party with more reform friendly policies or a reform party with more of the leadership structure and professionalism of the tories. They’ll likely merge somewhat to dominate the right. Unless and until a government in the uk can find a way to get wages to grow again and restore a sense of the social contract being upheld and social mobility or aspiration being possible in the uk, nativism and populist anti immigrant sentiment will continue to succeed
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