Why I’ve resigned from the Conservative Party
From longstanding PBer Richard Nabavi
After five decades of support for the Conservatives, I have now resigned as a party member. Naturally this hasn’t been an easy decision; it has been a pleasure working with my MP Nus Ghani, and before her Charles Hendry, and helping in a small way in various constituencies to achieve six years of sound Conservative-led government under David Cameron, even if the past two years have been increasingly difficult. I shall miss the opportunities to take part and to meet with senior figures in the party, which I’ve always found very interesting.
However, with the election as leader of someone who is, to put it charitably, deeply unserious, and with the descent of the party into what can only be described as a political death-cult untroubled by political and economic reality, obsessed with the arbitrary and unrealistic date of October 31st, and deliberately refusing to listen to multiple well-informed warnings about the dangers of crashing out of the EU in total chaos, I cannot remain as a member any longer.
The party is no longer recognisable as the pragmatic, business-friendly, economically-sound, reality-based party of government which I have supported for decades. It will justifiably get the electoral blame for the consequences of the disastrous course it has chosen, and will probably never be forgiven by younger voters.
The election of Boris Johnson as leader is irresponsible and unworthy in itself: many of those who voted for him are fully aware that he is unfit to be PM. But, worse than that, it is a symptom of a much deeper malaise in the party, one that goes to the very heart of what the Conservative Party should be about. It is a choice of denial as well as of desperation, showing that party members have lost interest in dealing with the world as it is, not as it they would like it to be.
If the Conservative Party no longer wishes to be a serious party of government, living in the real world and striving to act in the interests of the whole United Kingdom, what is the point of it?
I hope that, at some time in the future, the party will come back to its senses, as it did in 2005, and allow some future leader to drag it back into the reality of the 21st century. Unfortunately, it looks as though I will have a very long wait.