Right At Home

Whatever is the position of the Leader of the Conservative Party at the given time, then that is the outer right flank of British politics. 

UKIP, the Conservative Right and the Blairite Labour Right are all in crisis because they fail to understand this basic fact.

Douglas Carswell, however, clearly does understand it, while Mark Reckless not only understands it, but has acted on it.

Reckless is now a member of the party that positively prides itself that it is going to declare the entire acquis communautaire to be the law of this land even though there is to be no further British role in determining its content.

Forget the idea that it will be "only up to 2019". That cannot be made to work. The ridiculously misnamed Great Repeal Bill will turn the United Kingdom into a colony of the European Union.

With the acquis communautaire as the law of the United Kingdom, several of the good things that the triumph of the Old Tory Left might have made possible, especially the renationalisation of the railways, will remain out of the question.

But not workers' and consumers' representation in corporate governance, shareholders' control over executive pay, restrictions on pay differentials within companies, an investment-based Industrial Strategy and infrastructure programme, greatly increased housebuilding, action against tax avoidance, a ban on public contracts for tax-avoiding companies, a cap on energy prices, banning or greatly restricting foreign takeovers, and a ban on unpaid internships.

Two years ago, the only politicians advocating all but one of those were Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, while the energy price cap, proposed by Ed Miliband, was being screamed down by the people who wish that they themselves were still running the Labour Party, something that they have not now done for as long as Tony Blair was ever Prime Minister.

These days, though, such are the policies even of the person who can be elected unopposed as Leader of the Conservative Party. So there really is no point in trying to oppose them.

Indeed, the Conservative Party has not had a Leadership Election in 12 years, and that was when David Cameron beat David Davis by more than two to one. A large proportion of Davis's then supporters will since have died.

In the meantime, that party has won an overall majority specifically on the back of having introduced same-sex marriage, which gave the Tory-begotten section of an entire generation a sense of permission to vote Conservative rather than, most probably, Liberal Democrat.

Its Leader, the Prime Minister, has also affirmed in recent days that the United Kingdom's singularly liberal application of the principle of free movement is going to remain in effect, come what may.

Back to that party has Reckless gone, giving it the Official Opposition status at Cardiff Bay that it already enjoyed at Holyrood under the most popular politician in Scotland, Ruth Davidson, who is her party's present position made flesh.

And back to that party will Carswell go in due season, perhaps once he has lost his seat to it.