Tristan Garel-Jones has just told them to join "a little party somewhere that wants to leave the EU". That is the word from the grandees, including Cameron: they can all clear off to UKIP.
Then they can all lose their seats the way the SDP did; large numbers of Labour supporters wholly or broadly agreed with the SDP, just as large numbers of Conservative supporters wholly or broadly agree with UKIP, but voting in this country is tribal.
And the numbers will be made by the Lib Dems, organisationally absorbed into, but ideologically absorbing of, the Tory machine. Like the Liberal Unionists, the Liberal Imperialists and the National Liberals before them.
That is what Cameron actively wants to happen.
LADY BRACKNELL : [Sternly] What are your politics?
ReplyDeleteJACK: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.
LADY BRACKNELL: Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us.
It's often cut out. But now it could easily be made to run thus:
ReplyDeleteLADY BRACKNELL : [Sternly] What are your politics?
JACK: Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Democrat.
LADY BRACKNELL: Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us.
"A Trivial Comedy for Serious People" is the subtitle. Whereas the present situation is A Serious Tragedy of Trivial People.
But there is more than a touch of Joseph Chamberlain about you. A radical at home, what would now be called pro-Commonwealth abroad, and an opponent of free trade and laissez-faire on both grounds.
ReplyDeleteYou are also not unlike the Liberal Imperialists. Not only on that international point, but also in decrying a once-national party that has become too "faddist", too sectional and too preoccupied with certain corners of the country. The Liberals in their case, Labour in yours.