The Conservative Party is not deserving of anyone’s vote

There’s no energy, no principle, just a cynical bunch of mediocre politicians squeezing the public out of every penny they dared to earn for themselves.

Two years in the Conservative Party, two years spent being nothing but dejected and disappointed about the direction it was going in and the position it has now cemented itself into. In truth, I left the party in spirit months ago. Recounting why is challenging since my feeling about this is exactly that, feeling. It’s difficult to put into words the entire reasoning but I’ll make the effort to, nonetheless. This is something personal for me to get it off my chest, there is no attention or big grand point I wish to make to the masses but, if you’re interested, I hope you’ll hear me out.

I joined when many did, at the election of Boris Johnson as leader and thus Prime Minister. The Brexit deadlock was agonising, the move towards a patriotic, blue-collar conservativism was exactly the kind of politics that spoke to me most. Boris seemed them like an advocate of freedom, his blistering speeches suggested to me some kind of leadership that seemed better than anything else on offer at the time.

The 2019 election was a barnstorming victory- I believe I was elated more because of who we had defeated and irritated with the achievement of such a large majority. Looking back, that was a flawed way of seeing things. Ever since achieving government, the walk back on everything from levelling up to controlling our borders began. Covid unleashed the real power players in the Government, the civil service and all its operators. Big state government, large spending, eye-wateringly high taxation- all would emerge as key policies.

It doesn’t matter what party is in charge, those vices remain. It’s been a violation of everything the party once stood for, and it became clear it was not going to be temporary. The Prime Minister now appears weak, a puppet on a string that doesn’t quite know what his agenda is meant to be any longer. Sluggishly the government moves, changing position whenever the media and their poster boy Keir Starmer decrees it.

There’s no energy, no principle, just a cynical bunch of mediocre politicians squeezing the public out of every penny they dared to earn for themselves. The 2024 election will be a disaster no matter who wins and the real issues that matter, our desperately inadequate health service springs to mind as an example, will not be adequately addressed. Nothing will change. Politics now is pork-barrelling; who can spend the most of your money.

I think I stayed for so long into this fiasco because I heard so many voices in the party exactly like mine, be that backbench MPs or members. No one is happy, and they make it clear often enough. However, they have had no impact whatsoever. Covid policy has created a government of diktat; they listen to no voices but their own and fail to understand any other perspective. It’s only when risked with losing the electorate (or their own back pockets, as we have seen with the sleaze scandals) that they decide to become animated and U-turn once again. This illustrates the fact that the ‘Westminster bubble’ is not a buzz term, its an endemic reality of a rotten system.

The backlash of 2019 was fuelled by the British people who had all had enough, but they soon had the trust they put in the Conservative Party spat back in their faces. The party does not deserve anyone’s vote, no more than the fetid Labour Party does. Both to me are now cut from the same cloth, there’s no room for social conservatism or liberty-fuelled policy in British politics anymore – that much is clear. I will feel far more comfortable in myself outside the party, instead of fighting a losing battle from within.