There are some stories that deserve better than to be relegated into a relatively obscure part of the politics page of BBC News. This political story is one of such great importance because of what it signifies, that it makes me wonder whether the BBC deliberately buried this story.
The story in question is that of former Conservative Party MP and former Employment Minister and Shadow Home Secretary, Ann Widdecombe who has come out on the side of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. This may not seem big news to some but it is to me. Firstly it takes a lot for someone who has been a member of a political party for over 50 years to abandon it either in whole or in part. Miss Widdecombe has said that she will support the Tories in upcoming local elections, which is somewhat understandable as many grass roots Tories have little if anything to do with the debacle created by the Tory party in Westminster. However she has stated that she will support Mr Farage’s party in other elections.
The second reason why I see this story as important is what it says about the state of the Conservative Party as a whole. It shows that the Tories are no longer in any real sense ‘conservative’ and is driving away those who would normally support them. Whilst I acknowledge that for some Miss Widdecombe is a controversial character because of her socially conservative views, I also recognise that she is a person of principle and who has a moral position on various issues. It is rarely a good thing in politics for a party to drive away those who have carefully considered principles. By driving out traditional conservatives like Miss Widdecombe, the Tories are showing that they are no longer a party with principles and instead are a party of slippery individuals who care little for anything outside of what is expedient for the party leadership. When political parties become unpalatable for those who have traditionally supported them then it can be a sign that a party is declining.
We’ve seen this happen to the Labour Party where the ordinary decent working class members have been sidelined and forced out by the far Left clique that now controls nearly all of the levers of power in Labour. Labour is now no longer the party of thoughtful individuals such as Frank Field MP but is instead the party of divisive ranters such as David Lammy and extremists such as the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn.
It looks as if a similar phenomenon of the bad driving out the good and the principled may now be occurring in the Conservative Party. Miss Widdecombe’s departure from the Tory fold should be taken as a symptom of the disgust that many in the party or who were formerly in the party, feel about how the Government has handled or rather mishandled the Brexit process. I would be completely unsurprised if there are many more Tories who are both locally and nationally prominent who will follow a similar route to that taken by Miss Widdecombe. The departure of Miss Widdecombe is a much bigger deal than it may look at first to many people. The Tories are losing someone who has stuck by the party loyally through thick and thin, during periods when the party was in government and when it was in the electoral wilderness. That is in my view a very big deal indeed. Politicians like Ann Widdecombe do not abandon their party home and come out of retirement for no reason. People like that do not easily abandon their elder stateswoman status and respect among some party members on a whim, this is not something that those who have worked hard in politics really want to lose.
Ms Widdecombe’s departure from the Tories to being a supporter of the Brexit Party is a huge coup for Nigel Farage. It is a political ‘what on Earth’ moment similar to that which convulsed the Labour Party in the early 1980s when moderates abandoned a party that was rushing to the Left to form the Social Democratic Party. This defection may mark the start of the process in which the Tory party declines as a powerful part of Britain’s political system, especially if Tories who are unhappy with the way the party has lurched to the left on social issues and mishandled Brexit, follow her to pastures new.
