The search for Conservative Party unity

IF AN ELECTORALMPMP atom bomb reduced the Conservative Party to just two s, it would still be deeply divided. Sir John Hayes is the for South Holland and the Deepings, the safest Tory seat in Britain. He is the chairman of the Common Sense Group, a caucus which believes in a cultural struggle against wokery, mass immigration, the Human Rights Act and people Sir John calls “globalists”. The second safest Tory seat, and its geographic neighbour, is Boston and Skegness, held by Matt Warman. He is a rising star of the One Nation Group, a rival tendency of Tory centrists who believe in the defence of institutions and fiscal prudence and who are at ease with social change.These two very different Tories are nonetheless usually found in the same voting lobby at Westminster. Like a lunar orbit sustained by the interplay of centrifugal force and gravity, the Conservative Party is trapped between two opposing instincts. One is ideological division, the other a craving for unity. The struggle to reconcile them is the cause of most of its agonies.