They have been unbelievably bad and you would hope they're in the wilderness for a generation. You just wonder who might take their place. Brexit was designed to bury ukip but instead they have found a whole new audience.
Yes I agree and I suspect that will be a best case scenario. It took a lot of astute governance, patience and in truth mistakes by New Labour to eventually get them from a position of weakness to approaching getting an outright majority (around 20 years). This crisis feels much worse. In all honesty they have the same short term issues but I do think there are far greater long term trends against that are now far more embedded than in 1997. The demography of their electorate is a major major issue. There are now increasing numbers of children who are growing up households where neither parents voted/s Tory. This is a real indicator of difficulties.
As for who replaces them there are in essence two currents that could emerge. The first looking something like Change UK, the other looking like the Brexit Party (as a starting point). One seeks to appeal to capital that they are able to put their interests firmly and centrally at the political discourse box. The latter is able to rally around the more rank and file/plebian elements of the party. The best Conservative governments were able to unite both, this one seems to be able to do neither.
I have my reservations either of the above can do this longer term. CHUK have made some pretty enormous early mistakes, and as yet still haven't really woken up to this being a useful avenue for them (beyond Soubry who I do think get it and though I find her loathsome she is a very effective politician-I rate her),
FPTP are going to punish them brutally though. Thats the glib reality of it. Disunity doesn't fair well. When movements become demoralised it doesn't tend to bode well either. They are the big challenges for the right currently. There will be a rump of mainly older people who will still vote for Brand Conservative. Lots more who will vote for a Brexit party, and some who may go for a more liberal conservative party. Splitting around 45% of the electorate in those directions is never likely to lead to victory.
I have been generous in my assumption of 45% too. That is shrinking all the time and there's no guarantee the turmoil won't hit the right harder as time goes by. What likely happens in such splits is it becomes very acrimonious and people become very focussed on fighting one another and not think about building a broad argument. (I've seen this on the left).
So yes lots of problems.
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