The Tory membership’s obsession with a no-deal Brexit is forcing our voters to flee to other parties

The word “democracy” is always seen positively. When I heard the term “party democracy” with regard to my own party, the Conservatives, it sounded like something to be welcomed. Instead, just as for Labour and US Republicans, it has been a disaster, leaving us in thrall to a group of self-selected activists whose views no longer represent those of our voters or our longstanding philosophy.

The idea that party members should have a say in selecting the leader sounds plausible enough. After all, they help to fund and run the national network on which each party depends.

However, anyone can join any political party. You are supposed to sign up to the party’s policies of beliefs, but who checks on that? Consequently, for a small fee, anyone can have a direct say in choosing the party leader and, in 2019, the next prime minister.

Activists are generally more hardline in their views than the MPs, who have to balance party loyalty against the need to appeal to all voters, and act on behalf of their constituents and the nation. But they do at least share the general outlook of the vast majority of that party’s supporters.

No longer!

Two shocking polls conducted in earlier this month show the enormous gulf that has opened up between Conservative Party members and people who voted Conservative in the 2015 general election (the last time we won a majority).

In a YouGov poll, 84 per cent of party members would be happy to have a leader who supports a no-deal Brexit, while 61 per cent were willing to see the UK sustain significant economic damage as the price of Brexit.

However, in a poll commissioned by Survation of 2015 Tory voters found that only 32 per cent supported a no-deal Brexit and over half (51 per cent) were unwilling to be worse off at all as the price for Brexit. Only 3 per cent were happy to be worse off by £2,000 or more, the amount that the government’s own forecasts suggest that a no-deal Brexit would cause.

In a further interesting finding, despite years of propaganda from the party’s Brexit wing to the contrary, fully 30 per cent of our 2015 voters are still in favour of remaining. 

So, we have a situation where a majority of traditional Conservative voters don’t want to be worse off due to Brexit – but a massive majority of Conservative members are not bothered, and where 84 per cent of these members want to impose a policy of no deal which two thirds of their own voter base reject!

That all leaves aside the fact that, according to YouGov, 63 per cent of Tory members were prepared to see Scotland leave the UK and 59 per cent were OK with Northern Ireland following suit.

The Conservatives have been the party of economic rectitude for as long as I’ve been a member – over 30 years – and we are also supposed to be the Unionist party, determined to keep the UK together. However, today, the membership base doesn’t care about the union or the economy; all it cares about is leaving the EU.

Over the last three years, via attrition and infiltration, our party structure has been taken over and the policy base that has sustained it for half a century overturned by people who, to judge by the people whose votes they seek, are not true Conservatives.

Another finding from YouGov reinforces that statement:

Apparently, 54 per cent of the party’s members are prepared to see the Conservative Party destroyed if that’s what it takes to inflict Brexit on Britain.

It is just as well they are so sanguine. Any party whose members have diverged this far from their voter base is likely to have a short lifespan.

And in case Hunt and Johnson forget, there are no seats to win from Ukip or the Brexit Party. But there are plenty of seats with Remain voters in Scotland, London and southern England where voting Liberal Democrat is becoming the norm for former Tories. 

As the membership increasingly looks like the Brexit Party, the moderate voter base, whose support is vital to win elections, is following the slogan so loved by the isolationists – “Leave means Leave” (Leaving the party, that is).

Given the policies of the likely leadership election winner, they won’t be returning any time soon.

Simon Allison is chairman of Citizens for Britain, the group behind the Tories Against Brexit campaign