I made clear in an earlier post – following the botched “relaunch” of the local Conservatives – that there is the need for the local Conservatives to declare UDI. There are fewer than ever reasons to attempt to forge a relationship with a central Party organisation when, in fact, that Party organisation is both inefficient and rudderless.
The Cameron Conservatives are merely a liberal, posh and ideologically bereft faction of the Westminster Party. Lord Ashcroft, with his growing digital media empire, is firing on all cylinders to undermine Cameron and the coalition government. Meanwhile the Libs are hardly able to disguise their loathing of their Conservative partners. The Party is splitting and coalition is splitting with it.
The Conservative Party under Cameron has lost all sense of what it stands for – it has no ideological vision, never mind brand coherency. Despite its protestations that it believes in the Union, it has no idea how to maintain its own party union – never mind the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Party is powerless in Scotland, supine in Northern Ireland and irrelevant in much of Northern England. Oh and it has no clear idea how to reduce the deficit and restore growth.
Which begs the question why the NI Conservatives are so keen to align themselves with such a Party when, locally, electorally, there is so much to be gained from ploughing a new furrow. Northern Ireland needs a new Centre-Right but socially liberal Party. It needs to appeal to a naturally right-of-centre electorate. Indeed, the electorate is waiting for such a centre-ground to be filled. The SDLP is pointless. The UUP is walking dead. The DUP and Sinn Fein are discredited political dead-wood Nats. Alliance is nice but dim.
What do you think?
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