In all likelihood, Cory Bernardi's expected break away from the Liberal Party will fail to achieve anything beyond hostile headlines, fevered speculation about who might follow him, and an immediate morale blow to a beleaguered Coalition.
What it will not do is lead to an aggregate increase in the non-Labor/conservative vote. Instead, it will ensure a fragmentation of that vote and therefore, its diminution.
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Split in the Liberal Party
There's speculation outspoken conservative Senator Cory Bernardi will form his own political party.
Presumably, any Bernardi gains would derive from discrediting institutional conservatism's official candidates in the electoral marketplace – Malcolm Turnbull principally, but others by association from Scott Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, and Peter Dutton, through to Tony Abbott.
In so doing, the Bernardi split is a gift to Labor and one more akin to an annuity than a lump sum. It could pay out over years.
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Bernardi's move is a clear betrayal, or rather a clutch of them.
A betrayal of the South Australian Liberal Party division, which not only fostered the feisty conservative warrior but then continued to stand by him through several embarrassments – like the time he claimed fellow frontbencher Christopher Pyne had once idly speculated about joining the ALP to get ahead, and of course the time he warned that marriage equality could lead to polygamy and eventually unions with animals.
The most flagrant betrayal though is the breach of faith with Liberal Party voters in South Australia – people who voted in good faith for the blue-L ticket just 7 months ago.
In Canberra, coalitionists remain alert to the moods of the renegade LNP member for federal Dawson, George Christensen. Christensen is another hardline malcontent – or right wing virtue signaller – who speaks for the moral core of ordinary Australia while favouring a kind of churchy nostalgia that is anything but mainstream.
As a senator, Bernardi's defection would not mean much but as a House of Representatives MP, Christensen's would be in another class, given Turnbull's one seat margin. At this stage he will remain.
One possibility for Bernardi's immediate future is a merger or partnership with the resurgent Pauline Hanson's One Nation – interestingly, their offices are next to one another in Parliament House.
But this option doesn't work for him any better than do the modern Turnbull Liberals. Despite his social conservatism, Bernardi is a small government, economically dry, free trade guy. One Nation on the other hand, is more the Trump-style operation known for its anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, Australian-jobs-first protectionism.
The rise of right-wing fifth columnists threatens the whole project. By the next election, voters could face a bewildering layer cake of conservatives, all whom depict the others as slippery appeasers and frauds.
The danger is that voters might decide they all have a point.