So-called moderates are mimicking populist demagogues, with potentially disastrous consequences<\/p>\n
It was once known as the \u201ccentre right\u201d, and this was the year it definitively perished. It never had a coherent political philosophy, but it tended to blend deference to the perceived needs of large business interests, the championing of so-called traditional values that were actually longstanding prejudices, and admiration for established institutions. Above all else, it supposedly offered a cordon sanitaire, preventing anything further to the right from acquiring political legitimacy.<\/p>\n
That hasn\u2019t quite worked to plan. Nigel Farage now claims his populist-right Reform party has a higher membership<\/a> than the Tories: if true, it is the first time in British history that members of a rightwing rival have outnumbered the Conservative party\u2019s. Nearly two decades ago, then Tory leader, David Cameron, dismissed Farage\u2019s Ukip as \u201cfruitcakes and loonies and closet racists<\/a> mostly\u201d; but today, Cameron\u2019s party has ceded ideological ground to its challengers and the current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, is fighting Reform on Farage\u2019s terrain.<\/p>\n Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So-called moderates are mimicking populist demagogues, with potentially disastrous consequences It was once known as the \u201ccentre right\u201d, and this was the year it definitively perished. It never had a coherent political philosophy, but it tended to blend deference to the perceived needs of large business interests, the championing of so-called traditional values that were … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}