News comes this morning, after much speculation, of an organised attempt to create a new British political party, called United for Change, funded by LoveFilm entrepreneur Simon Franks. It doesn’t have any MPs yet, apparently, and may not have any when it launches this autumn.
Is there a hole in the market for a new political party? Yes, but not a party of what the Metropolitan Left likes to call the ‘centre’. The gaping hole, as has become clear from the saga of Boris and burqas, is for a non-woke conservative party – one which unashamedly espouses conservative values without hoovering up every metropolitan liberal cause which passes beneath its nose.
Senior Conservatives have inadvertently been making the case for such a party over the past 48 hours. First Brandon Lewis, followed by Theresa May, Eric Pickles and Sayeeda Warsi have eagerly piled in to condemn Boris’ comments that women who wear a full-face veil look like letter boxes.
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