‘You guys should get outside London and go to talk to people who are not rich remainers,’ Dominic Cummings declared in September to journalists expressing scepticism about Brexit. There’s been a strong sense, ever since Boris Johnson took office, that the Prime Minister and his advisors wanted to do things differently. Their plan it seemed was to shift the party’s focus away from the metropolitan elite and towards working class leave voters in areas of the country that haven’t typically voted Conservative. Their dreamed-of parliamentary majority depends on it.
Yet a close look at Johnson’s chosen candidates at the snap election shows the Conservative party still favours those from typical pools of recruitment for prospective MPs. Of the 44 current Conservative seats where there is a new parliamentary candidate running, 20 have worked in the following professions: as government special advisors, journalism, PR and lobbying, think tanks, the civil service and the BBC.
This is perhaps surprising for a party that entered this election seeking to represent the 52 per cent of voters who backed leave.
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