Five years ago, I wore a blue rosette on my coat, knocked on doors and asked residents to vote for me. They did, and I was elected a councillor. In fact, I also won two subsequent local elections. A few weeks ago I stood down and have no intention to ever again cast a vote for the Tory party in a general election.
Ever since I was old enough, I’ve always voted in general elections and, save for one time, I’ve been steadfastly consistent: blue. For most of my adult life the economy, law and order, education and a sense of Britishness have been – in my humble opinion ─ encapsulated within the core values of the Conservative Party. I guess being a Brit can be defined in several ways, but my simple characterisation gravitates towards being reasonable and playing fair, even if I don’t agree with all the rules. I don’t particularly like cricket, but the English phrase, “It’s just not cricket,” typifies my instinct of injustice and dishonesty. I do, however, acknowledge that my political consciousness was also shaped by my parents who were also once faithful Tory voters.
In my previous life as a cop, I developed a keen professional interest in the levers of community cohesion where public services play a vital role in maintaining the things that I hold dear in life. I was minded to believe that the Tory party better represented my view of the world, and, generally speaking, their trajectory of travel was – more or less – aligned to where I wanted to go. I was also privileged in that I had a good, stable, job that was designed to look after me for life.
After my kids upped and left the family home and my wife died of cancer, there was an almost cataclysmic void in my life. On attaining a qualifying law degree my sense of community took on a more defined meaning as I finally had a greater understanding of how our wonderful democracy works. I was fascinated – yet embarrassed at the same time – to learn how the law is actually made and how our unwritten constitution is held together. Consequently, politics became less abstract, as at its central core it was supposed to be about how we wanted our society to work for the better. With time on my hands, and a rapidly developing interest, I became an elected member.
For the majority of my tenure being a councillor was epic. The officers – those civil servants who actually run the generally great services – were brilliant. As for the elected members, my post-graduate vision of this vital local governmental tier began to wobble almost immediately. The majority of those elected were good people and understood why they were there: to represent their communities, advocate for ward residents and hold officers to account. What I saw in some instances though, were individuals who fed almost exclusively on power and status. However, on the whole, and notwithstanding these enormous egos, the local authority I served was well run and I was proud of many of the local initiatives achieved. Unfortunately, unless you stand gallantly as an independent, our electoral system is geared towards an explicit association with a political party.
In 2015 the Tories, led by David Cameron, unexpectedly won an overall majority, and life – especially for a Tory voter – seemed pretty settled. But the term and condition that I hadn’t given much credence to was the manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on our membership of the European Union (EU). I had seen adverts in the newspapers for something called “UKIP,” but my constitutional knowledge dismissed such a fringe party since the UK was always independent. Even though we were members of the EU – exercising significant clout across Europe with the least risk – parliamentary sovereignty would never allow us to be bossed about by any external force. First year undergraduate law study contains everything you need to know to appreciate that the central claim of the vote leave campaign was utter nonsense and wholly untrue: if the UK parliament was so minded, they could pass a law that made it illegal to be French in France. “Taking back control” made me laugh; but not everyone had studied the first-year undergraduate syllabus.
BREXIT passed one democratic test in that the majority of those who voted chose to terminate our EU membership, but it failed the most crucial constitutional check and balance in that those politicians who championed it did so on ideologies that were simply untrue. Several – like many of those in my own council chamber – probably didn’t read their briefs and let ignorant, fuelled egos rule the day; but some politicians drowned out those who played cricket by the rules with lies on a blockbuster scale ─ lies so massive they needed the side of a bus on which to display them. On that fateful day in 2016 I was stunned beyond comprehension. The legitimate concerns of ordinary people had been hijacked and BREXIT was sold as the absurd antidote.
The following year the incumbent Government quietly confirmed that the central tenet of the leave campaign was a lie: ‘The United Kingdom’s exit from, and new partnership with, the European Union’ (May 2017) ─ item 2.1 ─ “The sovereignty of Parliament is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution. Whilst Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership of the EU, it has not always felt like that.” It “felt like that” because of the likes Johnson & Farage.
Nonetheless, two years later I joined the political field foolishly thinking that eventually BREXIT would signal only a slight realignment in our hitherto incredibly productive relationship with our European partners; even with Johnson in the mix. I naively thought his bluster would give way to the passionately pro-European stance he articulated in his book on Winston Churchill – a lively summer read under the beautiful Tenerife sun. I hadn’t realised what a consummate chameleon he really is.
Johnson’s stint as prime minister is the most damaging period of political carnage I have ever experienced. I so wanted to stand down as a second-tier politician, but the counsel of one of the good people in the local Tory party reminded me of my promise to represent those folk who had voted for me, and the majority of others who hadn’t. The turnout at elections – particularly local – is abysmal, and the minority choose those who ultimately represent them. My legal brain kept reminding me of the obnoxiousness of breaching a contract and my moral compass reminded me that playing fairly by the rules – even if I latterly abhorred them – would simply not be cricket. So I stayed, but rowed back from as many political engagements as I possibly could, focussing on ward work. At times it was excruciating.
The Johnson circus left town, but the nutters from the European Research Group (ERG) had clearly taken over the asylum and Truss couldn’t have wrecked the UK economy any more in her ─ thankfully ─ limited stay of chaos. The utter rot of Johnson sleaze was all consuming ─ like a gushing sewer pipe: dodgy COVID contracts, and parties that never happened; but if challenged on the subject, they did happen, and the social distancing rules were followed absolutely, to staff getting so drunk they vomited, yet the one who couldn’t comb his hair and lived in the same building somehow didn’t know! The Tory party, that I once believed played cricket, had used the rule book in place of toilet paper.
More raw sewage – both real and metaphorically – flowed. To cherry pick some: the Rwanda policy, the backing of draconian laws to quell the beautiful British notion of protest, a cabinet devoid of credibility, and a host of MPs who defy any rational explanation of their complete ineptitude. The Conservative party I previously voted for, and was once a member of, has imploded into a black hole so massive it has totally sucked away all the centre right values it ever had, morphing into a far-right nut-job collation of crazies. I suspect that all political parties have an element of numbnuts, but when the loons are in the ascendency there is no way back. When this happens in government, with people in power able to pull all manner of levers, causing, for example, the trebling of mortgage repayments overnight, injury is not borne just by those who ─ whether there is a full moon or not ─ wail consistently, “Stop the boats!”
Like me, many of my colleagues stood down. Some stayed on, and many of them did it for the right reasons, as they are good people. But the Tory apparatus allowed this abomination to happen, and its toxicity is both terminal and terrifying as innocents are pulled into the swirling vortex. I didn’t vote Tory at the latest local elections. Not because I didn’t believe that the blue candidates were worthy – far from it – but my anger was so apocalyptic that it won the day.
This emotion hasn’t suddenly evaporated, although this cathartic release has helped, and if you have stayed the distance, I applaud your stamina!
I feel ashamed, tired, betrayed, and cheated. It’s just not cricket.
© Ian Kirke 2023
Title Photograph by Jordhan Madec on Unsplash
@ianjkirke