JONATHAN TOBIN: What Republicans Can Learn From the Tories’ Impending Disaster.
Republicans might be in the same position as the Tories right now if people like 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney or his running mate, former House speaker Paul Ryan, were at the head of their 2024 ticket. But in Britain, the moral equivalents of these Never Trumpers are still in charge. While Britain’s Conservative voters told their leaders what they wanted in the 2016 Brexit vote and the 2019 general election, the Tory establishment refused to go along.
Given the first-past-the-post system, even if Reform ties or beats the Conservatives in the national vote, it may just mean hundreds of second-place finishes. Those few Tories who keep their seats will probably be on the party’s Left flank, further sinking the chances of changing and thereby saving the party. It also remains to be seen whether Farage can begin the process of political realignment that will see the Conservatives replaced as the main opposition to Labour.
But the lesson here for Republicans, including those who remain members in good standing of the D.C. establishment, is that conservative political parties that ignore their voters are headed for the scrap heap of history. If they want to avoid the fate of Britain’s Tories, they must follow Trump’s lead and listen to their working-class voters rather than to Wall Street or Never Trumpers who have long since abandoned them for the Democrats.
Dan McCarthy adds: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent.
He might never become prime minister or even a member of Parliament.
But if he keeps up the pressure, Farage will drive the Conservatives to adopt leaders who resemble him — the only kind who can attract his voters.
Old-guard Republicans are as eager to get past Trump and Trumpism as the Conservatives were to get beyond Farage and Brexit.
But immigration is the defining issue of our time on both sides of the Atlantic, not only in America and Britain but on the European continent, too, as demonstrated by last week’s E.U. elections.
Immigration restriction has a popular constituency throughout the Western world, and one that’s impatient with older center-right parties reluctant to take up the cause.
Trump and Farage both perceived that, and while nobody else can be Donald Trump, Farage’s strategy is one other politicians, including Republicans after Trump, can employ.
Here the Farage strategy doesn’t require a new party; the same pressure can be applied to the Republican establishment through primaries.
Whether or not populist Republicans win a general election, simply by making it impossible for other Republicans to win without them, they gain leverage the way Farage has.
The flipside also applies — populists might not win without immigration-loving, business-oriented Republican or Conservative voters — but populists ultimately care more about the issue.
What London financier wants to jeopardize lower taxes for the sake of higher immigration?
Brexit and Trump’s election were eight years ago, but 2016 is still the present and future of the political right.
Related: Farage explains why discussing immigration is such a taboo topic: