MARK STEYN: What the “Conservatives” Have Wrought.

So we are seeing the emergence of an explicitly Islamic domestic politics with members elected on explicitly Islamic tickets. Four “pro-Gaza” MPs doesn’t sound like a lot, but, for purposes of comparison, it’s exactly the same number as Nigel Farage’s Reform party managed to elect. I would account the rise of a separate Islamic political force that no longer needs to work within the established parties as the most significant development of last night – and not in a good way: this is Britain’s future.

As for Reform, Nigel took the name and strategy from Preston Manning’s breakaway party from the Canadian Tories three decades ago. On their first election campaign in 1993, Mr Manning’s Reformers won 52 seats out of the 295 in the Ottawa House of Commons – and under exactly the same first-past-the-post system as at Westminster. By contrast, last night began with a BBC exit poll showing Farage winning thirteen seats and establishing Reform as the fourth largest party in the House. In the cold reality of dawn, that’s shrunk to just four seats – compared to, say, seven for Sinn Féin, which has now replaced the Democratic Unionists as the biggest party in Northern Ireland. In North Antrim, Nigel endorsed the DUP’s Ian Paisley Jr – but, in a seat his family has held for fifty-four years, Mr Paisley lost.

Where do we go from here? Nowhere good. Under a quintet of failed prime ministers, the Tories have brought a once great nation to near collapse and delivered the nation into the hands of “opponents” who will merely crank up the worsening of things to Ludicrous Speed. Mrs Thatcher’s famous line was: First you win the argument; then you win the election. The “Conservative” party spent fourteen years not making any conservative arguments, and thus last night was entirely predictable.

Labour has studied 1984 as a how-to guide for efficient government: Sick of woke censorship? You ain’t seen nothing yet.