As a lifelong Conservative, who has voted Tory in every election except 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2019, I am appalled to see what has become of the party of Churchill, Cameron and Osborne. We Conservatives were known for pragmatism and moderation. Now, our proud and noble past has been soiled by radical demagoguery.

Extreme populists, like Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, have run roughshod over our Conservative heritage. The likes of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath would be turning in their graves if they could hear radical statements like “perhaps immigration is a bit too high” and “Net Zero is all well and good, but we should keep the lights on too”. 

Even veteran Conservatives like Bella Wallersteiner are abandoning the party. Now, the voters look set to punish us — disgusted by drinks parties during lockdowns and scepticism towards the European Court of Human Rights. The silent majority of socially liberal, economically conservative voters have been left politically homeless. As Rory Stewart says:

The only way that the conservatives will ever be in government again is by moving back to the centre and rejecting the fantasies of the Faragist right. But it will be a painful fight with many party members who will insist that moderation prudence and realism is “wet”!

Indeed. It’s time for an ideological reset. “To be conservative,” said Michael Oakeshott: 

… is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.

So true. And what is familiar and tried? Blairite managerialism. No true Conservatives, who values the actual to the possible, would dream of tearing up the Human Rights Act or the Equality Act — both of which have stood for centuries in Britain’s uncodified yet treasured constitution. No real Tory, who prefers present laughter to utopian bliss, would fantasise about extreme proposals like cutting immigration to the levels of the early 1990s. 

The cynics will claim that moderate Tories like me are not right-wing at all. This just shows how radical they have become. I’m a staunch Conservative — sentimental about the monarchy and passionately pro-Israel. But unlike the Boris Johnsons and Rishi Sunaks of the world, I appreciate compromise. Yes, British history is full of horrors, I tell my left-wing friends, but we also helped to end the slave trade. Yes, diversity is our strength, but anti-Zionist Muslims should still integrate. Yes, we should be sensitive on gender issues, but how about trans athletes only participate in some women’s sports? This kind of pragmatic approach is what true conservatism has been built on.

Somehow, the Conservatives have embraced a dark and pessimistic perspective of modern Britain — haunted by crime and wokeness. Yet travelling between my homes in Kensington and Buckinghamshire, I see so much to love. The rolling fields. Our football team, which bravely overcame Slovakia on Sunday. The fact that one can buy a kebab or a seven course dinner on the same street.

Yet we should not be complacent. We live in dangerous times. Russia is resurgent. The Chinese are growing stronger. Online trolls and bots are spreading insults and misinformation. Vladimir Putin must be laughing as he watches the decline of the Conservatives. The rise of Corbyn and Brexit — not to mention Donald Trump in the US and Marine Le Pen in France — could not have happened without extensive Russian interference. The only other possibility is that the voters didn’t much appreciate what people like me were doing to the world. Obviously impossible. 

So, Putin has contributed, it seems clear, to the success of men like Boris Johnson, who have been so shaky on the Ukrainian cause. We true Conservatives must reject the Farageist fellow travellers. Nothing is more important than our national security, which, in Britain, relies on our soft power. Brexit and Boris turned us into an international laughing stock, and must restore the foundations of our soft power — foreign aid, European cooperation and sound diplomacy (i.e. saying the right things).

On July 4th, I will be voting for Labour or the Liberal Democrats. It will be with a heavy heart yet not with a sense of guilt. After all, I didn’t leave the Conservatives. The Conservatives, very much like my wife, left me.