How the Tories Lost Britain
Britain heads to the polls Thursday, and talk about another election gamble that hasn’t paid off.
In the same way President Biden hoped Americans wouldn’t notice his age and Emmanuel Macron assumed the French would rebuff the insurgent right, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak thought—wrongly—that a summer election would focus voters on his virtues.
In the event, voters still are trying to figure out what those virtues are supposed to be.
Winning would have been a tall order for the Tories since they’ve been in power for 14 years. But the likely scale of their defeat wasn’t inevitable.
The Tories have spent their years in power oscillating wildly between free-market instincts and big-state conservatism.
Struggling to explain to the electorate what the party stands for, the Conservatives risk what’s being described as an extinction-level event.
If a party of the political right can’t make a convincing case that it will deliver prosperity, voters start wondering what the party is good for.
Wall Street Journal Editorial 2 July 2024
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