Why I Might Vote Tory for the First Time

No one ever believes that I have never voted Tory, but it’s true. Yet today, with Reform having lost perhaps the last of its actually Right wing MPs in James McMurdock, and Farage admitting in the New Statesman that Jenrick will outflank him from the Right (something I called last September), it suddenly looks like an awful possibility.

Instinctively Right wing as a teenager, I became somewhat brainwashed at university and voted for silly parties like the Lib Dems. Who to be fair were a lot less silly then, and had a good reputation in the Lakes, where I grew up.

Then came the great Red Pilling, not just of me but of most of the West, and I ended up voting for the Brexit Party in the Europeans, and obscure parties like the Christian People’s Alliance in the Generals (it wanted to crack down on crime, honour the Brexit result, get big tech to pay their taxes, and protect the unborn — who could argue with any of that?)

With the emergence of Reform UK, I naturally voted for it, whilst very much enjoying the ‘Zero Seats’ campaign to destroy the clown show that the Tories had become. Though in my seat neither the Tories nor Reform had a chance (Labour’s tally doubled the combined Tory/Reform vote), so Peter Hitchens can’t shout at me.

But now, just as so many people around the country are raging at the Tories and welcoming Reform, I have already seen through the latter, and have suspected for some time that a Jenrick reboot of the former might be the better option.

Heck, I’m almost at the point of thinking Kemi would be better than Farage. On the 20th anniversary of 7/7, she was the only leading MP who managed to actually name the threat of Islamic terrorism, which Farage couldn’t quite manage, in a strange video that was yet another example of him trying to say something whilst studiously not saying it.

I’m told in many replies and comments that this is just a strategy and he will become MechaFarage once elected.

I don’t see it. I think this is just who Farage is now, and maybe always was. A genuine moderate whose function, through vast conspiracy or simply individual temperament, is to keep the actual right out of mainstream politics.

This now gives Jenrick (heck, even Kemi) an opportunity, as I said in my article of September 2024, to outflank Farage from the Right. A reality Farage oddly confirms today in the New Statesman:

Farage thinks Jenrick will “almost certainly” end up to the right of him on migration by the next election: “I suspect he will probably go further – that’s just my instinct for someone who wants to make noise.” In fact, the Reform leader thinks he is to the Left of the country on the issue. “I haven’t fought the change itself, provided it comes with integration,” he insisted, tacking to the centre in pursuit of power. Still, Farage thinks “things have really shifted” in the country at large. As he seeks to moderate his image, the country – it seems – is radicalising. So is the Conservative Party.

This is a truly bizarre position for Farage to take, given the animosity towards immigration now prevalent amongst vast swathes of the country, which, as Farage even alludes to, has become increasingly hard-line in proportion with the obscenity of the Boriswave and the infuriating small boats crisis. And especially given that many instinctively see fixing our immigration problems as Reform’s entire raison d’être.

For anyone vaguely on the Right, Farage is repeatedly telling us he is not our man. He is incredibly careful to appease the Muslim community, whilst openly despising anyone to the Right of Rory Stewart. As I say, some maintain this is all a game, but if so it is the wrong game. Tactically speaking, it would be far better to copy Trump and throw out enough red meat to keep the Right on board, even if you ultimately end up governing in more moderate fashion than the rhetoric suggests.

Yet any chance Farage gets he implies that anyone who might, to use a phrase I heard recently at a musical concert, want their country back, is an alt Right online troll, Indian bot, or Rupert Lowe sock puppet account.

So, given that Lowe’s Restore Britain is a ‘movement’, not a party, and I have no idea if Ben Habib’s Advance UK will be fielding a candidate in my area (it hasn’t yet applied to the Electoral Commission), I might end up having to do the unthinkable and vote Tory.

It would be an odd time to do it, when most of the country has decided they’re dead in the water. But then I’ve never followed the crowd. Whatever the normies are doing — whether it’s injecting themselves with a weird vaccine for no reason, or eagerly refreshing their browser to buy tickets for ‘Glaso’ — doing the exact opposite has never failed me.

So screw it, I’m a Tory now. Down with these Reform louts! I look forward to shooting grouse, my first sex scandal, and making sure no new homes can ever be built in Wiltshire.

Though on the latter, perhaps I should stick with the Lib Dems?

Confusing times indeed.

This piece was first published on Nick Dixon’s Substack. You can subscribe here.