And now the candidates are lining up.

Chris Riddell: Observer: 31st March 2019

Our government is close to collapse. The sclerotic British political system is deadlocked and in crisis, and there’s no clear route out of a mess that’s been created because the features of the British state, which were once seen as the strengths of British democracy, have now turned into its greatest weaknesses. The first-past-the-post electoral system no longer produces strong governments: it produces weak governments who presume to absolute power on the basis of a minority of votes. The unwritten constitution is no longer a source of flexibility, but rather an excuse for a mendacious government to make up rules to suit itself. The two-party system has become a recipe for majoritarianism where each of the two major parties is more interested in gaining its own turn at absolute power than it is in seeking to build consensus. Short term party interest becomes the only important political consideration. And Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are powerless victims of the malignancies of English nationalism.

All this is happening, and yet the Conservative party’s leadership is far more concerned with an impending leadership contest as the only way of keeping their fractious and inept party of inadequates together. The challengers for the Conservative leadership, and it’s a very long and tedious list, are without exception a feeble bunch of lying, duplicitous, hypocritical chancers. And those are their good qualities. Not one of them has an answer to the many difficulties and issues facing the British state. They don’t really want answers to those questions, because it’s only due to the weaknesses of the British state that they have the opportunity of taking the leadership and wielding the absolute power of their predecessor. So we have a series of absolute mediocrities as Prime Minister, each one vying for the title of Worst Prime Minister Ever. It’s not an accident that British rule produces the leadership of the mediocre. It’s a consequence of something that is no longer fit for purpose. It has to change.

But let's be crystal clear about one thing, before the Tories start their leadership contest, and try to change the narrative to something more beneficial to themselves. Brexit is their fault. Useless and ideologically hidebound as Jeremy Corbyn is, equivocating as he is, as mediocre as any Tory leadership candidate as he is, being as useful as a defence against Brexit as a bag of peanuts as he is, Brexit is not his fault.

Brexit is not the fault of the Lib Dems either, even though their desire for a second referendum on the EU issue but their refusal to countenance one for Scotland is as hypocritical as anything you’ll find in the Conservative cabinet.
Brexit is not the fault of the SNP, who have consistently argued against Brexit from the start, and who have proposed policies to mitigate Brexit’s effects which have been ignored by Westminster. This is not the fault of the Greens. It is not the fault of Plaid Cymru. It is not the fault of Northern Ireland. It is most certainly not the fault of the EU, who have been clear about what they will and will not accept from the very beginning.

This mess is the fault of the Conservative party which panders to the loonies of UKIP, and it’s particularly the fault of those who still hold prominent positions within the Tory fold. They own this cock-up and no one else. They’ve trashed the UK, they’ve trashed their so-called precious union, and they’ll go on to trash our lives, livelihoods, jobs, and prospects in pursuit of the mythical exceptionalism of the vainglorious English nationalism that wraps itself in a union flag and calls itself British.

And you thought things were bad now? It can only get worse. Whoever takes over as Conservative leader from Theresa May will only do so by appealing to a Conservative party membership that has been heavily infiltrated by former UKIP members. That’s who will lead the next stage of negotiations with the EU, and they’ll pursue the neo-conservative wet dream of a privatised state. All of us should be quaking in our boots at the prospect.

Britain is broken. It’s been broken by its own establishment, by those who claim to love it, by those who seek to lead it. Britain is broken because it has long since turned into a vehicle for personal ambitions and personal enrichment. It’s time to make a moral stand. It’s time to say that we as a nation can be better than this. It’s time to find our voice, and to use it.