Getting rid of Boris Johnson was a shocking betrayal – and now here is the result | Express Commentary | Commentary

Even though we all knew it was coming, the death toll was still shocking. For any natural conservative, watching Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party being torn limb from limb by an angry electorate who felt abandoned, ignored and utterly let down was hard.

Just look at the toll:

3:09 Defence Secretary Grant Shapps arrives.

3:49 Gillian Keegan goes

04:08 Thérèse Coffey leaves

04:09 Penny Mordaunt leaves

4:10 Johnny Mercer leaves

4:39 Michelle Donelan leaves

04:41 Rishi Sunak concedes his election

It was a kick of such unprecedented ferocity that by the end one almost felt sorry for the Tories.

Almost.

But not quite, because the reason we are waking up today to the Socialist Republic of Britain is entirely due to that particular blend of pretentious arrogance and utter irrelevance that has unfortunately become the imprimatur of Rishi Sunak's party.

Arrogance. You will see this word very often.

What became very clear very quickly after the results were announced was that the reform was not splitting the conservative vote as had been predicted.

The Conservatives divided the Reform vote.

Yes, that is how terrible, how humiliating and how shameful it was for the two-century-old party of Disraeli, Peel, Churchill and Thatcher.

Indeed, if the Conservative Party had simply sacked a handful of MPs in key constituencies, we might not be waking up to five (maybe ten?) years of a Prime Minister no one really wants.

But the arrogance, the self-righteousness of so many second-rate Conservative MPs was so blatant that, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they were now hated by a large section of the British rank and file, they continued to believe that it was the Reformers' duty to step down rather than their own. And that sounded the death knell for their resignation.

They will have time to reflect on the wisdom of that belief when they pick up their P45s today and enjoy a decade of Labour rule while the Conservative Party determines whether it can continue to function as a British political party.

Make no mistake, Keir Starmer did not win this election, the deep systemic arrogance, coupled with the weakness and stupidity at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party betrayed him.

And Lord, they gave it.

In the early hours of 13th December 2019, as it became clear that Boris Johnson had secured a landslide majority in the House of Commons, a completely idiotic politician wrote for Express.co.uk: “Make no mistake, this result is a second term, possibly a third, for the Tories. Labour are in the wilderness.”

That moron was me. Yet, as Boris Johnson swept everything before him on his Get Brexit Done ticket (dismantling Corbyinte’s Labour Party in the process), this hypothesis seemed entirely reasonable.

What was impossible to predict was that the Conservative Party was on a suicide mission.

A suicide mission that ended this morning, with the Conservative Party, if not quite dead, at least on life support.

Let’s be honest, even the most die-hard democrat would have to admit that the overthrow of Boris Johnson was mind-bogglingly stupid. A shocking act by traitorous political morons whose arrogance (that word again) was inversely proportional to their political intelligence.

Did the anti-Johnson traitors really think people voted for them in 2019? A bunch of faceless, hopeless, second-rate Tory MPs with a reheated Labour agenda as their manifesto?

Of course they didn't: they voted for Boris Johnson. Period.

Nor did they vote for Liz Truss (although they could have, despite the misogynistic harassment she has suffered since her ill-fated budget). And they certainly did not vote for Rishi Sunak – a man so rich he should have his own currency.

Throughout the night, MPs and TV pundits woke up to the seemingly shocking realisation that normal people don't vote for a manifesto, they vote for a personality, a leader, perhaps even a visionary – especially someone with what is called the common touch.

Just ask Boris and Nigel.

What they're not voting for is collapsing living standards, a declining economy, a totally broken (but incredibly expensive) healthcare system, appalling levels of illegal immigration, poor schools, a ridiculous and declining military, and a Brexit that no one lifted a finger for.

And what they're not voting for is an election campaign so ridiculously bad it's almost insulting.

Why Sunak called an election at the worst possible time for the party will be the subject of academic theses for years to come – perhaps the same theses that will discuss the death of the modern Conservative Party, because it is hard to see where they go from here.

Today we are no longer in the optimistic dawn that greeted Tony Blair's brilliant new government in 1997.

No, it is a collective howl of indignation, a festering anger at a government that has always seemed more obsessed with wokeness and self-preservation than with serving the needs of the people of this country and repairing a broken Britain.

One can only hope that Mr Starmer will come up with more.

He could hardly offer less.