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Dear John,

There comes a time in every government’s life cycle when the public just stops listening. After fourteen years of dysfunctional policy, unethical conduct, and inept leadership, it seems that moment has officially arrived for our Conservative government. The public wants change. No matter how much Rishi Sunak or his allies rattle on about woke lefties or small boats, there’s little he can do or say to change their minds.

The results in Kingswood and Wellingborough yesterday gave us yet another premonition of an absolute knock-out General Election later this year. In Kingswood, the opposition ate into the Conservative’s old majority significantly, claiming victory with nearly 45% of the vote. In Wellingborough, the Conservative vote fell by a whopping 37.6 points, yet another hall-of-fame electoral swing for the history books.

For many of us, it’s been clear for some time. The Conservatives’ multiple attempts to “reset” themselves have only set them up for new and calamitous failures. Boris Johnson’s scandalous premiership, Liz Truss’ disastrous 49 days, and Rishi Sunak’s embattled tenure have all completely failed to address the party’s reputation for ineptitude and sleaze.

As the party’s moderates gradually filter out, embarrassed, the Conservatives’ centre of gravity has shifted to the raucous and the radical. Hardliners like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Suella Braverman, and Liz Truss increasingly own the ideological core of the party today, tripling down on the culture war nonsense and the political extremism rather than conceding their own unpopularity. The pretence is barely holding anymore.

Now would be a sensible time to reflect on their failures, call an election, and spend the intermittent period solving their out-of-control identity crisis. Unfortunately, these people aren’t really the introspective types.

All of this re-affirms that our plan to influence the (likely) future Labour government – and stop wasting time trying to convince the Conservatives that democracy is important – was the right one.

We’ve got time, and we’re going to use it productively. We’ll continue to sit tight and develop pathways to meaningful policies (the ones mentioned in our report ([link removed]) , for a start) that bring regular people back into Westminster and finally restore a semblance of trust in politics. We’ll push Labour to act for democracy rather than give into complacency. And we’ll keep an eye out for whatever mutated monsters crawl out of the ruins of the Conservative party.

To that end, our petition calling on Keir Starmer to listen to his party members and embrace Proportional Representation just hit 25,000 signatures… help us keep the momentum up by signing it if you haven’t already!

Yours,

The Open Britain Team

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