The Tory party has simply evolved in order to survive

In the cold light of day, the overwhelming feeling should perhaps be one of relief on all sides.

Something was always going to break the parties in this parliament because of the way a brutish referendum was foolishly dropped into a representative democracy.

What was odd, of course, is the manner of the fracturing. The Eurosceptic tail has been wagging the rump of the Tory Party for decades and it was only a matter of time when that overworked joint would reach its point of critical fatigue. What happened yesterday could have been predicted years ago. The only surprise was that we watched the tail detach itself in order to throw away the rest of the dog. Could anybody have predicted the Eurosceptics taking the high ground and Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames cast out into empty centrist foothills?

Yet as a strategy it might just work. The cloth is being cut to fit the coat, or, in this instance, the political reality. Whisper it quietly but it might be the only reasonable way that Johnson can emerge from this deadlock with something that resembles a party. If this was always about optics, about casting the Tories as the True Champions of Brexit, then yesterday was a huge success for Johnson. Maybe sending out Rees-Mogg to rile moderates wasn’t such a bad idea. He lolled on the benches and LOLed in nearly every reply. He was unctuous and patronising and probably helped boost the rebel numbers. The effect was positively enematic.

And the loss of a few liberal conservatives is clearly the price Johnson is willing to pay for the support of Leavers; choosing to please some of the people all of the time, rather than all the people some of the time, which was the choice that doomed Theresa May.

Yet none of this is to overlook how perilous the situation had become. It’s been fatiguing in the past weeks to try to explain that this is how parliament works, that it’s designed to engineer compromise, that it’s wonderfully raucous and pragmatically messy, and that the coup was never a coup. Meg Russell, of The Constitution Unit at UCL, appeared on Sky News yesterday and provided the helpful description that events have been “constitutionally improper”, which felt about right. Much of what we’ve been witnessing has been improper but no more. Neo-nazis might well be a problem in parts of our culture but there is nothing “neo” or “nazi” about the Tory party’s infighting.

And for all those market traders and baristas crying in interminable vox pops that Brexit has become boring, Europe had been boring those of us that follow Conservative party politics for decades. Brexit was always a subset of that much longer feud.

That feud is also ravenous. The European question polarizes anything it touches. We are either Leavers or Remainers and so powerful is the voodoo that we all begin to contemplate all manner of constitutional wheezes to get us what we want.

Arguments rage about the powers of the executive and the powers of parliament as though our system is the American system. Some wanted to break the Speaker of the Commons across their knee and others wanted to fill the Lords beyond its capacity. Yet set aside Brexit for the moment and consider how different it would look and feel had the disagreement been about something other than Europe. What if the referendum had been about one of those other big issues that the public is (rightly) kept well away from expressing an opinion? What if the result had been in favour of hanging (still the public’s preferred option), gay rights, euthanasia, or electing a Love Island thong to the presidency?

It’s for that reason that parliament appears the victor in all of this. There will be much chatter among those that follow politics about how broken it is. It isn’t. It’s working through one of the hardest problems it has ever been set but it is working it through.

As for those clamouring for ways to express their horror about the fate of Sir Nicholas Soames (who, if you hadn’t been told, is Winston Churchill’s grandson), they should instead be thankful that we haven’t – thus far – witnessed the alternative. Soames and the 20 other rebels (21 if you include the new Lib Dem MP, Phillip Lee) broke before our parliament did. It’s admirable that they did. What happened yesterday nullified much of the politics around Johnson proroguing of parliament. It took off the table some of the constitutional options before the Prime Minister that could have seriously undermined that constitution. It paved the way to a General Election, which is where our political norms can hopefully be reset.

It never seemed wise, for example, to bring the monarch into the Brexit debate. It might be convenient for Johnson that remain supporting militants marched on Buckingham Palace (nothing works on Middle England like trots threatening “Her Madge”) but dragging the monarchy into politics is simply naïve. It never ends there. The separation of powers works for us because we can indulge all that ceremonial guff without the animus associated with party politics. Abuse our Prime Ministers as much as we like but it’s not to abuse the nation-state. Donald Trump, of course, embraces the singularity. To insult him is to insult America, as Denmark apparently did the other week. America has a problem. We don’t.

Make no mistake, there’s much to regret about what happened yesterday. If you’re moderate or centrist, where now do you go for your political fix? The Liberal Democrats? Perhaps. They’re polling around 19%. Don’t be surprised if that seriously undervalues them.

Johnson, meanwhile, is gearing the Conservatives for the race ahead but it’s not entirely clear if, how, or when the party recovers. Ken Clarke went on BBC Newsnight last night to claim that he was “a conservative… a mainstream conservative” and, in truth, there’s very little here to suggest that things are now set forever.

Claims a party is doomed are as naïve as those that claim a party will rule for a thousand years. This will not be the end of the Tories but it will take time, different politics, and a different leader to help it become that broad church again that became the natural party of power. In the meantime, the Tory Party has shifted right, adapted, or, if you prefer, simply evolved in order to survive.