“The Conservative Party is now going to go into a period of total disaster,” Nigel Farage said regarding Prime Minister Johnson winning his confidence vote this week. “There will be more indiscipline in the ranks than we’ve seen before.” 

Casting his eyes to the future, Mr. Farage expects that the “civil war within conservatism will go on,” with the party “getting smashed at the next general election.” What is worse for Mr. Farage is that “what is being damaged here is not just Boris Johnson, but there are now no arguments for cutting taxes … for growth … for controlling borders.”

In response to Mr. Farage’s observations, I am reminded of Evelyn Waugh’s novel on newspapering, “Scoop,” and the interactions of its foreign editor with the owner of the Daily Beast: “When Lord Copper was right, he said, ‘Definitely’; when he was wrong, ‘Up to a point.’”

Mr. Farage is not wholly wrong. Only “up to a point.”

He is correct to point out the folly of Conservative backbenchers challenging their leader, only to fail. “If they had shown more guts, then I think the prime minister would have been gone,” Mr. Farage said. He is correct to point out the looming danger of a stitch-up between the Labor, Liberal-Democrat, and Scottish National parties.

Mr. Farage is also correct to point out, as he did Monday evening, his role in the Conservative shellacking in the May 2019 EU parliamentary elections. “Boris Johnson wouldn’t even be prime minister, scores of those MPs wouldn’t even have their seats, if I hadn’t set up the Brexit Party,” he asserted, adding with some elan, “I got rid of Mrs. May, not the Tory MPs.”

To all of these assertions of Mr. Farage, I say “definitely.” Yet where he sees the failure to defenestrate BoJo as a “total disaster” for the Conservatives — despite Mr. Johnson’s sheepish boast of “a convincing and decisive result” — I see potential opportunity, were the Tories sufficiently tenacious to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Curiously, I think Mr. Farage gives the combined Conservative parliamentary party too much credit. As if changing the leadership would necessarily change the party’s general character — rather like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Remember those 349 votes in support of Boris Johnson and, more to the point, the approximately 140 payroll votes comprising Cabinet members and government officials. They ostensibly support the prime minister and the policies of the government.

If the vote had gone against Mr. Johnson on Monday, it is more than likely that a Cabinet minister would have ended up instead at 10 Downing St. A change at the top, but likely little other change. Surely the Conservative party and the country-at-large deserve better than mere political prestidigitation.

No, focus instead on those 140 Tory MPs who voted against Boris Johnson. From them alone can the country expect a course correction to the Conservative government. Did they vote against their leader simply because of the optics of breaking his own lockdown rules, the essence of “Partygate,” or is their opposition more substantial?

To the latter question, of policy differences, we can answer in the affirmative. Conservative backbenchers have disagreed with the government’s direction on fulfilling the promise of Brexit, in respect of personal liberties, limited government, and fiscal prudence.

Add to this the despair regarding the government’s approach to climate change and “net carbon zero,” its Covid-19 response, immigration, and its lackluster response to wokery.

All these points of difference, within the Conservative Party itself, lead to the potential benefits of “brokered politics” — backbench “ginger groups” taking a lead on key issues along the conservative spectrum.

Critics call this “splintered politics” or “politics of special interests.” Mr. Farage calls it “civil war.” Yet the alternative is all political power centered at Downing Street, emanating from special assistants and bureaucrats unaccountable to the British electorate.

The essence of brokered politics is compromise and public accountability. The ministries of Pitt the Younger and Lord Liverpool, for instance, needed the support of key parliamentary factions in order to govern. Neither prime minister could impose his will upon a docile Westminster.

Sir Robert Peel tried to impose free trade doctrines upon a protectionist Tory party — Benjamin Disraeli famously said that Sir Robert “caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes” — and Disraeli toppled Peel from his prime ministerial post for his perfidy to public faith.

Curiously, Mr. Farage does himself acknowledge the power of brokered politics. The Brexit Party’s effective cashiering of Theresa May where her own party was powerless to remove her, is one example. 

Even his concerns about the effective threat of the combined forces of the Labour, Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National parties is to give brokered politics from the left its due. Well, why not a brokered politics from the right, comprising not only elements of the Conservative Party but of the right-leaning Reform UK and Reclaim parties, too?

So, Mr. Farage, has the Conservative Party lost its chance to redeem the promise of Brexit? “Up to a point.” Can brokered politics comprising principled Tories and other MPs in favor of “maximal liberty and minimal government” still win the day? “Definitely.”

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