Americans should think kindly about their transatlantic cousins while they are celebrating their liberation from the grips of monarchy, as their own head of state publicly declines into senility. I refer to the self-immolation of the British Conservative Party.  

A few days remain before the general election, which will take place on July 4. Millions of Britons will visit polling stations to cast their ballots. Britain will soon have a new Labour government, if the polls are accurate.   

According to The Sunday Times, Labour is at 41 percent with the Conservatives trailing with a not very impressive 20 percent. Some have already thrown in the towel—a record number of Conservative MPs are standing down, and many long-serving and famous names are predicted to lose their seats. 

Unlike Americans, who take their time with elections, we have been subjected to countless TV debates and interviews with all the main parties crammed into the last five weeks. Despite the Green Party’s absurd net-zero agenda, they seem to be the only ones who disclose not only their policies but also their funding sources. Assuring us that Labour has undergone a transformation, Sir Keir Starmer removed Jeremy Corbyn from the party to address the pervasive anti-Semitism issue. His Conservative opponent, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been doing the rounds, warning the electorate that a vote for Labour will lead to a supermajority, enabling Starmer to push through a series of radical legislative reforms that will change parliament for a generation.  

Sunak’s inability to halt illegal immigration has been a major contributing factor to the demise of the Conservative Party. The policy to “stop the boats” was one of his five key promises. Meantime there have been over 50,000 crossings of the English Channel since he was appointed Prime Minister in 2022. The number of people living in the United Kingdom has increased by almost 4 million since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. For most British citizens, immigration is a major source of concern. The fierce competition for resources is increasing demand for an already scarce supply of housing.  

Immigrants are detained in temporary accommodation while they wait for a decision on their asylum applications. According to a recent report, the annual cost of housing migrants in hotels is estimated to be around £2.2 billion, which is more than three times the £630 million allotted each year to address our severe homeless problem. Immigration is also putting the National Health Service under immense strain—the waiting list has already reached a record-breaking high of 7.5 million people. The government’s plan for dispersing migrants sees them placed in the most impoverished parts of the country—usually deprived northern English towns desperately short of council funding. Working-class communities bear the brunt of immigration, leading to resentment and a breakdown in social cohesion.  

But immigration isn’t the whole problem. British institutions are controlled by an elite in thrall to a pernicious and divisive progressive ideology that seeks to erode our history, culture, and achievements. Yet, we have only heard Sunak getting “tough” on the culture war in the final few weeks of his re-election campaign. In the polls, they are now almost level with Reform, a new party headed by Nigel Farage. If Reform takes a large share of disaffected conservative voters, the Tories could be left with as few as 50 seats—what some commentators have called an “extinction level” event.  

Racial hiring practices that masquerade as diversity targets have allowed identity politics to find their way into boardrooms. Combining this with unchecked mass immigration has resulted in the rise of sectarian politics, with ethnic minorities, mostly in the north of England, voting only on foreign policy issues like the Israel-Hamas conflict. One Green councillor in Leeds yelled Allahu Akbar when he won a council seat, expressing his gratitude to the people of Gaza for his election.  

Hate crime legislation makes a mockery of the democratic ideal of equality before the law. Extensive hate speech laws grant protected status to a broad spectrum of sexual and racial minorities. A mere allegation from an observer is sufficient for the police to file hate crime charges because it is a perception-based crime. The police also issue the Orwellian-sounding “non-crime hate incidents” (NCHI), which appear on citizens’ criminal background checks for six years. 120,000 NCHI were recorded by the police between 2014 and 2019. 

Among the most pernicious examples of the criminalization of “hate” have involved a man who posted a “transphobic” limerick on Twitter and a neighbor to whom he was whistling the theme tune of a children’s TV show. Harry Miller, the man in question, was a former police officer who contested the decision in court. As a result, the Court of Appeal ruled that the police’s guidelines regarding hate crimes needed to be revised. But NCHIs are still being recorded. Big Brother Watch’s analysis revealed that between June and November last year, police forces in England and Wales recorded 6,489 NCHI. This was initiated by Labour with the 2010 Equality Act, but under a Conservative government, it has persisted unabatedly.  

A Labour government will accelerate the date at which our already implausible net zero target is set, weaken press and speech rights, and push for even more onerous taxes on small business owners. On gender issues, Labour will go as far as the trans activists can push them. Its manifesto pledges to “modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process.” Stated differently, Labour will facilitate a person’s decision to change their legal sex without requiring any physical modifications, legal scrutiny, or a second medical opinion. It is self-identification in all but name.  

Many gender-critical feminists are outraged by Labour’s submission to transgender ideology and the serious risk it poses to women’s safety. J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series and Labour Party donor, has declared that she would struggle to back a government that takes such a radical stand on gender recognition.  

They also intend to combat “structural racism” in the workplace by enacting a new race equality act. Similar to the £760 million equal pay lawsuit that recently forced Birmingham Council into bankruptcy, it will enable people to file lawsuits without providing supporting evidence of “direct discrimination.”  

I regret to inform you that there is nothing particularly admirable about my country as it is right now. Shoplifters act with impunity, streets are lined with trash, shops are abandoned everywhere you look, and more teenagers than ever before are dying from knife attacks. Meanwhile, Just Stop Oil is vandalizing artworks in museums and art galleries, defacing world heritage sites, and plotting to interrupt commerce at scale. We have transitioned from a high-trust society, characterized by a sense of decency and civility, to a low-trust society driven by radical subjectivity, instant gratification, and a toxic social justice ideology that has fostered a misguided deep distrust of law enforcement.  

The Conservatives have created a great deal of noise on important issues in order to hide their lack of policy depth on matters that the public actually cares about. They appear to be unaware of how important civic virtues like patriotism and religious faith are to us and how they bring people together. Progressive ideology cannot erase the identification of this small island for social and cultural conservatives like me. Simply put, a large portion of the nation has stopped paying attention to what the party has to say.  

It has been a generational truism that governing parties in Britain typically last around 13 years. Margaret Thatcher led the conservatives for 15 years, 11 of those years as prime minister. Time drags on, making mistakes more difficult to avoid. Inevitably, the shine begins to fade. For the simple reason that they have held power for far too long, the current iteration of the Tory party has grown stale. The country was destroyed by New Labour over a 13-year period, which also planted the seeds for many of the current issues. Barring a miracle, the Conservatives will be trounced. Maybe they will have enough time to rediscover their beliefs after five years on the opposing benches.