Quotes of the Day 27th January 2026 – On defections to Reform.
With the defection to the Reform Party of high profile Tories like Robert Jenrick and now Suella Braverman the Tory Party is now getting very depleted of the sort of Right wingers that might appeal to a public stressed by inappropriate numbers and types of migration. It’s pretty obvious that migration and social cohesion is going to be a massive issue when the next General Election comes around especially as the current Labour government has done little or nothing to properly alleviate this problem.
The Tories need candidates and MP’s who appeal to what is a growing Right wing and Centre Right demographic in particular that much younger Right and Centre Right demographic which is clearly growing in numbers and volubility. Remember it’s not the Boomers or Gen X that is doing the publicity work to promote Right and Centre Right thinking and attitudes, it’s the young. It’s not Gen X or Boomers who created the massively popular Amelia meme, which has now from what I can gather gone worldwide and embarrassed the British government, it’s Millennials and Gen Z.
The Tories need to attract these new Right and Centre Right younger voters and creating the conditions where all the right wingers feel they’ve no home in the Tories is not going to do that. The Tories have also driven away many of the older Right and Centre Right voters who for years gave the Tories chance after chance to repair the damage done to Britain, its, people, its political environment and its Constitution by the Blair and Brown years but they did not.
Here’s some comments on X by Tim Montgomerie the founder of the Conservative Home site and a former Tory, now Reform member. They are in reply to a comment made to David Gauke and arch liberal Tory member. Sources for these quotes are pasted below the quotes.
“Let's spell it for those who haven't noticed: The Tories are now facing their biggest crisis of recent decades. The MPs most committed to policies that are popular with their traditional voters are defecting. Many of the remaining MPs are basically blue LibDems. Like a wounded animal it is lashing out - making nasty and personal attacks of the kind levelled at Suella Braverman today. With both of the main two British parties cracking up at the same time we are witnessing something genuinely historic.”
https://x.com/montie/status/2015847163880734732
And
“The Left of the Conservative Party broke their governments while in office: opposing public sector reform; vetoing tough action on immigration; advancing expensive energy policies and embracing wokery. They now plan to make Kemi Badenoch their hostage. They'd be much happier in the LibDems with other diehard Remainers.”
https://x.com/montie/status/2015840313328468165
That’s a pretty wounding comment about the Tories from Mr Montgomerie. I suspect he may be correct in his assessment. We expected better from the Tories on issues like energy and migration but we didn’t get better we got worse policies than what we should have expected. The lashing out at the defectors in the manner in which they’ve done it is not the actions of a party at peace with itself, it’s the actions of a party in deep trouble. We are as Mr M says in a historic political juncture and it remains to be seen how it will all pan out.