BoJo banished - Liz Truss down. Is Rishi next for the toaster? **threadbans in OP**

In my opinion, I think that this is an existential crisis for the Conservative party and, though she has not helped matters, is actually little do with Truss

Brexit and 'anyone but Corbyn' has driven political affiliation, and massive Tory support, across the UK for many years now. But both of these factors are firmly in the rear view mirror, and no longer of relevance. The Brexit 'bounce' lasted longer than it should have done under Boris, as he culturally represented what Brexit was all about, and people automatically supported him because of that even though Brexit itself was old news. But that dynamic has gone, and the UK population is having to confront, for the first time in years, what their actual political views are. And it's not pretty for the Tories

I don't think that the UK is a conservative country any more. The last number of years, overwhelmed by Brexit and Corbyn, have masked an underlying drift away from the small state, low tax, low welfare, Conservative ethos. Partly because of demographic change and partly because welfare / state support touches so many more of the UK population than it used to. And services are collapsing. You can see that clearly in recent polling which shows the 'red wall' seats, post Brexit having been done, are all strongly moving back to Labour. They are lost. And I think that a majority of the rest of the population has moved away from conservatism without anyone noticing given Brexit / nationalism noise.

Until now, that is, when the departure of Boris has severed that last link. Truss doesn't recognise that and thinks that there is still some massive conservative base that she is playing to. When actually that base is now pretty small.

I think it will take probably two electoral cycles for the Tories to understand exactly what the UK population want and how they can re-engage. If they don't, I think that they will become unelectable in a way that the labour used to be

Just my opinion of course. There's nothing really that Truss can do

I did say that, yes. But I could not possibly predict how Truss was going to begin her premiership. At that stage, it was still early days and the leadership contest hadn't been underway. That said, everything else I said in that post turned out to be true, however.

In fact, I said only a few posts ago that they'd wish Johnson was still at the helm. My position has been completely consistent.