Talking about Eton by the way - Jeremy Corbyn retweeted this little video by his supporters:
@Innula: the Tories turning back themselves won't happen, because most sane members either left or have been thrown out. As long as the ERG is part of it, it is never going to happen anyway.
Certainly the Conservative Party can't continue as an effective political party as presently constituted, and the authoritarian populist nationalists and the more traditional Conservatives, who simply believe in low taxes, limited but efficient government, the rule of law, good manners and a quite life, are going to split into two parties.
The only question, really, is who gets to keep the Conservative brand, assuming they want it, that is.
That's a fight that's going on before our eyes, and it can't be concluded one way or the other while they're in government.
These more traditional Tories still exist and aren't going to give up on politics altogether, or not all of them are; the question is whether they manage to regain ownership of the Conservative brand name, or go off and form some equivalent of Macron's
En Marche! or what.
That's got implications all across the board, of course -- some LibDems are rightly concerned that Jo Swinton is proving uncomfortably welcoming towards Conservative rebels with pretty illiberal records on same sex marriage and austerity.
She's doing this for political reasons that I fully understand, since Labour Party members are well used to the idea that a party of government inevitably has to accommodate people who disagree with each other on very important issues, and it may well be that, when all the dust settles, we end up with very different LibDem and Labour Parties, too, and possibly even a new party or two on the centre- or far-left, but that's impossible to call at the moment -- the earth tremors have started and we don't know how long they'll last, how much damage will result from them, and what's going to emerge from the rubble at the end of it.
But certainly, the Conservatives can't continue in their present form and they can't sort themselves out while still in government and trying to cope with a no-deal Brexit -- my greatest nightmare is that they may try to, though.
It won't last more than a few months if they do, but God alone knows what monstrosities will be spawned in the process.
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