We don’t have time for another game of musical chairs in the Tory party

Election Now: We’ve all ‘found out’. We all know what this Tory party has become, and the polls show that, writes Femi Oluwole

People know this system is failing them (AP)

We can’t afford this. We’re facing yet another painful winter, with NHS pressures, food prices, mortgage and rent prices and energy bills, all out of control. And what are our leaders doing? Having yet another game of musical chairs in the Tory party. We don’t have time for this. We need an election.

Now I know you’re tired of elections. We’ve had plenty recently. But as the cool kids would say, “fumble around and find out”. (They don’t say fumble.) Before the 2019 election was the “fumble around” stage. As a country, we were undecided as to how the plans of the Tory Brexiters would affect us all. Since then we’ve been finding out.

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We’ve seen more than 200,000 people die from Covid, as the people in charge partied through lockdown. We’ve seen small businesses buckling under the pressure of the extra Brexit red tape. We’ve seen the Tories try to take the best A-level grades from state schools and give them to private schools, while trying to deprive the poorest kids of free school meals.

We’ve seen farmers cull 40,000 pigs due to a lack of skilled butchers, and the National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations announce losses of £300m due to Brexit difficulties. We’ve seen noise limits placed on protest and restrictions placed on voting rights, by the government that was supposed to be returning power to the people.

And now with struggling families facing one of their darkest winters, our prime minister’s genius plan involved letting bankers have unlimited bonuses and give £2bn of tax cuts to people earning over £150,000 a year. These unfunded tax cuts were so wild that the IMF has condemned us, 41 per cent of mortgage deals were withdrawn, and a chancellor has resigned for announcing his prime minister’s policies.

So we’ve all “found out”. We all know what this Tory party has become, and the polls show that.

Now you’re thinking: “You say we don’t have time, but you want us to go through a general election?” Remember all the times the Tories told us that, despite everything Boris Johnson had done, the country couldn’t afford a change of leadership given the mess we were in? And what did we get? Seven months of delay until they had to get rid of him anyway. And now we’ve ended up with a government in absolute chaos, while we’re in an even bigger mess. So do you want to be fooled by that excuse again, or do you want to start getting governments that reflect the people of the UK?

Look at this government. Liz Truss actually said it is “fair” to give more money back to the richest people during a poverty crisis. Does that reflect our values? YouGov polling shows 63 per cent of Brits think the rich should pay more taxes, compared to just 5 per cent who think they should pay less. So we are a country that believes in real fairness.

The reason we don’t have a government like that is because, despite only 44 per cent voting for the Tories, our current voting system gave them 56 per cent of the seats in parliament. Furthermore, their leader was just chosen by Conservative members who are four to one against shifting wealth to the poorest people.

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The Labour membership, however, have just voted to change our voting system to one where the seats in parliament actually reflect the votes of the people. So when I tell you we need a general election to get the Tories out, I’m not making some Labour campaign pitch.

Nigel Farage himself just tweeted his support for proportional representation because even he has had enough of 12 years of the Conservatives. People know this system is failing them. That’s why so many voted to “take back control” six years ago. That’s why almost twice as many people support PR over our current first-past-the-post system.

A general election isn’t just the way to get the Tories out. It’s the way to a new politics. And in that new politics, the people of the UK, who desperately need things to get better, will no longer be silenced by a minority-voted party that cares more about leadership contests than the people they lead.

Femi Oluwole is a British political activist and co-founder of the pro-European Union advocacy group Our Future Our Choice