This election result proves that the Tories are still out of touch with modern Britain

Nobody can agree what the key dividing lines are in today’s Conservatives. The principles of potential leaders are becoming slippery indeed

Lynton Crosby, the 'king of negative campaigning', misread the mood of the country in leading Theresa's May's weak election campaign (Getty)

The Tory Party is furious. As we all now know, Theresa May chose this April to gamble three years of guaranteed Tory government on a snap election – an election she had repeatedly promised her own party she would not call. (“The Prime Minister, frankly, lied and lied again,” one senior Tory on the right of the party complained to me during the first week of the campaign.) Her own party was woefully unprepared for this election.

A candidate selection process that normally takes two years was rushed through in a week; stories circulated about candidates sent to the wrong selection meetings, or spending a fortune on train tickets to hear their interviews had been called off at the last minute. Lifelong grudges were created between factions whose favoured candidates were denied.

And now those factions have started fighting like ferrets in a sack.

Boris Johnson has already started briefing against his leader – “sources close” to the Foreign Secretary have been telling journalists that May’s campaign failed because it didn’t offer the British people enough hope. Who better to offer them chirpy sunshine, these little birds imply, than the human dandelion?

Speaking at her Maidenhead constituency a few hours ago, May seemed determined to cling on to her leadership, bumbling on about the Britain’s need for stable leadership and continuity. (We’ve heard that before.) Some of her friends are even suggesting that with DUP support, she can still lead a government, but this all depends on whether the last few results allow her to lead a gang of 319 seats – and that possibility recedes with each hour.

Yet it seems impossible that May can survive the wrath of her party. If she doesn’t resign at 10am today, Boris will bring a challenge as soon as possible. Two members of May’s Cabinet assured me this morning they were already working on an “anyone but Boris” candidate. But Amber Rudd is tainted by the vulnerability of her own Hastings seat, declared for her today only after multiple recounts. Philip Hammond is loathed by the Brexiteer tendency after frequently clashing with David Davis, Liam Fox and Johnson himself in Cabinet.

Perhaps Michael Fallon could emerge as this year’s quiet man, the safe pair of hands whom no one hates enough to veto? Look how well that worked out for Theresa May.

What makes this harder is that no one can agree what the key dividing lines are in today’s Tory Party. Back in 2010, we had hardliners and modernisers. But the issue of Europe has sliced out the middle of both factions: some, such as Johnson or Michael Gove, would have called themselves modernisers but are indelibly tied to the Brexit agenda; others, such as Rudd and Damian Green, are passionate Europhiles – and privately staunch modernisers – but have more recently pegged their careers to Theresa May’s authoritarian, Maidenhead-matriarch aesthetic.

Principles have become slippery. Sajid Javid was once known for his opposition to the EU, but backed David Cameron’s Remain campaign last year – according to his detractors, out of a desire to protect his Cabinet role. “He abandoned his own side because he thought they’d lose,” said one former Government colleague to me last month. “And then his old teammates won, without him.”

Since then, the phrases “Sajid Javid” and “future leader” seem rarer and rarer in conjunction.

The toxic campaign Theresa May ran this year, masterminded by the king of negative campaigning, Lynton Crosby, shows clearly that the Tory Party is still out of touch with modern Britain. The challenge for those who’d like to drag it back to the 21st century is to find any leadership candidate who understands that.