Conservative backbenchers are out of touch with the public — and fully removed from reality. The libertarian right correctly gauged voters’ mood on Brexit, but rebelling on Covid rules could be politically dangerous

18 comments

  2. I don’t think it’s a political play. They just don’t want to financially support businesses if they declare a lock down.

    They pilfered billions from the coffers. That money is gone. They will not waste money on public spending.

  5. I think the telling part of this peice is these 2 paragraphs.

    >Yet this week’s revolt also highlights the growing importance of rightwing libertarianism in the modern Tory party. In some ways the driving force of this week’s revolt, this libertarianism represents a striking break with the party’s origins and past. Historically, the Tory party stood for order and authority, rather than the sovereign individual beloved by today’s libertarians. Even Margaret Thatcher, who is often still seen as the modern Tory party’s guiding light because of her economic individualism, argued that the party stood for what she called “ordered liberty”. Unlike today’s libertarians, Thatcher was never afraid to tell people how they should live their lives.
    In today’s libertarianism, Thatcher’s economic individualism has spilled over into every other form of life. In this view of the world, every power given to every public official is a step towards tyranny, all departments of the state are malign empire builders whose existence threatens fundamental liberty, and all the checks and balances of liberal democracy, such as parliament and the law, are attempts to disarm the sovereign individual. It is a view that is both paranoid, massively overstating the threat from government action while largely ignoring the benefits, and politically self-destructive, since it is almost wholly at odds with the more balanced and pragmatic way that the public sees the same issues.

  6. They didn’t “gauge voters’ mood on Brexit” so much as their wealthy backers manufactured voters’ mood on Brexit.

  7. Rebelling against covid measures is quickly becoming popular, I mean even on this sub we’re seeing highly upvoted comments that are anti restrictions when even so much as mentioning the possibility of a herd immunity strategy or not having restrictions during the previous lockdowns would have you buried at the bottom of the thread.

  8. The Tory right are seen by a lot of people as the only bullwark against this madness, who are willing to stand up for people’s rights and freedoms. Defending liberal values has become a conservative thing to do. It’s The Guardian and the left who are out of touch with the public.

  9. Wishful thinking from the Guardian I think. While hospitalisations and deaths remain low the public sentiment is very much against restrictions.

  11. Nearly every person I know is against new restrictions, perhaps they’re out of touch with Redditors and Guardian editors, but not the public.

  12. It’s fairly safe because they didn’t win. “The government has, *with incredible reluctance, difficulty, and facing intense scrutiny and concern from its own backbenchers who are determined that any additional measures must not go too far*, instituted some restrictions” is very much in-touch with the public.

  13. I’m not sure the guardian are as finger on the pulse as they think they are. The loudest whiners and screechers as usual, are not the majority

  15. The ‘libertarian right’ most certain did not “*correctly gauge voters’ mood on Brexit*”

    They weaponised inherent racism and bigotry to win a vote, and try to distance themselves from their handiwork with wibble about CANZUK.

  16. everyone i know has mentioned that there friends and family are actively saying they are opposed to any new covid rules and enforcement of the current ones.

    this next version is going to be a clusterfuck of a mess. The guardian as always seems be stuck in there echochamber like they were on brexit.

  18. The reasons for the libertarian right supporting Brexit were really quite different for the reasons that the authoritarian right supported Brexit. Just that such differences were kept quiet at the time.

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