Skip to main content
The Tories: Is the party over? A history of the present
The left might fear Boris Johnson, but he heads a party that looks to be in terminal decline, argues KEITH FLETT

THE coronation of hard-right Tory Boris Johnson as party leader and hence prime minister will no doubt be hailed as a great victory by the Murdoch press and the Mail. 

Elements of the Corbynphobic Labour right won’t lose too much sleep either perhaps, reckoning that of the no-hopers and losers the Tories have available Johnson has the best chance, even if a small one, of beating Labour in a general election.

Yet the reality suggests a sharply different story for the Tories and privately many of them know it.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
PROTEST PIONEERS: The assault of the Chartists on the Westgate Hotel, where some of their comrades were held prisoner, Newport, 1839
Features / 24 October 2025
24 October 2025

It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT

A ballot box arriving during the count for the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre, Blackpool, May 2, 2024
Features / 11 September 2025
11 September 2025

Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT

Former Labour Party leader and now Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn joins a march in central London organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, July 6, 2024
Opinion / 10 July 2025
10 July 2025

VINCE MILLS cautions over the perils and pitfalls of ‘a new left party’

Striking school support workers taking part in a demonstration outside First Minister John Swinney's constituency office in Blairgowrie, October 24, 2024
Features / 17 June 2025
17 June 2025

KEVAN NELSON reveals how, through its Organising to Win strategy, which has launched targeted campaigns like Pay Fair for Patient Care, Britain’s largest union bucked the trend of national decline by growing by 70,000 members in two years