'I think what we’ve seen over the years, is the Conservative Party becoming more right-wing'
Ex party chairman and Tory grandee Lord Chris Patten has slammed the Conservative Party for being more right-wing and in turn more unpopular, ahead of the general election.
Patten, who was chairman of the Tory party when former Prime Minister John Major pulled off a surprise election win in 1992 after more than a decade of Tory rule, told LBC that the Tory party was caught up in a vicious cycle of becoming increasingly populist and right-wing, which in turn makes it more and more unpopular.
His comments come as the Tories continue to trail the Labour Party in the polls, with the latest poll putting the Conservatives on 19% of the vote, which if repeated at a general election would give it just 36 seats.
Asked whether there was a chance the Tories could pull off a surprise victory like in 1992, Patten told LBC: “When asked about my experiences of being party chairman of the Conservative Party, and what the relevance is to my views on things today, I make initially the very important point that I was chairman of the Conservative Party when there was one.
“And I think what we’ve seen over the years, is the Conservative Party becoming more right-wing, as it becomes more right-wing, it becomes more populist, as it becomes more populist, it becomes more unpopular, as it becomes more unpopular, it becomes more right-wing.
“And I think what it does in the process is lose something which won John Major the election in 1992.”
He also went on to call Brexit the “biggest disaster in British policy making since the Second World War”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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