Perhaps the most noticeable feature of politics in the West in recent years has been the swift and irreversible demise of traditional conservative parties.

The disappearance of these parties has been dramatically illustrated by the grim fates that now await the UK Conservative Party and the Liberal/National Party coalition in Australia.

The Conservative Party governed the UK from 2010 until last year. The Coalition government held office in Australia from 1996 to 2007, and from 2013 until 2022. Both of these parties were soundly defeated at the polls by ideologically unified social democratic parties that were led by uninspiring and pedestrian politicians – namely Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese.

This suggests that voters rejected the conservatives, rather than warmly embracing their social democratic opponents. UK Labour’s rapid fall from grace since last year’s election victory and the party’s current unpopularity confirms the correctness of this view.

More troubling for conservatives in the UK and Australia is the fact that both of these once dominant parties – so shortly after losing office – now find themselves in such acute states of internal disarray and that they have no realistic prospect of regaining office in the foreseeable future. In fact, it is clear that neither party has a viable long-term future at all.

How has this extraordinary state of affairs come about? A number of fundamental causes suggest themselves.

First, the emergence of a new global post-industrial economic order over the past three decades – based upon renewable energy and novel technologies and ruled by new global elites – has created deep-seated ideological divisions within all traditional conservative parties in the West.

Hence the now unbridgeable divisions that exist within these parties over net zero, mass immigration, so-called “culture wars” issues, transgender rights etc. – and, for the UK Conservative Party, the additional divisive issue of Brexit.

Hence also the ongoing destructive debates within these parties as to whether they should embrace a right-wing “populist” agenda or remain committed to a centrist, more traditional conservative political program. This fundamental ideological division reveals itself most pathetically in the sad phenomenon of former conservative leaders like Liz Truss and Scott Morrison finding new careers – post politics – as sycophantic bit players at Donald Trump rallies in America.

No contemporary political party that lacks ideological coherence can expect to achieve any degree of political success in the West – because an increasingly cynical and alienated electorate will not vote for a party that is racked with internal divisions and cannot commit to a clear political........

© RT.com