As Michael Gove joins the nearly quarter of Tory MPs standing down at the election, the joke that 'would the last person leaving the Tory party please turn off the lights' seems to be ever more apposite.
For many Gove's departure will be welcome, but it also reinforces the notion that the post-election Tory party may be very different from its most recent manifestation.
The Q. will be, will they swing further to the right, shift to the 'centre', of collapse into fragments?
@ChrisMayLA6 If the Tories do have a bad night with results (and I'm assuming nothing!) then a great deal will depend on who's left.
Ultimately, the Parliamentary Party is only its MPs, and - outside of leadership elections - the Tory membership has less influence on party policy than in any other major party, essentially none whatsoever. Hell, even in leadership elections they get less choice, because they have a maximum of two options.
So if we can all work extra hard to make sure the most prominent extremists are removed, then it might well be a better Tory party that results. And this does concern me, because even if they lose heavily they will be back sooner or later, and I'd like to hope (though certainly not expect) that the party of Braverman and Gullis is seen as a dead end by that point.
Yes, the Q. of what they look like when they emerge from the post-election process of reconstruction will be interesting... as you imply, some return to a one nation Toryism would be welcome, but in the current situation, where much of that ground looks to be occupied by the Labour Party, and the electoral 'need' to distinguish the party from government, at least in the medium term, right-extremism looks more likely... but time will tell