Some thoughts on political homelessness.

You hear it a lot, at least within places like Twitter where the chattering classes gather - , "none of the Party's represent me, I'm politically homeless". It is an odd phrase since it assumes that, to be comfortable in our ideological skin we require a political party where we can make a home.

Thinking about this for a few minutes, I concluded that this represents a desire to have a nice safe, affirmative space filled with ideological soulmates - a tribe (to borrow the popular term for such things). I further concluded that the only way to achieve such a home is, in fact, to stop any challenge or doubt and simply accept the absolute truth of your chosen ideology.

I've been a member of the Conservative Party since 1976. At no point in these 40-odd years have I ever felt that this Party provided me with a home. It's true, and I've written about it, that there are values largely shared by the political right that aren't shared by the political left (even in its most "neoliberal" Blairite form). I also know that governments of the political right also propose and enact policies that run counter to those values - the emasculation of local government, the indulgence of identity politics and the penchant for regulating behaviour come to mind as examples of this failure.

What's true is that no political party, other than one I set up myself to represent myself, can accord with the things I think are important or the policies I consider to be right. No party is considering a serious reform of the planning system, proposing to reduce the number of young men we lock up, or the devolution of hospitals to local government - all things I think should happen. And the party I'm a member of proposes a host of things this I dislike or consider stupid - from officious fussbucketing obesity plans through bans on drinking straws to pointless laws to stop people who never eat dogs from eating dogs.

Political parties - for all the ideological posturing and talk of values - are always vehicles to achieve power (this is because without power none of the things us members want to happen can happen). Whether we're speaking of Peel's Tamworth Manifesto or Disraeli's establishment of a central office (for me the real formation of the Conservative Party as a national party rather than a parliamentary faction) and the setting of a mission to improve to conditions of the working man, my Party has always been a means to get the right sort of people elected. And, for all its current posturing, that is the case with the Labour Party - the Labour Representation Committee formed by trade unions with the express purpose of sponsoring union-backed MPs and councillors.

If no political party stands a chance of exactly (or even closely) representing your views on everything and those parties exist for the purpose of securing power, then anyone who thinks about such matters has to be "politically homeless". The question isn't whether the party provides a home but rather whether there are, as folk like to tell it these days, 'red lines' that make it impossible to support a party. And, I guess, if every party has crossed your 'red lines' then you're left on your own.

I've given a lot of thought to what those 'red lines' might be in my case. Is there a point where the Conservative Party's position is far removed from mine and the particular policy or value is really important to me? I saw how Luciana Berger and Mike Gapes said they had to leave Labour because they considered it institutionally antisemitic. It seems to me that this is a principled position - you don't have to agree with them to understand that, if you consider your party irredeemably racist, leaving is an inevitable choice.

My red lines? I'm not sure. It's one of those "I'll know it when I see it" moments, either a final piece of stupid fussbucketry or yet another piece of officious immigration regulation. It could be a leader who is a reactionary rather than a conservative, taking the party back down the nativist, protectionist hole from which Disraeli pulled us in 1846. Or it could be that we finally forget that we're here to make a difference - getting power isn't the end, improving the conditions of ordinary people is the end. I've a feeling that, like Berger and Gapes, if I leave it will be about values not policy - walking out over Brexit, for example, seems shallow and unprincipled, a parliamentary tactic not a change of heart.

All I'm saying, I guess, is that political parties do not provide a home but are a means to an end. You don't have to join one, you don't have to vote for one but, if you're a member of a party you have to be happy with both the means and the ends. And leaving is mostly about the means - values, standards, leadership - not the ends.

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