Well, that was quite the shock.
Apparently Patrick Brown is out of the Conservative Leadership race for irregularities, which clearly means he had one or two people paying centrally for memberships for other people, if you’re willing to read between the lines of the statement. Brown, whose entire candidacy was based around signing up members in ethnic minority groups and through religious groups, clearly got caught with multiple members paid for by the same original source, a common tactic for unwittingly signing up members to a cause they don’t actually support. (If someone on the Leadership Organizing Committee wants to dispute this reading of his dismissal, I’ll retract if given firm proof, but I’m right.)
What it all means, other than Brian Lilley is a fucking idiot for trying to pretend this was still a race in Tuesday’s Sun, is that this race is even more over than you would have otherwise thought. Without Brown in the race, the majority of his members – if they even allow a good chunk of them to vote – won’t bother voting, meaning that Poilievre’s 312000 members make up an even bigger chunk of the electorate. If you were under any illusion this could be close before this, disabuse yourself of the notion immediately.
Given that, I’m going to posit something – this is probably good for the Tory Party in terms of general election posture in 3 years, because with Brown out of the race, it basically stops Poilievre from having to continue his tack right. It’s now not the case that he has anything resembling a threat to the leadership, and if he’s smart, he can tone back the negativity and the anger and start a more fulsome pivot to the centre, which will enable him to avoid any more quotes or moves in the leadership that end up fucking him in the General. Avoiding a Mitt Romney “illegals can self deport” moment is absolutely a key upside to this for the presumptive frontrunner.
What’s also true is that this will show just how pathetic Jean Charest has it, because he now can’t get a dignified exit from this race. With Brown in the race, he had a chance to get above Brown, ride his preferences to 44% of the vote, and retire back to obscurity with a decent result. Now, he’s Valtteri Bottas at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, where no matter what happens, he loses. Had Bottas beaten George Russell that weekend, it would have been an as expected result. When George beat Bottas in Lewis Hamilton’s car despite never having driven it before that week, it was pathetic for Bottas. Charest is in the same spot – if he comes in a distant second, he probably loses to Poilievre by 40%, and he could easily come in third to Lewis. What a disaster for the disgraceful ex-Premier of Quebec, and what a fitting end to the second act of his corrupt, useless career.
The main takeaway has to be, though, that another two months of a divisive campaign would have been catnip for the Liberals, in the same way that the Ignatieff-Dion leadership race primed the Conservative attack ads for the next two cycles. Now, the Conservatives have a chance to take the air out of the balloon, lower the temperature on this leadership race, and let Poilievre win this in some amount of clean air. If those in the Conservative Party who claim unity is above all their concern, this is the time to show it, because Pierre Poilievre will be your leader in September, and it’s on you to decide whether you’ll burn the house down before handing him the keys or not. This is your chance to put party above personal ambition – do it, or shut the fuck up about how you’d expect the right to do the same for the centre.
Oh, and Patty Brown being disqualified? I guess it is good to see that cheating, lying fucks with no principles do get their justice in the end.
If cheating lying fucks got their just desserts, then wouldn’t that mean Poilievre would be out of the running?