Quo Vadis Labour?

[Montmorency]

With all labours problems - and the new elecoral boundaries coming soon (finally - far too long!), there is pretty much zero prospect of conservatives not being in power after the next GE.

Say more.

I'm not sure there is any certainty on this.
If they decide to leave, so be it, but i'm relatively confident they will decide not to.

Shouldn't the overwhelming - and historically-recent! - success of pro-independence politics, in combination of the near-success of the independence referendum just prior to the maturation of the rise of pro-independence politics, belie this estimation?

The Liberals (pre Democrats) were THE major force in politics alongside the Tories until the start of the twentieth century, after which point they ceased to be able to represent the interests of a broad and election winning swathe of society.
The labour movement provided better answers. Now, a century later it seems to be that the labour movement has run out of answers to questions that interest a broad and election winning swathe of society.

And so were the Whigs before the Liberals, though here it is important to note that Labour continues to draw a swathe of society broad enough to almost match the Conservatives numerically, something the Liberals/LibDems have not been able to claim in over a century - it's just not election-winning. In the history of political parties fading from the scene, I am not aware of any in Labour's contemporary position.

I repeat, indeed intensify: no political party in the United Kingdom is capable of winning a majority of the vote. Structural factors have more relevance than intensional ones.

Edit: To say a little more, the contemporary LibDems seem to have hardly any natural constituency. Their votes tend to be major-party voters protesting against their customary parties. The core base of the LibDems, such as it may be, is possibly hardly bigger than that of the Greens.

And yet centuries roll by and Tory's keep winning, why?

If you want my answer - off the back of Baron Hailsham's logic, it is:
"Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself."
An attitude doesn't go out of date - and in not being rooted to ideological precepts that circumstance renders obsolete it is easier for 'conservatism' to move with the times.

Yes, the Right always has a constituency, that's not a groundbreaking observation.

Evergreen observation:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.

Conservatism also arguably has the distinction of the longest track record of failure and disaster in philosophical history.

i.e. to die in a ditch defending now that which they died in a ditch resisting a century previous.

This is a rather uncommon sort of conservatism today, raw reaction against modernity having driven it out, but even then it recalls one of those Internet laws (to paraphrase): 'Conservatism is opposition toward what liberals want today.'