Thread by @JamesWillby

1. Thread on my experience in a previous life as a Cameron Conservative. This will be a little long, but i hope interesting.

2. Conservative Future at the time (2009) wasn't what it became later. It was a place where Liberals could find a home and campaign.

3. It was - with Ben Howlett as chair - modern & progressive with sensible policies on climate change, marriage for all etc.

4. The "Sound" crowd was present. These are the faux Libertarians - wannabe tax avoiders - who shout "sound" at stupid ideas.

5. However generally speaking, those i campaigned with were as i was: socially liberal but with a fierce sense of economic pragmatism.

6. My worst moment was being screamed at by Andrew Rosindell at a Con Way Forward - *shakes head* - event for being pro-EU. That was fun.

7. And i never went anywhere near the Young Britain Foundation. I was, after all, sane.

8. May 2010 was spent with a group of three others driving around Kent helping to unseat Labour MPs and turn Kent blue. We did well. But ...

9. I was not that impressed with the candidates. Especially the one for Rochester and Strood who missed his 1st vote as an MP by being drunk

10. It dawned on me quickly that MPs are, in the main, the worst people in a party. As in you have to be bolshy and obtuse to become one.

11. But they're as nothing compared to local associations. There's a reason why candidates are parachuted in.

12. If you want to see what happens when right-wing local associations choose candidates, look to UKIP. Well, ex-UKIP now Tories.

13. But we won. And i was actually very happy with the coalition. 2010-2015 was a good time to be liberal and centre-right. However ...

14. The Tories claim they brought about marriage for all, but its a lie.

A majority of Tory MPs voted it down. It was Cameron. Not them.

15. There were the constant attempts to undermine Ed Davey who was doing an excellent job at the DECC.

16. And the humiliation of Nick Clegg over Lords Reform and the jeering from the backbenches was repugnant. But still, i stayed.

17. 2015 is where it started to go wrong. Without the Lib Dems, Cameron had to bend the knee to the hard-right. Cons Future changed too.

18. Europhobia was "cool". Madhat speakers were being invited to Conservative local assocs and university societies. Pragmatism was dying.

19. Liberal Conservatives could see what was becoming, but we stayed to try to prevent the party imploding.

20. I remember an event with Steve Baker. He left me in no doubt that being pro-EU and a Tory was - in his ideological mind - incompatible.

21. And then came the referendum. CCHQ was "neutral" (!) while a majority of the local assocs and uni socs were Leave.

22. But what drove me out wasn't the result, but the aftermath. And specifically three words.

23. Fearing for its survival, the party embraced UKIP as its own & lurched right-wards. Liberals were stunned.

24. And then at #CPC16, now PM @theresa_may said this. And i knew the Liberal heart had died within the party and it was time to go.

25. I don't think the party had any idea how badly "Citizen of Nowhere" would go down. But it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

26. What exists today is nothing like the socially liberal and fiscally sensible party i campaigned for in 2010.

27. Rudderless, captured by the hard-right, salivating over Hard Brexit & in thrall to the Mail & Express, the Tories are unfit to govern.

28. #GE17 was an opportunity for humility. Instead they seek to lecture Britain's liberals on why they were right with SoS call us remoaners

29. They are not a path to the open, tolerant and liberal Britain we want. Nor are they the path the sound public finances.

30. Maybe one day they will be. But for now, they need to go into the wilderness again. We'll be waiting for when they return sane. /Fin