Why Boris Johnson's Tories fell for a tiny sect of libertarian provocateurs | Andy Beckett

The combative contrarian rhetoric of the defunct RCP has long been all over the media. Now it’s in No 10 as well

So much seems unusual about this Conservative government: its constant disruptiveness; its preference for rhetoric over functional policies; its mixture of brazen U-turns and cult-like discipline; its flirtations with the far right alongside leftwing-sounding plans to “level up”; its deadly reluctance to curtail small freedoms in a pandemic.

It’s common to attribute some or all of these tendencies to the idiosyncrasies of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, or the effects of Brexit, or the rise of rightwing populism. But there is a less noticed and more surprising factor at work, too. Today’s Tory government has adopted some of the style, rhetoric and preoccupations of a defunct radical sect, the Revolutionary Communist party (RCP).

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