What to Do When Your Political Party Loses Its Mind

For three years now, I’ve had a recurring dream. I am walking into the British Parliament, which seems to have become a cathedral. Passing beneath coffered ceilings, Gothic wallpaper, and sinuous brass work, I arrive at a marble version of the debating chamber, in which I can see my sometimes-antagonist, the Conservative member of Parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg, lying in what appears to be a bishop’s surplice on one of the pews. When I step in to join my other colleagues, a large man in a tailcoat intercepts me, indicates courteously that this place is no longer for me, and escorts me out.

I had thought that I was reconciled to my break with Britain’s Conservative Party. My dreams suggest otherwise.

That break was sudden. Four years ago, Boris Johnson became prime minister. Almost overnight, the liberal-centrist tradition of the Conservative Party, which I had championed, was replaced by a right-wing, anti-immigrant platform for populists who reveled in stoking culture wars. The new prime minister that MPs who tried to block his hard-Brexit proposals would. He was true to his word: We all lost our seats. The party that I had served in Parliament for nearly a decade, and latterly for several years as a government minister, disinherited me. Friends turned against me.