BC United’s fall signals the continuing rightward lurch of politics
The Conservative Party are true to their name and another symptom of disgruntlement with the status quo
BC United suspended its campaign and backed the province's Conservatives in late August. (Wikimedia Commons/Suneet Gill)
As of Aug. 28, BC United is no more. Party and Official Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon announced that the former BC Liberals will not be contesting the Oct. 19 provincial election.
Instead, the party will cooperate with the BC Conservatives to avoid vote splitting and unseat the BC NDP government. BC United candidates will be withdrawn from the ballot and invited to run on the Conservatives’ ticket, but nominations are not guaranteed.
Falcon will not be seeking re-election. While BC United is intending to run some candidates to ensure the party isn’t deregistered, the BC Conservatives are effectively now the mainstream option of right-leaning constituents.
The BC United have been slumping in the polls in the face of the Conservatives’ shocking rise in support. Last October, I wrote about how this would hurt the BC United and named usurpation by the alternate governing party as the “worst-case scenario.” I was expecting the Conservatives to challenge the BC United’s spot, but erroneously believed that the process would be a longer, more drawn out “slow death” as opposed to the sudden striking down that took place.
The BC United had been troubled by a series of defections — first by John Rustad, who was ejected from the then-BC Liberals for climate change denialism. He crossed the floor to the Conservative Party in 2023 — gifting Legislative Assembly representation to a party that hasn’t won a seat in the provincial legislature for decades — subsequently acclaimed as leader of the party as a “thank you.”
Sitting MLAs Bruce Banman, Lorne Doerkson, Elenore Sturko, and Teresa Wat have all since left the BC United for the Conservatives.
In my previous article, I neglected to include some information pertaining to the Conservatives’ upward momentum. A conservative activist, commentator, and film director named Aaron Gunn sought the then-BC Liberal Party leadership in the contest that Falcon ultimately won, but was disqualified due to his “inconsistent” views with the party’s platform.
Gunn then proceeded to scout for alternative options and found one in the Conservative Party. His political organization, Common Sense BC, then successfully elected their people onto the Conservatives’ board of directors at its annual general meeting with the intention of siphoning away right-leaning votes — a plan which they can indisputably claim victory. Gunn is now the federal Conservative Party’s candidate for the North Island–Powell River riding.
After decades in limbo, the renaissance of the BC Conservatives marks a definite shift in provincial politics, which has been observed in Canada and much of the western world, towards right-wing populism.
Disillusionment towards the post-Cold War neoliberal status quo, the experience of one economic crisis after another, and the compounding factors of anthropogenic climate change have piled on top of one another, making a lot of people quite upset and unsure about where they belong in the world.
Decades of anti-communist propaganda have made left-wing ideas impalpable to many, even to western leftists — but that is a separate discussion. With the ideology most suited to critique and counter global capitalism made unimaginable and demonized within society’s acceptable range of political beliefs, popular resentment gets funneled towards the ideology that the West never truly brought itself to reject — fascism.
It appeals to the anger and discontent felt by the masses by singling out “others” — minorities of all stripes, political foes, agents of “social degeneracy,” and so on — to blame for ongoing woes. “The dirty truth,” political scientist Michael Parenti wrote, “is that many people find fascism to be not particularly horrible.”
The future of the BC United is unknown, likely to collapse entirely after Oct. 19. The BC Conservatives represent an ongoing, long-term trend that is sticking around even decades afterwards. Fascism does not arrive already sporting khaki shirts and jackboots, but the current material conditions certainly are not hindering its growth. If anything, it is being encouraged.
