Cherwell has argued consistently since the racism story broke last term that the Conservative Association needs to demonstrate real change, that the real scandal has always been an anachronistic culture amongst it’s membership, and that token gestures are not enough to merit acceptance.
The national Conservative Party, clearly, thought otherwise. Apparently, Conservative Future, to which OCA is now attached, believed that the society was committed to reform. However, events since their affiliation have called into question the authenticity of the Association’s professed desire to change.
There is a widespread suspicion that OCA, having used the national Party as a crutch to regain credibility, will revert to type at the next convenient opportunity. You only have to look at the mutterings of their membership to see why.
‘What more is a society than the sum of its members?’
If OCA is a society committed to modernising, why has its leadership been so reluctant to put constitutional change to its members? One could hardly be blamed for thinking that it might be because members weren’t thought to be sympathetic to moving into the bright new ‘Conservative Future’.
If we needed any more evidence, Cherwell this week exposes that a group of Association members, including Presidential hopefuls and other society notables, have formed both online and presumably off, specifically outlining their ambitions to return OCA to its ‘former glory.’
As a society, the commitment among OCA’s membership to reform is in serious doubt. Moreover, the sanctions against them seem to have been ineffective, given their indirect presence at Fresher’s fair courtesy of ‘brother’ conservative society, the Bow group. What more is a society than the sum of its membership? All this serves to indicate is that, yet again, an outdated, outmoded society is unaccountably rumbling forward into further obsolescence as a political entity.
