I thought getting rid of Boris Johnson would give the UK a chance to pause, rethink and restart with a fresh leadership that might have been watching and learning from the mistakes of the last administration. Instead, the writing on the wall tells a tale of more intra-Conservative tribal warfare, more uncertainty, more broken promises and a fairy-tale attitude that, if they all promise tax cuts, the so-called hard-line right wing of the Tory party membership is likely to cheer them on to be the next prime minister. Unless the Conservative Party finds a figure from nearer the political center to help heal the country and its people after Johnson’s bruising Brexiteer bunch, one is minded to see this candidature circus as just a simple extension of the previous government. It is unlikely to be capable of saving the country from further trauma and uncertainties, the likes of which have been eroding trust in politics nationally and the stature of the UK internationally. The remaining candidates hopeful of replacing Johnson on Sept. 5 are clearly all seeking to appeal to the electorate of under 200,000 Conservative Party members, who will decide the outcome but, to a large extent, do not represent the country as a whole. This membership is older, whiter, richer and more strongly in favor of Brexit than the UK as a whole. The candidates — who will be whittled down to the final two by votes among Tory MPs before the recess of parliament begins on July 21 — seem to be sleepwalking to reproduce the same contentious policies that have plagued the country with uncertainty since the divisive 2016 vote to leave the EU, which has created a schism within society. None of them are likely to wake up and renounce the controversial policies of the Johnson government, such as the proposed legislation to rip up parts of the Brexit deal with the EU or the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda. More urgently, they need to promise to find answers to the questions of how to build more hospitals, recruit more police officers and fight the cost-of-living crisis, in addition to combating inflation, investing in education and reducing labor shortages. I could go on. The more than 45 million potential voters at the next general election do not necessarily share much with the stance of the Conservative Party membership and many are fed up with a government and party that have been economical with the truth, thin on integrity and short on honesty and responsibility. This is amid the challenges of rebooting the economy, defeating double-digit inflation and, above all, making Britain a magnet for investment again to limit the damage of the post-Brexit, post-pandemic and post-Ukraine war forecast that our gross domestic product will take a hit that might take decades to recover from. The candidates for PM seem to be sleepwalking to reproduce the same contentious policies that have plagued the country since 2016. Mohamed Chebaro One can only watch in disbelief the tax-cutting promises made by ambitious ex-Johnson Cabinet ministers and their fairy-tale views about how to mend the party, the PM’s office and, much later, the country. Many claim that party leadership contests are often far removed from the usual realities. The problem is that this current group of Tories have struggled with the simple realities of their nation state for years. The reality is that the UK is, regardless of what they want it to be, part of Europe and regardless of how many trade deals they sign with Australia, Albania or Chile, half of our trading will continue to be done with our EU neighbors. Hopefully, the meat we import will remain free from hormones and not washed in chlorine. Despite the fact that these candidates reflect the best of diverse Britain, ethnically and religiously, they all share the view of a closed, populist-leaning country that is at war with its internationalist trademark and seems, above all, skeptical of its neighbors. This succession fight is threatening to turn into farce, as all the candidates vying to be our next PM share the same policies on Europe, taxation, the culture wars and how the privatization of public services and reducing the burden of the state is the best way forward. It seems that chaos is what will result from such a process, unless the nation gets lucky and a miracle candidate emerges — someone who is capable of leading the nation out of its identity crisis, uniting and rallying a confused, divided people and ushering the country out of the expected economic crisis that will be a key result of Brexit, as many respected institutes and economic thinkers have long warned. For the sake of the country, one hopes that the current candidates will show something that differentiates them from their former leader. They need to present a vision or offer some solace for an exhausted nation that once believed its leadership knew best, even if all indicators pointed in the opposite direction. Maybe this time they will find a leader capable of ruling with less fiction and more substance, less spin and more realistic policies and less boosterism and more truth. They must learn not to overpromise and underdeliver. And they do not need to lie to themselves and the people in the hope that the next big headline will wash away the previous lie. If those in the current leadership race cannot do that, then the Conservative Party might be better off keeping Johnson. He is at least a tried pair of hands, an entertainment specialist and a policy lightweight, but above all he is someone that appeals to voters and is an election-winner, even if there is nothing left for Britain to win from its so-called minister of Brexit opportunities or its levelling up ministry. • Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist, media consultant and trainer with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News" point of view