V, your post reminds me that Canada went through the exact same process a couple of decades ago - the party on the right became unpopular, then couldn't get elected, then splintered, then the two parties couldn't get elected, then the breakaway party did get elected and absorbed the old-guard party, pulling the entire right even farther to the right, then got elected again. (Then got voted out as of the latest election.)
Granted, that "even farther to the right" took them just a little bit to the right of the Democrats in the USA, but that's Canada for you - a Canadian conservative is a European centrist.
Political parties shift and form and re-form all the time.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Granted, that "even farther to the right" took them just a little bit to the right of the Democrats in the USA, but that's Canada for you - a Canadian conservative is a European centrist.
Political parties shift and form and re-form all the time.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012