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Should Andrew Scheer step down as Conservative leader? Probably, but it’s beside the point. Scheer is more a symptom of the Conservatives’ malaise than a cause.

The party was unable to attract the support of more than 35 per cent of voters in this election, but that has been more or less the case for most of the last 30 years, ever since the breakup of the Mulroney coalition. In three elections (1993-2000) when the right-of-centre vote was split between the Reform and Progressive Conservative parties it averaged about 37 per cent of the vote. In five elections as the Conservative party under Stephen Harper’s leadership it averaged 35 per cent.

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Elsewhere I’ve argued that the conservative cause might have been better served if it had remained divided, but at the very least the party might have taken the opportunity of its 2015 defeat to have a little rethink. Instead, it elected Scheer as its leader, who pursued largely the same approach — even the same policies — as his predecessor. But that’s the party’s fault as much as his. Scheer is the kind of leader parties elect when they no longer believe in much and do not care to defend what they do.