How the Tory right could become Labour’s best friend


by Hopi Sen    
2:30 pm - February 5th 2011

Tweet       Share on Tumblr

As a result of the coalition putting existing political loyalties to great tests, there’s a coming battle for dominance in British politics.

In that fight, The right of the Conservative party are the hidden and undeclared allies of Ed Miliband.

They don’t know it and would shudder at the thought, but in every action they take there is a brutal internal logic which strains the coalition to its limit, and in doing so, allows Ed Miliband to position himself in precisely the territory that would make most sense for the coalition.

Let me start by saying this: I’ve never been dismissive about the coalition. I’m less so now, as it seems to enter unpopularity. Merley by existing, and enjoying an existence of apparent stability, it has thrown a generation of British politics into a quiet tumult. Progressives find themselves alongside conservative radicals, tradional moralisers with metropolitan liberals, libertarians of various hues alongside the religious and the one nation conservatives.

Of course, all parties are coalitions in one sense or another, but this coalition is wide and broad and straining in many different directions. Not all of these are party political. Some Conservatives feel more fondness for Danny Alexander than Ken Clarke, and Lib Dems might warm to David Willietts as the fear for David Laws.

So yes, the Coalition upturns British politics, and yes, it contains many tensions. But there is no reason, within it’s own turns, why it might not work. Why those tensions might not be quietly resolved, and a common plan for governance agreed upon, one that edures past first signinginto a fusion not of manifesto, but of broad values. That is the great danger for Labour.

Of course, the obvious source for tension lie with the Liberal Democrats. I’ve recently been reading about the history of Coalition politics, and without doubt, it makes for grim reading for Liberals. Rivalries become fissures, fissures fractures, fractures, factions and factions in the end, become whole new parties.

Yet if the Coalition were under pressure only from one wing, their leaders could cope. Liberals become unhappy on regional policy? A tack can be made by the centre.

David Cameron, George Osborne and Michael Gove know the need to accommodate their partners. Mostly, they are finding that the distances between them are not so great. They are economically liberal, socially liberal technocrats, with little interest in redistribution and a distaste for the state. Like Austen Chamberlain and Baldwin with Lloyd George, they find they can rub along reasonably well, cheered on by Times Leader writers and BBC news editors, who feel perfectly at home with this politics of national sentiment.

On top of that, the leadership of the Conservative party know that their problem for a generation has been an inability to get out of the box of core Conservative support. They know they haven’t spoken to enough of the great middle of British politics. White collar workers, non unionised metropolitans and rural non-comforists of the Celtic fringes make up key parts of that middle, and by embracing the Liberal Democrat agenda, the Conservatives can broaden their own support.

Without the Tory right, the inexorable logic of the Coalition is a move to the middle of politics, of somehow being above party, of high words about the national interest and common sacrifices.

I believe in the end the Liberal leadership would be gobbled up by the Conservatives, but in the act of consumption, the Conservatives too would be transformed. In fusing, they would change.

Thank god then, for the Tory right.

Every time I hear the drumbeat call for the rapid cutting of tax for the wealthy, the anger at Cameronion social liberalism, the hunger to rip up regulations and tear down the protecive shelters that the state offers to the weakest.

Whenever I hear a Tory demanding the preservation of the Constitution, or a stiffer line on Europe, I get the reassuring feeling that. like Austen Chamberlain, one day Mr Cameron will find golgotha at a Private Members club in Whitehall. The visions of a re-alignment of Britshi poliics will prove phantasms and he will be forced to retreat into the comforting embrace of the Conservatism that is never quite enough to reach the whole of the British people. In threatening that final reckoning, the Tory right will prevent Mr Cameron from doing what he knows he should.

If that is the case, the Coalition will in the end find it’s values and strands are incompatible. The hope of subtle consensus will be ended by the rancour of the neglected Tory backbenches, who will demand that once used, the Liberals be not subsumed to advantage, but tossed away with force.

If Labour is wise, a willingness to be open to the casualties of this coming tension, from disillussioned social liberals departing liberal orthodoxy, to public servics reformers who shrink at slashing at the state, could yeat play great dividends.

Yes, the old mould of politics has been broken. The stability the coalition now presents is an illusion. For the first time in generations political strands of thought, belief and loyalty are shifting. If we want to be, Labour is in a prime position to collect the vast majority of them, but to do so, requires from Labour the kind of willingness to compromise that the Conservative right will, in the end, not tolerate.

   Tweet   Share on Tumblr   submit to reddit  


About the author
This is a guest post. Hopi Sen blogs here.
· Other posts by


Story Filed Under: Blog ,Labour party ,Westminster


Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.


Reader comments


1. Tim Fenton

Wasn’t it Austen Chamberlain of whom Winshton said “He alwaysh played the game, and he alwaysh losht”?

2. Galen10

“If Labour is wise, a willingness to be open to the casualties of this coming tension, from disillussioned social liberals departing liberal orthodoxy, to public servics reformers who shrink at slashing at the state, could yeat play great dividends.”

That’s an awfully big if! I do agree however that the Coalition presents opportunities as well as challenges. It is very hard for the LD’s to back-track now, and this may prove to be their downfall. Despite the fact that many withing their ranks are deeply unhappy, they are no more likely to prevail than those on the left were against New Labour.

Whether Labour is fit to take advantage of a future LD split (or indeed attract those like myself who are effectively “rootless”) is a different matter.

3. Chaise Guevara

Shh! Don’t tell them!

4. Bob B

For heaven’s sake, I was under an impression that Labour are now operating in post-Blair mode. The proclaimed Tory-right mostly espouse disgusting opinions so any alliance with them would soon rebound to discredit Labour.

5. sally

I am afraid that this is nonsense. The tory Right are all mouth and trousers. The Mastrict treaty proved that back in the 90’s. Day after day they went on my TV to whine and moan and moan and whine and then when it came to the vote they voted it down.. But all little Johnny Major had to do was call a no confidence vote, and all the little whiners obediently voted for the bill. Bill Cash my arse!

Nobody whines, and whinges like the tory Right wing , but they are gutless, and will always put party above principle.

6. paul ilc

Will the general election votes for the two main parties continue to shrink? And will coalition become the norm?

7. Bob B

@6: “Will the general election votes for the two main parties continue to shrink? And will coalition become the norm?”

A good question but that’s not all. As things stand, a chunk of the electorate has become thoroughly disillusioned with politicians and politics:

More than half of MPs have been found guilty of over-claiming on their parliamentary expenses
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/7161198/More-than-half-of-MPs-guilty-of-over-claiming-expenses.html

Estate agents and politicians among least trusted professions
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5085369/Estate-agents-and-politicians-among-least-trusted-professions.html

One consequence is that turnouts at the last three general elections have been low by historic standards:
http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

8. asquith

Be careful what you wish for. A Conservative majority, perhaps with a leader other than Camoron who repudiates the coalition, in 2015 will have you fucking yearning for the days of Nick Clegg. That’s all I’m saying.

9. Cherub

Are you suggesting the coalition policies aren’t really right wing? Not even Thatcher did the kind of damage to the NHS that Lansley has and there’s worse to come.

On that basis I have to disagree with the OP. It may be true that the Tory right are unhappy but the real rift is in the Lib Dems. They know that they will be annihilated in the next general election if they carry on as they are.

10. Charlieman

Nope. Large L Liberals are usually small l liberals.

Economic right Liberals look at the Conservative Party with suspicion; they cannot comprehend how anyone could join a party with connections to the Monday Club; they are not entirely convinced by Cameron’s transformation from Flashman to liberal softy.

Social Liberals never liked the Labour Party; New Labour was a centralist, managerialist enterprise; Milband Labour doesn’t have a philosophy; social Liberals who leave the party are more likely to join the Greens or non-aligned campaigns.

AV is unlikely to change much. It’s a tweak to the electoral process, not one that changes political dynamics.

Hopi, if you spend any time in large L Liberal company, ask people whether they think that liberalism has infiltrated political consciousness. Most would say that liberalism is back in government. When was the last time? Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary? For a brief time, Robin Cook?

Small l liberals do not hold the large L LibDem party to be sacred. Perhaps one of the results of coalition will be that the Conservative and Labour parties become more liberal and that the LibDems dissolve. That might be a great result for liberalism. But there will still be a liberal party prodding the other two.

11. Flowerpower

I get the reassuring feeling that. like Austen Chamberlain, one day Mr Cameron will find golgotha at a Private Members club in Whitehall.

The Carlton Club wasn’t in Whitehall in October 1922. It was in Pall Mall.

A small thing in itself. But if you’re going to decorate your argument with historical allusions, it’s best to be possess what you profess.

12. Dev

Re: asquith –

“Be careful what you wish for. A Conservative majority, perhaps with a leader other than Camoron who repudiates the coalition, in 2015 will have you fucking yearning for the days of Nick Clegg. That’s all I’m saying.”

I would love it if at the next election Clegg used ths exact form of words on his literature and leaflets!

13. dave bones

Yes, the old mould of politics has been broken.

not quite yet but nice try

14. James

Fantastic article, Hopi. A lot of the LibCon stuff lately has been pretty shoddy (that awful article on the City of London, the Daily Mailesque tripe about homosexual MPs having it coming…), but this is sterling material; and the kind of piece I come here fore. Please keep up this writing, you’ve bring a great deal of clarity to what can be pretty muddied and confusing situations.

15. Ed

@9

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The majority of Lib Dems I speak to have already decided that the party will be Annihilated at the next election. They’re essentially on a kamikaze run, happy to be annihilated if it means getting through various key bits of Liberal policy.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    How the Tory right could become Labour's best friend http://bit.ly/esfdFX

  2. Jan Bennett

    RT @libcon: How the Tory right could become Labour's best friend http://bit.ly/esfdFX





Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.