09.10.1997

Fringe politics

There’s no place for the Tories in Tony Blair’s ‘New Britain’. But he aims to sideline the working class too

With the Labour Party riding high at 59% and the Tories languishing at just 23% in the latest opinion poll (The Guardian/ICM October 7), the immediate future does not look bright for the Conservative Party.

Despite William Hague’s gallant attempt to revive his followers’ flagging spirits at Blackpool earlier this week, he showed no sign of countering the possibility that his party faces marginalisation for a considerable period as a result of Blair’s proposals for constitutional reform. There was no evidence that he has an inkling of a strategy against this threat.

The same poll showed that only 10% of those asked thought that the Tories could make any sort of comeback in time for the next general election. While of course the fortunes of bourgeois political parties can change remarkably rapidly (compare today’s New Labour to the party led by Michael Foot or Neil Kinnock), in this case the instincts of those questioned could well be only too accurate.

The introduction of proportional representation at the next general election would in all probability leave the Tories without allies, even if they were able to raise their vote to a respectable level. PR would almost inevitably produce coalition government, but at present the Tories appear to be alone on the fringe, opposed to the mainstream consensus converging around the need to modernise the British constitutional monarchy. Added to that, the Conservative Party is the most likely candidate for the splits that a proportional voting system tends to engender.

Despite Hague’s appeal to the aged ranks to drop the worst excesses of their reactionary chauvinism in favour of “patriotism without bigotry”, two of the most senior members of his shadow cabinet expressed views directly contradicting this theme. Norman Tebbit contended in a speech at a fringe meeting that “multi-culturalism is a divisive force” and repeated his belief that children from minority cultures should be taught that “British history is their history”. Meanwhile Alan Clark was making his own contribution to harmony and understanding. “The only way to deal with the IRA is to kill 600 people in one night,” he snapped - or joked. Either way, hardly a useful suggestion at a time when the British state is entering formal talks with republicans with a view to helping them find an ‘honourable’ way to end their resistance to British rule. Hague was forced to disown both these comments.

However, such differences represent mere symptoms of a more deep-rooted malaise. At the centre of all the divisions lies the most important issue facing British capital at the end of the 20th century - the need for ever closer European integration. Much more than in the Labour Party, the national chauvinism of the most reactionary wing of the Tories will prevent them ever accepting this necessity. It is this that will be the most likely spark for a future split - for which the introduction of PR will provide the springboard.

The Conservative Party has been British capital’s principal and most reliable representative in the 20th century. Under Thatcher it secured a firmer basis for its future expansion through the crushing of the organised working class, epitomised by the defeat of the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-85.

Nevertheless, there is another task every bit as important, which the Tories seem incapable of carrying through - and that is the establishment of a new social consensus embracing the great majority of the population. That must include the working class. Blair is standing on the shoulders of Thatcher’s victory and attempting to take her success on to the next stage - reconsolidating the British state.

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the bourgeoisie could begin to view New Labour as its most favoured and trustworthy political vehicle in the 21st century.

Alan Fox