10.10.2001

Consigned to the shadows

Iain Duncan Smith has declared war on the racist right of the Conservative Party. But it was Blair and New Labour who were the winners in Blackpool, writes Michael Malkin

It is proverbially an ill wind that blows nobody any good. For the Tories, though they can never admit it, the events of September 11 have come as something of a relief.

The Conservative Party?s catastrophic second consecutive landslide defeat in the June general election and its subsequent protracted, divisive and increasingly acrimonious leadership contest created gaping wounds that would by now have been festering for all to see. No theatrical show of unity in the Winter Gardens could have hidden the fact that here was a party split from top to bottom on the issue of Britain?s relations with Europe; a party struggling apparently in vain to create a new identity for itself, and a new sense of purpose.

Thanks to Osama bin Laden, all these problems can - for the moment - be set aside. The conventions of party politics have been temporarily suspended. National unity is the watchword and the largely unknown Iain Duncan Smith has been forced to tail behind Tony Blair?s shadow in what should have been his first outing in the limelight.

His task is formidable; his ultimate goal of transforming the Tories into a credible opposition capable of appearing electable by 2005 seems unachievable. A poll commissioned by The Daily Telegraph shows that a large majority of the public still believe the Conservative Party to be ?out of touch, old, divided, weak and intolerant? (October 8). Smith Square would not, in private, demur from such an assessment. Big capital and business generally have seemingly deserted the party they once regarded as their natural home: only 20 private firms and trade associations could be bothered to pay for stands at Blackpool. Labour got more than 10 times as much interest at Brighton.

Nobody in the shadow cabinet or central office seriously believes in the possibility of victory next time, but in a situation where all political and economic bets are off, time and events have given the Conservatives a new perspective and even a glimmer of hope for their party and the class interests they represent - in so far as those class interests are not already effectively represented by New Labour, which is a question for another time.

As we look back on the Blackpool conference and the predictable round of interviews and shadow ministerial leaks that preceded it in the press and broadcasting media, the party?s immediate objectives, in no particular order of priority, were clear: exploit the compelling exigencies of ?unity? in the party and the country to kill the whole European question as if it did not even exist; put public services at the forefront of the agenda, and in the process formulate an economic and financial policy that, in Blair-speak, is ostensibly directed towards serving the interests of the ?many? rather than the ?few?; begin the process of supposed ideological reconstruction by finally breaking the perceived link with Thatcher and ?Thatcherism?; lance the putrescent boil of the party?s endemic racist and xenophobic tendency by purging its most extreme adherents in order to place the Tories more firmly within the now almost universally accepted anti-racist consensus; and, last but not least, to play the anti-terrorist card domestically by using the current emergency to consolidate and deepen the party?s historical links with Ulster unionism, finally casting aside any pretence of a bipartisan, cross-bench approach to the peace process.

In the space of a few days, Duncan Smith has established himself not just as the party?s leader but, in keeping with his much vaunted (if objectively rather ordinary) military background, as its commanding officer. On Monday October 8, wearing the distinctive blue and claret-striped tie of the Guards Division and looking appropriately sombre, he addressed conference for just a few minutes before returning to London in order to sit on the front bench for the emergency debate in which ?president? Blair announced the news about ?our? latest strike against Afghanistan. Duncan Smith?s brief appearance on the Blackpool podium was heralded rather ominously by repeated reverential references to ?our leader?. Was it Blackpool or Berchtesgaden?

Before decamping in the private jet of Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft, Duncan Smith made a point of saying that, ?The business of democracy must go on. That is why our conference, a conference the IRA bombers couldn?t halt, will go on? (The Daily Telegraph October 8) - a neat way of alerting his audience to one of conference?s repeated themes: that the fight against terrorism at home must be conducted with the same vigour as that in which it is being prosecuted abroad.

The curtailment of conference and the way in which nearly all its business was inevitably filtered through the prism of the war situation, was, of course, a nightmare for central office. Virtually all Tory MPs deserted Blackpool for Blair?s emergency session in Westminster. Including the shadow cabinet. The whole thing had something ghostly about it. The platform slogan of ?Security abroad, security at home?, left no room for dissident voices, let alone on such ?minor? questions as the Tories? policy on the EU and the euro. Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram?s patrician tour d?horizon had not a single word to say about the issue that four weeks ago would have dominated everyone?s thinking. Instead we heard stern admonitions about the ?weasel words? and ?siren voices? of those appeasers who were trying to deflect the country from its wholehearted support for war.

If this extraordinary conference had a theme - apart, that is, from its relentless nauseating jingoism - it could be summed up in party chairman (and future leadership aspirant) David Davis?s assertion that it is time to stop ?apologising for the past and look to the future? (ibid).

The ?past? had already been dealt with by ?the leader? himself in a pre-conference interview with The Daily Telegraph. Sensitive to the fact that he must somehow square the circle and maintain his rightwing credentials while offering Tory ?modernisers? an olive branch, Duncan Smith gently told us that the era of Thatcher - the fons et origo of his own political ideals - was finally over. Thatcherism had been ?valuable?, but the Conservatives must ?adapt and change? in order to regain power (The Daily Telegraph October 6).

The job of really sticking the knife into the Thatcherite legacy was consigned to one of the party?s vice-chairmen, Gary Streeter, who, taking a leaf out of the New Labour script, likens the Tories? ditching of Thatcherism to Blair?s abandonment of clause four. The chance presented to the party of making an ostensibly clean break with the past - despite its evident contradictions in terms of Duncan Smith?s own political history and affiliations - is pure and transparent opportunism born of desperation. As Streeter himself put it succinctly, ?If we are to show people we are changing and have changed, picking a fight with a reactionary group within the party, as Mr Blair did, is not necessarily a bad thing? (ibid).

In its broad outlines, the ?change? that Duncan Smith says he wants to implement looks suspiciously like the ?modernise or die? agenda on which Portillo based his failed bid for the leadership. Portillo was self-evidently correct: in order to make itself electable once again, the Conservative Party has no choice but to reach out to the millions of disaffected voters who deserted the party for Blair in 1997 and kept that allegiance in June of this year.

One of Duncan Smith?s immediate priorities has been to deal with those who, even by the standards of his own hard-line, rightwing instincts, are beyond the pale in terms of their unacceptably forthright approach to such questions as race and immigration. Having been personally embarrassed on this front during the leadership contest by the Griffin fiasco - Edgar Griffin, father of the BNP leader Nick Griffin, was not only removed from his position in the campaign to elect Duncan Smith, but abruptly expelled from the party when it became clear he was a BNP supporter himself - the new leader has acted swiftly to impose a policy of ?zero tolerance?. There will be ?no truck with racists in the party?.

Hence the news that three Conservative MPs have been abruptly coerced into resigning their membership of the far-right Monday Club, a ginger group that, among other things, still argues for the voluntary repatriation of immigrants. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke), a veteran rightwinger and ultra-Unionist, together with Angela Watkinson (Upminster) and Andrew Rosindell (Romford), two of the new intake of Tory members, have been singled out for condemnation. Unless the Monday Club is prepared to change its policies, it may be compelled by central office to sever its links with the party, and membership of the club may be deemed incompatible with membership of the Tory Party itself. Clause 80 of the Hague constitution will be used to purge any member, as in the case of Griffin.

Turning to the Tories? repeated emphasis on public services during the conference, we can readily appreciate that this is the Blair government?s Achilles heel. Firm pledges have been made and it is no longer credible to blame the ?last government? for the failure to meet targets in areas like health and education.

The extent of the Tories? rethinking on this issue can best be gauged by the fact that they have seemingly abandoned the cornerstone of fiscal policy that has characterised the party for a generation. Tax cuts are out and caring is in. At the forefront of the party?s new public services offensive we find the unlikely figure of the now ?ex-Thatcherite?, ultra-rightwing, but grotesquely reincarnated shadow chancellor, Michael Howard, wringing his sweaty palms as he explains that the Tories really do care about such matters. No tax cuts under the next Tory government? ?It is possible,? he says. ?I would like to see tax cuts, but we are not going to put tax cuts ahead of the need to give the people of this country the healthcare, education and other public services to which they are entitled and are certainly not getting now.?

One of the unexpected luxuries objectively afforded to the Tories in the present situation is that nobody, but nobody, is paying the slightest attention to the detail of their pledges on public services or anything else. At a time when millions of pounds are being blown away every day to pay for ?our? armed forces? valiant efforts to defend ?civilisation?, and when most of us are focused on the progress of the war, Blackpool is a supreme irrelevance.

The culmination of the conference, in the form of ?the leader?s? address to the nation summed it up perfectly. The rhetoric of war solidarity, of closing ranks and standing shoulder to shoulder - all the predictable jingoistic guff - dominated his speech. When it came to matters nearer home, a ?coalition of churches and charities?, together with the intervention of capital, was what Duncan Smith had to offer in the way of solving the crisis in public services. However, the few sentences devoted to the economy, with their pious nod in the direction of enterprise and small business, came straight out of the lexicon of vintage Thatcherism - for all his distancing of the current leadership from her social policies.

But there was one interesting note. For the first time that I can remember, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party was invited to address a Tory conference. Was it a coincidence that only a couple of days before his speech to the Tory faithful Trimble had set in motion the withdrawal of UUP ministers from the Northern Ireland executive, thus triggering a fresh crisis in the peace process?                        

Following Trimble?s routine rehearsal of Orange whinging on decommissioning, which earned him rapturous applause, shadow Northern Ireland secretary Quentin Davies tackled the obvious gaping hole in New Labour?s anti-terrorism policy: do at home what you are doing abroad. In the process, he signalled a definitive end to bipartisanship by setting out specific preconditions for the restoring of cooperation with the government.

On a smaller scale perhaps, the Tories also attempted to regain ground on Labour by using the foot and mouth fiasco as a means of mobilising the ?countryside? (in its broadest sense). This was an impassioned debate - perhaps the sharpest in the whole conference.

It is over such issues that the Tories still entertain hopes of a comeback. Devoid of electoral hope, unless the war produces some kind of cataclysmic effect on the world economy, or causes some other devastating crisis for Blair, Duncan Smith?s Conservative Party may be tempted by some non-constitutional adventure, taking advantage of a Unionist or petty bourgeois rebellion in a desperate attempt to destabilise the Blair project.