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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/30/the-guardian-view-on-a-conservative-crisis-one-of-the-tories-own-making
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| The Guardian view on a Conservative crisis: one of the Tories’ own making | The Guardian view on a Conservative crisis: one of the Tories’ own making |
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| The Conservatives’ factional politics are now so monumentally petty that it cannot get a party conference app to work, let alone organise Brexit or, heaven forbid, respond to a deep global emergency. The divisive contradictions at the heart of Tory politics will be laid bare in the days ahead. Conservatives are for free trade, but against the free movement of people. The party condemns populist politics unless it is fomented by, and on behalf of, the rich and powerful. The Tories are supposed to be good at capitalism, but some have spent months planning to wreck it. Another section of the party is delusional, arguing that the hardest of Brexits will allow Britain to flourish. It won’t. | The Conservatives’ factional politics are now so monumentally petty that it cannot get a party conference app to work, let alone organise Brexit or, heaven forbid, respond to a deep global emergency. The divisive contradictions at the heart of Tory politics will be laid bare in the days ahead. Conservatives are for free trade, but against the free movement of people. The party condemns populist politics unless it is fomented by, and on behalf of, the rich and powerful. The Tories are supposed to be good at capitalism, but some have spent months planning to wreck it. Another section of the party is delusional, arguing that the hardest of Brexits will allow Britain to flourish. It won’t. |
| There’s little doubt that the Brexit referendum energised the conservative base of the Tory party, but it also shattered its unity. This crisis in Conservatism can trace its roots beyond the 2016 vote, to the disruptive form of globalisation promoted by Tories and New Labour that eviscerated habits of life, work and family. This transformed British politics from a “class-based” party system – where Labour drew support from the poorly educated and the poor – to today’s elite electorates, where highly educated voters now strongly support Labour while the rich back the Conservatives. Older people have shifted to the Tories. This is countered by a deep hostility of the young to the right and Brexit. This intensifying of support in certain strata of society has been described by the economist Thomas Piketty as a process that leads to a “Brahmin left” and a “merchant right” dominating western politics. Whatever their differences, both groups remain attached to liberalism: Brahmins prize its social aspects; merchants, the economic. The question for the main political parties is how to attract the left-behind voters, taken for granted in recent years by a complacent belief that whatever inequalities existed could be managed. They were not, and politics is reaping the whirlwind. | There’s little doubt that the Brexit referendum energised the conservative base of the Tory party, but it also shattered its unity. This crisis in Conservatism can trace its roots beyond the 2016 vote, to the disruptive form of globalisation promoted by Tories and New Labour that eviscerated habits of life, work and family. This transformed British politics from a “class-based” party system – where Labour drew support from the poorly educated and the poor – to today’s elite electorates, where highly educated voters now strongly support Labour while the rich back the Conservatives. Older people have shifted to the Tories. This is countered by a deep hostility of the young to the right and Brexit. This intensifying of support in certain strata of society has been described by the economist Thomas Piketty as a process that leads to a “Brahmin left” and a “merchant right” dominating western politics. Whatever their differences, both groups remain attached to liberalism: Brahmins prize its social aspects; merchants, the economic. The question for the main political parties is how to attract the left-behind voters, taken for granted in recent years by a complacent belief that whatever inequalities existed could be managed. They were not, and politics is reaping the whirlwind. |
| In response, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party last week doubled down on redistribution and offered workers control and ownership in the businesses they work in, ironically promising to usher in the shareholding democracy that Thatcherism pledged. The Conservative party, at its highest levels, has resorted to xenophobia. This has a cold logic: the Tories want to be painted as nativists and their opponents as globalists. Professor Piketty suggests this is an old ploy: Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979, he thinks, was down to hardline anti-immigrant policies rather than her economic plans. This also explains why Theresa May shamefully refused to apologise on Sunday for her “hostile environment” immigration policies that led to the Windrush scandal. | In response, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party last week doubled down on redistribution and offered workers control and ownership in the businesses they work in, ironically promising to usher in the shareholding democracy that Thatcherism pledged. The Conservative party, at its highest levels, has resorted to xenophobia. This has a cold logic: the Tories want to be painted as nativists and their opponents as globalists. Professor Piketty suggests this is an old ploy: Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979, he thinks, was down to hardline anti-immigrant policies rather than her economic plans. This also explains why Theresa May shamefully refused to apologise on Sunday for her “hostile environment” immigration policies that led to the Windrush scandal. |
| Some within the Tory party see the crisis generated by Brexit as an opportunity, a chance to “rewrite the underlying rules” of politics. Yet why would voters trust a party whose economic policies have produced the worst decade for UK growth since the war? Or believe the Tories would hand control back to people when they spent decades claiming the government’s hands were tied and there was little ministers could do to reduce the costs of unpopular policies? These, it was claimed, were an inevitable outcome of the new harsh realities of globalisation. The only bodies scapegoated were international institutions, and rightwing Tories targeted the EU for symbolising remote, unaccountable power. The referendum was the best chance in decades to voice frustration with the status quo. Voters took it – forcing politicians who pushed for Brexit back to the drawing board. But none of them appear to have learned any lessons. | Some within the Tory party see the crisis generated by Brexit as an opportunity, a chance to “rewrite the underlying rules” of politics. Yet why would voters trust a party whose economic policies have produced the worst decade for UK growth since the war? Or believe the Tories would hand control back to people when they spent decades claiming the government’s hands were tied and there was little ministers could do to reduce the costs of unpopular policies? These, it was claimed, were an inevitable outcome of the new harsh realities of globalisation. The only bodies scapegoated were international institutions, and rightwing Tories targeted the EU for symbolising remote, unaccountable power. The referendum was the best chance in decades to voice frustration with the status quo. Voters took it – forcing politicians who pushed for Brexit back to the drawing board. But none of them appear to have learned any lessons. |
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