At long last, Disraeli’s vision of a one-nation party can become a reality
The surprising thing about the election result is that so many were surprised. The logic for a Tory landslide was clear. Yet we – I include myself – couldn’t quite believe it. Three years of battering by a large part of the media, especially the broadcast media; plus Labour’s tempting giveaways; then the unrelenting personal attacks on Boris Johnson: surely all this would cause a knife-edge result, even another hung parliament. I never believed people were that crazy, but I did start to worry. I didn’t trust the good sense of the voters. I underestimated the stubbornness of people who were not going to be bullied or bought.
There are so many reasons for this result. Brexit, of course; Jeremy Corbyn; Mr Johnson’s boldness …
Historians and journalists find the secret machinations of politicians perpetually fascinating. If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the history of the world would have been different, said Pascal. If Mr Corbyn had been more charismatic; if Mr Johnson had made more gaffes; if Remain had found a compelling leader …
If we see it like that, we are at the mercy of chance and personality.
Men make their own history, as Marx said; but, he added, not in the circumstances they choose. As Otto von Bismarck admitted, he could not defy the currents, but only try to steer with them. So what are the currents pushing us? One is the weakening of class-based Left-wing parties globally but especially in Europe. The alliance of organised labour led by socialist intellectuals was a potent political force in the 20th century. Trade unions provided the muscle, and middle-class progressives accepted the proletariat led the way to utopia. All that has gone.
The working class has dwindled. State planning, except for those with short memories, has lost its glamour. The middle-class Left has colonised the public sector and turned to identity politics. Corbynism may be the last hurrah of a dying alliance: division over Brexit is its nemesis.
Long before Brexit, many workers had turned to nationalist politics. This happened years ago on the Continent and in a different way in Trump’s America. Jules Michelet, the 19thcentury French historian, predicted it: workers were naturally patriotic, because in the end the nation was their birthright. The upwardly mobile put their economic interests first (which for many today means the EU) but workers were the “somewhere” people. Brexit has been the catalyst of a similar shift now in Britain.
The difference in Britain is that these changes took place within peaceful mainstream politics, and within parliamentary institutions. Our political culture, embodied in the voting system (which we chose in a referendum), keeps insurgent parties out. In every large Continental country, including those with long-established democracies, traditional party systems have collapsed or are tottering.
Amazingly, here it is the Tory party – threatened with destruction by a Brexit schism – that has managed to embody the new political hybrid without becoming extremist. As in the Thirties, a popular centre Right is the strongest barrier to the far Right.
Mr Johnson has adopted a formula both new and old: one-nation Conservatism. This is supposedly the invention of Benjamin Disraeli – even if, some argue, the idea was largely developed after his death. His enemies on the Left accused him of being irresponsible and unprincipled. But it was Disraeli who memorably pointed to the scandal of “the two nations”, the rich and the poor, who lived separate existences – as to our shame they still do. It was Disraeli who insisted the Tory party was “the really democratic party of England.” And he made it happen: the old moribund Tory party became a natural party of government, and acquired a significant workingclass following, not least among those who disliked the Victorian varieties of political correctness.
Mr Johnson has a similar mission to transform the thin-lipped party of Cameron and May – and beyond the English borders. He has advantages: the own goals by the Lib Dems and Labour and the desperate stridency of an SNP whose long-term hopes are threatened by Brexit; he can borrow to invest – and not as a euphemism for all state spending. Outside the EU, he can help the regions and lower the cost of living by cutting unnecessary tariffs.
He can get Brexit done, but he must also make Brexit work. That alone can consolidate the election victory and establish a one-nation party as “the really democratic party of Britain”.
‘It is the Tory party that has managed to embody the new political hybrid without becoming extremist’