Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is on the verge of a cataclysmic split

You would never know it from all the confected animosity and overblown conflagration that enlivens the media coverage, but the two candidates for Tory leader agree on almost everything. In fact, considering the differences in their personal backstories and family traditions, they are quite extraordinarily similar in their social attitudes, moral values and political beliefs – and that, we should note, is to the enormous credit of this country.

If a white British girl growing up in the north of England and educated at a state comprehensive ends up committed to the same principles and societal goals as the son of Asian immigrants who was educated at an elite public school, we must assume that Britain has an ability to accommodate and unify different kinds of people in a quite exceptional way. The disagreement between them that has swept the board in the public eye is not trivial – although it is probably being hyped beyond its actual worth – but it is essentially strategic.

Is it most important to tackle rising inflation, which would mean not lowering taxes immediately, or is the imminent threat of recession a greater danger, which makes cutting taxes to encourage growth the first priority? This is a question of economic prognosis not of political ideology. It is a dispute about how to achieve the ultimate goal that both teams endorse without reservation: a country in which people can achieve self-determination as free individuals, in which families can be secure and achieve prosperity in return for doing the right thing, and in which entrepreneurs and innovators can flourish.

Listening to the declarations of both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, even in their most combative moments, you can hear the unanimity of those messages over and over again. So I repeat: there is no dispute here about what sort of society – or what sort of economy – these candidates and their supporters advocate. Everybody on both sides believes in free markets and, at least in principle, they all have quite a clear understanding of the relationship between economic freedom and moral responsibility.

It is true that, in the immediate post-pandemic period, there was a revival of collectivist sentiment similar to the post-war mood that produced the welfare state and (not so sentimentally revered) the continuation of rationing for a decade. That state of mind could be prolonged by the coming cost of living crisis – which may or may not live up to expectations.

That is probably the tactical assumption of those now supporting the Brownite model of raising taxes and then handing out benefits to those the state decides are worthy recipients. This is wealth redistribution, which would normally be unacceptable to both camps but which can be justified in an emergency. (The obvious criticism being that it prolongs inequality by creating poverty traps and permanent benefit dependency.)

Alternatively, we can loosen the grip of state regulation and maximise the possibility of creating real wealth. This is the debate within the Conservative Party, which has crystallised in a peculiarly useful way during this leadership campaign. It is not about where we end up but how we get there.

It is not remotely like – in either substance or intensity – the tumultuous disagreement within the Labour Party, whose factions remain hopelessly divided about what their party is for and what kind of social order it should be promoting. In fact, disagreement is far too mild a word. This is a schism: a theological chasm that is irreconcilable in practical terms because it is not a practical issue but a doctrinal one.

There is no objective test that can settle the question of whether the solutions offered by the Left of the party are superior to those presented by its centre-Right. This controversy cannot be settled by empirical evidence – because there is no agreement about what it is that is to be achieved. The Left-wing case values class loyalty over individual aspiration, equality of outcome over meritocracy, and command economy measures over free markets.

Its representatives within the trade union movement and the Corbynite entryists who, for a moment at least, vanquished Blair’s New Labour, are making hay at the moment. Using the cost of living crisis and the shocking decline of public services as levers, they are reinventing nationalisation as a post-modern solution to the problems of a generation too young to remember what nationalised industries were actually like. Let those of us who are old enough repeat the lesson. If you are a rail passenger infuriated by the frequent disruption to your service – as likely as not caused by the strike action of rail staff earning more than you do – try to imagine what a national rail system at the mercy of national trade unions was like.

Back in the day, it was not necessary for Aslef or the RMT to call for separate strike ballots in a myriad of different franchised companies. There was only one employer – the much-loathed British Rail – and a single national ballot could shut down the entire country’s rail network and the many sectors of the economy that depended on it. (This was the historical reason why so much freight transport switched to using road delivery by dedicated “logistics” lorries.)

Nationalised industries are a gift to power-hungry trade union bosses. But not, ironically, to their ordinary members: the break up of the old state monopoly actually improved the wages of train drivers, who could now choose between competitive offers from different franchises. Local commuter rail lines often suffered acute shortages of drivers as they lost out to the highly paid Intercity service.

But power is what this is all about. For the Labour Left, which believes it has Sir Keir Starmer on the run, this is to the death. The old objectives have never died: class solidarity, which means union power, and state ownership of the means of production, which means the consumer gets what the state decides he deserves. This is a real cataclysmic party split, and it is just waiting for Sir Keir to come home from holiday.

The Tory debate is essentially about strategy. The opposition faces a schism that no objective test can heal

Labour remains divided about what the party is for and what kind of social order it should promote