Seóirse Duffy is a Conservative writer and ex-staffer who now splits his time between Westminster and Essex working with various authorities.
Whenever the future success of the Conservative Party is called into question – and as we particularly heard before the recent inevitable election result – its proponents are quick to remind us that it is the most successful democratic organisations in the Western World.
Just as fall follows decline, when the Party’s fortunes have waned it reinvents itself and steps back into the spotlight with renewed energy. David Cameron followed the revolving door leadership wilderness after John Major. Margaret Thatcher followed the downfall of Edward Heath, and Harold Macmillan followed the dysfunction of Anthony Eden’s jaunt into Suez.
The greatest strength of the Conservative Party is its capacity to innovate within itself. Unlike the Labour Party; which began life as a coalition of various radical, liberal, socialist, and social democratic factions all vying for ultimate authority, the Conservative Party has flourished under a breadth of belief that shares a common purpose. Policy areas may cause disagreement between members, but a Conservative inherently knows that they are a Conservative, regardless of whether or not they explicitly support the leadership of the Party or particular elements of it.
However it feels like recently, the Party has begun to lose that sense of innovation. Despite the coining of “Cameroon” under the leadership of David Cameron, the Party has since 1975 been living in the shadow of Thatcher, with few limited ideological revolutions at the top of the Party since then.
Successive leaders and candidates have fallen over themselves to profess their Thatcherite credentials. Conservative values have repeatedly been professed by members and MPs alike to include a belief in lower taxation, a smaller state, charity, free market ideals, and so on. The Iron Lady’s iron grip on the Conservative Party has extended well beyond the grave: a spectre is haunting Conservitivism, and so on.
However, consider the passage of time for a moment. Margaret Thatcher, as she was then, was elected leader of the Conservative Party 49 years ago. She recognised that after the stagnation of the early 70s, and with the world moving into a new age, it was vital that both Britain – and the policy of the Conservative Party – must change if the Party and nation were to survive. She innovated and ushered forward a consensus of monetarist ideas that have been so effective that even Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders have had to concede to them.
Her reforms have had lasting structural, economic, social, and political consequences for Britain. But if this consensus was so watertight, why were the markets and indeed the public so hostile to the economic reforms of Liz Truss? Why did the National Insurance cuts not appeal to the public going into the election? How did we get to our worst election result since the inception of the Party?
49 years ago Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party. 49 years before that, the Prime Minister of the day was Stanley Baldwin, who had become PM two years prior. Baldwin’s policies were to expand the welfare state and move the Conservative movement away from personal charity, introduce additional tax on high earners, and increase capital gains taxes.
Can you imagine a Conservative leader proposing this today? When Thatcher won the leadership contest, there was no question of sticking to an ideology almost five decades old. Times were changing, accepted orthodoxies were dead, and the Party had to innovate once again if it were to wrestle the country back from left-wing Governments.
Yet, almost 5 decades after Thatcherism began, no meaningful attempts to consider the future of Conservative ideology have been made and the consensus is set to continue. It is difficult to believe that the dial has not moved an inch since 1975; that somehow the prevailing Party ideology is a perfect fit for the world of tomorrow that presents challenges such as grappling with AI, new sources of human migration, changing perceptions about the role of the state and its interference in our lives.
The leadership candidates all believe in state welfare, and increased state spending at some level, as they’ve all backed restoring the winter fuel allowance at whatever cost. But can you see them extending that principle to increasing out-of-work benefits, increasing state spending on arts and culture, or nationalising key industries?
Over the coming weeks, the candidates will try to establish themselves as the viable politician to recover the Party’s fortunes. Someone has to win, ultimately, but winning this contest does not equal winning the next election by default. If the Party is to do that, it must be bold about what Britain needs – not necessarily what 2024’s electorate wanted.
Just as Thatcher did in 1975, candidates need to be radical and prepared to stand so far from the rest ideologically that their name sticks to those beliefs like glue. We’ve got four or five years to build our vision of Britain in the 2030s: so let us use this time constructively to decide whether the medication for Britain’s ills is fit for purpose – not whether it tastes good or not.
