As Boris Johnson reels from last nightās leadership vote, attention has naturally focused on his personal failings. But what if the problem runs deeper? Of the eight Conservative leaders between 1970 and 2019, six were broken on the wheel of party dissent. So why has a party once famed for its iron discipline become so difficult to govern? And why has Johnsonās political magic seemingly lost its unifying charm?
British parties are always fractious coalitions. First Past the Post requires parties to hold together an unstable alliance of forces, with divergent interests, priorities and visions. Labour has struggled throughout its history to bind together Fabians, Left-liberals, trade unionists, socialists and social democrats. The Conservative Party has been an explosive cocktail of Thatcherites, protectionists, free-marketeers, Powellites, paternalists and Christian conservatives. For a party to succeed, it needs some shared gravitational field that can contain its centrifugal impulses: a role played in Conservative history by hostility to socialism, the defence of established institutions, the rights of property and a āconservative temperamentā.
Since the end of the Cold War, it has been increasingly difficult to say what Conservatives have in common. They are no longer anchored in historic institutions, such as the Crown or the Church of England. They have lost their suspicion of change. They are no longer rooted in British business, and they can no longer mobilise against Communism at home and abroad. That leaves only the partyās notorious instinct for power. As a unifying force, that instinct should not be underrated: it makes the Conservatives much more likely than Labour to mobilise behind a perceived āwinnerā. But it also leaves any leader dangerously vulnerable if they begin to slide in the polls.
The partyās loss of cohesion was not resolved by the purge of 2019, or even the massive majority won at the general election. Johnsonās majority, like the Leave vote on which it was founded, was built on highly discordant materials: elements of which wanted to shrink the state, end austerity, cut taxes and boost spending. Those elements were held together by two magnetic impulses that were peculiar to that election: hostility to Jeremy Corbyn; and the desire to “Get Brexit Done”. With Corbyn gone and Britain outside the EU, holding that coalition together would prove a task of particular delicacy.
Covid temporarily suspended that difficulty, because it suspended the usual rules of politics. Spending could rise, taxes fall and divisive questions be held over to another day ā all in the name of a national emergency that discouraged political dissent. But as the Covid crisis recedes, the choices confronting the government are becoming more pressing; and for divided parties, choice is dangerous.
Johnson was in some respects well-placed to lead a party that was pulling in opposing directions. Throughout his career he has poured himself into a variety of ideological moulds, projecting different political personas to different sections of his party. As Mayor of London, he championed immigration, celebrated multiculturalism and called Donald Trump “unfit to hold the office of President”. As a Brexit campaigner, he mocked the “part-Kenyan” Obama and promised to “take back control” of Britainās borders. As prime minister, he suspended Parliament and threatened to ignore legislation. That has allowed him to straddle his partyās divisions, to a degree unmatched by almost any other politician.
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