Conservative renewal: in search of common ground 

“There is no better time to take stock – and act – than in the aftermath of a crisis.” 

Mike Bloomberg 

There can be few political bodies round the world right now more in need of taking stock, and then acting, after a major  crisis,  than the once great Conservative Party, now dashed to pieces by the enormous swing to Labour.

But actions should be in the right order. Voices can be heard on all sides calling for immediate and total reorganisation of the Conservative party machine, both central and local. There are demands for a new leader to somehow be found, as in a descent from Mount Sinai, who will miraculously unite all the quarrelling factions and turn the Tories back into a political force.

Surely, reorganising a party before it has found direction is to put the cart before the horse. What exactly is there at this moment to reorganise? If the whole axis of political purpose has shifted, with both the former main UK parties, founded in a different age, losing their bearings and finding their principles and values harder and harder to relate to today’s challenges, then a redefinition of purpose and direction as a basis for policy and practical appeal must come first. This is especially true if the smaller challenging parties, the Great Simplifiers, are to be kept at bay. 

So: where are the ideas, insights  and interpretations that can give restored coherence to something called a Conservative Party? How can it suddenly alight on unity, if the unifying or re-unifying threads have not been found? 

The air is full of stern warnings about Left and Right factions not being allowed to split the Conservatives. But who is to define and monitor these ideologies in the age of hyper-connectivity and populist impulses?  Who decides which kind  of populism, whether seemingly of Left or Right — now vastly amplified but fragmented and often with conflicting demands from a myriad of highly vocal interests — is nearer to “the people”?

Perhaps in today’s intellectual, indeed philosophical, confusion, there is no clear and lasting people’s voice that can possibly  be distilled. Perhaps, as  a starting point,  all we can do is agree with President Abraham Lincoln’s remark — of course in a different age — that “the dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present”. Certainly, there is little consensus now about anything at any level of governance. Even the basic  constitutional tenets – that citizens should agree to accept majority decisions and that the law of Parliament is supreme — are under heavy challenge (and of course exemplified overseas, in Trump’s attitude to the 2020 US election outcome).   

Aside from routine Opposition duties,  there are three main areas in which the threads of future progress can be usefully picked up and developed, and where the brains and experience of the Tories in the Lords, among others in the great swirl of opinion and debate, can make a real contribution which will actually have  impact. 

Here are three front-runners:

Building responsible capitalism , which really does work for almost everyone, in contrast to what we have now in a largely  post-socialist age. A capital-owning and property-owning democracy has been a Conservative battle cry since Churchill’s time. But action has not followed words. Property ownership and affordable homes  are at the heart of the matter. But retail share ownership, employee share schemes, and general financial literacy, along with  the dignity and security they bring, are all part of the social — and a fairer political — scene as well.  For all its troubles the USA is far better entrenched on this front, than the UK and offers many lessons to be learnt. 

This is a key part of the escape route from the doom loop and from fed socialist economics and politics all over the world, which the British establishment has been slow to grasp. (The outgoing Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is said to understand this). It is also part of the essential new alliance between an over-extended but weak (and near bankrupt) state and a private enterprise sector backed by colossal institutional and corporate  funds, which not all the Left has yet accepted.

Britain must reconstruct a coherent world policy . The time has come (in fact is long past) to give shape and purpose to our international role. The Tory ranks in the Lords are well equipped  to do that. Many people today feel acutely this lack of purpose and narrative in Britain’s world direction. The Commonwealth connection is a story which can engender greater socio-political stability at home and vastly greater engagement and influence in the affairs of rising Asia and Africa, to all of which the Commonwealth is a very obvious gateway. 

So there is a new story both to be told, which it at present is not being told, and a new agenda of action to be pursued, which is not being pursued. The Commonwealth story should not  be kept in a separate box, but seen as a central component of British foreign policy, as we find our way forward in the hazardous conditions of a transformed and unfamiliar 21 st century, which the powers of Asia will increasingly dominate. 

Like a huge iceberg, the bulk of intra-Commonwealth networking today lies beneath the radar of conventional diplomacy. Experts and opinion-formers accustomed to look only at what goes on between governments miss completely the new reality. The world is moving outside the familiar interstate system; power and influence now flow between networks, professions, businesses and political causes, regardless of national boundaries on an unprecedented scale. 

This is a new kind of globalisation, and it contains both dangers, unless wisely handled, and paradoxes, unless wisely understood. This is again an ideal role for Conservatives in the Lords, whether through Select Committees or ad hoc groups, or both. An organisation like the Commonwealth, rooted in voluntary association but committed to common values, is ideally suited to ensure that this new globalisation is a tool for good.

Looking at the scene from the selfish British viewpoint, it is clear that the modern Commonwealth provides Britain both with the ideal transmission mechanism for its considerable soft power influence. It also offers an excellent opportunity to make the contribution to world peace and prosperity to which the better side of the British character has always aspired.    

It would be heartening to see the British establishment, having wandered for a biblical forty years or so in search of a European destiny, return successfully to the larger Commonwealth fold, re-forging old links and seeking new ties in a transformed international milieu. Do the UK’s mainstream thinkers, intellectuals and strategists dare to face the immensity of this change?

Conservatives in the House of Commons may be stymied in this area, but the Conservative  peers should be encouraged to make use of their remaining weight and voice, via all the open avenues available in this area. 

The whole vast area of energy transition , as part of fighting climate change and revolutionising our entire industrial and environmental milieu, needs gripping. This has to be advanced  in a highly positive, non-doctrinaire way. Labour simply believes this can be done primarily by the State, and by somehow raising the public funds to push forward an all-electrified green energy society. Have they grasped  that the old methods — more  taxation and more borrowing — are now shut off, and that there can only  be progress via a new kind of alliance between public purposes and private enterprise, whether in this area or many others. 

This is a trend evident all round the world and in a sense it reverses the popular ideology of the last one hundred years.  Instead of the “inevitable” big state, lying ahead, with its Marxist-flavoured pre-destiny, there now emerges the inevitable common ground in which the State is compelled to play a more limited part for investment and progress to flourish. To use Star Wars jargon, “the force”, instead of being constantly against the citizenry, is  increasingly with it. The State may face all the demands on it for more spending, and  all the infrastructure plans, to please the   public. But it is the private sector which has the money.  

Past experiments  to accommodate this trend, such as PFI (the Private Finance Initiative) have to be re-visited and  systems upgraded to make it work better. Central Government machinery for managing national resources and the strategic budget process should also be reformed. Our prosperity and stability in an intensely unstable world depend upon it.

These are three major areas of long, hard policy development  which should be seized on and given overdue momentum by a stream of new thinking from Opposition benches. Where the new Government is moving the right way it should be supported. Where it is leaving a dangerous  gap, this should be filled. And it is around these  areas that there  will begin to take shape  a policy narrative which unites the battered Conservatives with other non-socialists and non-Marxists alike. 

The new causes and imperatives of a totally transformed world have to be understood, united around and addressed  by creative political and financial minds.   No  amount of premature re-organisation of the Conservative Party can substitute for that.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.