Political “clothes stealing” and a “fleet-in-being” theory of party politics

The UK Conservative Party leader, Michael Howard, complains that Tony Blair has stolen so many Conservative clothes that it has become virtually impossible for the Conservative Party to carve out a distinctive message on which to campaign in the 2005 election. 

Conservatives are trying to play up “tax bombshell” fears about New Labour’s spending plans and also to tap “little Englander” sensibilities with agitations against the EU and immigration.  But the political leverage of these issues, for now, is not large and they make a sorry compensation for the grand levers of political differentiation which sustained the Conservative Party in its long Thatcherite hegemony.  These levers comprised strong commitments to industrial competitiveness, restrained taxation, low inflation, tough policing and, most tellingly perhaps, robust atlanticism in foreign policy.  And as Michael Howard correctly complains, New Labour has stolen all of these clothes, leaving the Conservative Party with only a few threadbare rags which it can truly call its own.

The implications of this for the Conservative Party are not happy ones in the short term, but should, I think, be consoling in the longer term.  The Conservative strategy must be to remain as a “fleet-in-being” which acts as a constant threat to New Labour.  During the century of British naval hegemony, the “fleet-in-being” of first France and then Germany was never a one-to-one threat to British naval dominance, but simply by staying in port it committed Britain to deploy equal or superior forces in proximity to it, severely curtailing the freedom of deployment for the backbone of the British navy.  Similarly, Howard’s Conservatives cannot take on New Labour in open conflict and win, but they can tie it down and be ready to strike the moment it is weakened.

It is in this context that I don’t believe in a transformation of British politics whereby the Liberal Democrats emerge as the main opposition party to replace the Conservatives.  The Conservatives have strong underlying political appeal based on their commitments to the political levers alluded to above, and the tension in the Labour Party is always to move to the left with respect to these levers.  It is when a Labour leader can no longer discipline the Labour Party sufficiently for it to remain “conservative” on these levers that the Conservative fleet will emerge from Wilhelmshaven-on-Sea to assert a new era in party hegemony.  When this happens, the Liberal Democrats will be tussling with a weakened Labour Party for the left-liberal crumbs.

This analysis means of course that there is not much the Conservatives can actually do at the moment, other than keep themselves in a good condition to assert themselves when the ripe moment comes.  They need to preserve their integrity as a “natural” alternative government, and that means not polluting their brand with rash “tacks to the right” or dangerous flirtations with anti-EU nationalism.  And to this extent there is a danger for Conservatives that in this period of political wilderness the brighter centrist stars desert Party activity for more rewarding activities, leaving the Party in the hands of the Redwoods, and dare I say, the Howards, who, for all his recent transformation, still brands the Party as leaning towards its right wing.

However, the current success of the Howards and Redwoods partly reflects the poor likelihood of the Conservatives winning power in current circumstances.  The Party Membership have been self-indulgent in their choices, and with no real election winning prospects at hand, the Parliamentary Party and other shadowy string pullers have been too enervated to put up a fight. 

But I think Michael Howard is wrong in thinking that the question comes down to one of merely clothes stealing.  New Labour is riding an extremely fortunate wave whereby it is able to offer expanded social services and still keep headline taxation down.  This wave cannot continue, and Gordon Brown’s hubris is already being taunted by the latest public borrowing overshoots, suggesting some unpalatable choices will not be far away.  Similarly the Labour Party is deeply hostile to the atlanticist policy pursued by Blair, setting the scene for a potentially fatal rupture during Bush’s second term. 

New Labour have indeed stolen some Conservative Party clothes, and they feel they look very fine in them in this warm weather.  Come some winter storms though, and they may be discarding those blue raiments for something more comfortable and familiar, ready for Howard, or whoever might replace him, to pick them up, put them back on and raise that anchor in earnest.

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