In this thread:
- Why David Cameron was a secret liberal.
- Why Theresa May was an SJW.
- Why Boris Johnson is basically the same as Bernie Sanders.
- Why all of those are different things.
Since 2010, Britain has been governed by the Conservative Party (mostly with various types of support from other parties). Although they're often reduced to their positions on Europe, each of the three Prime Ministers in this time has taken a different approach to domestic politics, and I will use those approaches to illustrate different forms of opposition to Conservativism.
What is Conservativism?
Well, it means a lot of different things at different times to different people. Trying to unify those definitions is difficult. But there are two approaches we could take to understand it.
First, as in my previous thread, let's take a look at the Wikipedia definition:
Quote:
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, organic society, hierarchy, authority, and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as religion, parliamentary government, and property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity. The more traditional elements—reactionaries—oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".
This philosophy is rarely fashionable, and tends to be preferred by older and less educated voters. Sometimes that coalition is enough to win, but sometimes it isn't.
In the UK, Tony Blair swept to power in 1997 with a huge win for the Labour Party. He then won elections in 2001 and 2005 against increasingly a conservative Conservative Party. Following the 2005 election, the Conservatives chose David Cameron as their new leader.
Cameron's four predecessors had all failed to win as conservatives, so he decided to re-invent the party. Cameron called himself a "modern compassionate Conservative" and a "liberal Conservative".
What is liberalism? As per Wikipedia and my Bernie Sanders thread:
Quote:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free market, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
(There is also a Wikipedia article on liberal conservativism that people might find interesting, but I didn't think it worth quoting)
Cameron is certainly not a true liberal. When in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, Cameron opposed liberal democratic reforms, and his governments had poor records on civil rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Nonetheless, Cameron blends liberalism and conservativism. As well as dramatically shrinking the size of the state, Cameron supported social reforms like gay marriage. He was a supporter of antifascist groups and multilateralism in international affairs. Regardless of how successful or genuine you might perceive this branding to be,
Cameron styled himself as a liberal.Theresa MayCameron was succeeded by Theresa May. May was very much not a liberal. Although she was an advocate of same-sex marriage in government, she had a poor record on LGBT rights earlier in her career, and while Home Secretary was responsible for many of the most illiberal policies of the Cameron government, such as the Snooper's Charter, the "Hostile Environment" for immigrants, and the attempted ban on pornography.
All the same, May did not fancy herself as a conventional Conservative. Yes, the party was a huge part of her life, but she wouldn't win an election as a fire and brimstone Tory. William Hague was ideologically similar to May, but while leader of the party he played up his conservative credentials in order to differentiate himself from Blair. It didn't work.
So, in her first speech as Prime Minister, May didn't play as a conservative. She didn't play as a liberal. She played as
a progressive.Quote:
We believe in a union not just between the nations of the United Kingdom but between all of our citizens, every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we’re from.
That means fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average 9 years earlier than others.
If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.
If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.
If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re educated privately.
If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man. If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s not enough help to hand.
If you’re young, you’ll find it harder than ever before to own your own home.
These are not the words of someone who supports tradition and authority above all else. These are not the words of a conservative. They could easily be the words of the much-maligned Social Justice Warrior.
Now there is no contradiction between being a liberal and being a progressive. Many politicians - Hillary Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron in a good mood - do both. But May did not have Cameron's liberal obsession with shrinking the state, and indeed in some areas she would hand out new money. Her brand of conservativism was too paternalistic on areas like the internet and immigration to be considered liberal conservativism. She spoke scornfully when she spoke about internationalism. Yet she still wanted to tackle inequality, both class-based and otherwise. Her government set out to make it easier to declare your transgender status, including for non-binary people. She went further than her predecessors to recognise minor religious holidays.
Again, you could question May's real commitment to progressive ideals. But as with Cameron, they were certainly there in her rhetoric at the very least.
Now we come onto the third and current Conservative Prime Minister of the decade.
Boris JohnsonBoris Johnson views himself as a liberal. This is difficult to justify. Mr Johnson flouts established norms at every opportunity. He illegally shut down the House of Commons. He has proposed Parliamentary scrutiny of judges, an affront to basic judicial independence. He has disdain for the international order and for business and enterprise. He has booted May's gender reforms into the long grass. Moreover, he has overseen a huge increase in spending, even firing his Chancellor (for the first time in 27 years) and replacing him with a slavish drone in his thirties.
It is through this spending that Johnson seeks to differentiate himself from Thatcher and co. When accused of being far-right over the illegal shutdown of Parliament, he pointed to his spending programmes as evidence that he was actually a liberal. But big spending doesn't prove you are a liberal - it proves that you support big spending. In his defence, early in his first spell in Parliament Johnson was one of the most liberal voters in the Conservative Party. His critics point to an even earlier period where Johnson routinely made unsavoury and occasionally racist comments in newspaper and magazine columns. He famously said that his only conviction was a speeding ticket.
While Cameron's conservativism was informed by liberalism, and May's conservativism was informed by progressivism, Johnson's conservativism is informed by
social democracy - sceptical of the free market and happy to unbalance the books if it wins votes. He's also the one of the three with the least commitment to genuine conservativism, allowing him to flirt with populism and authoritarianism to a far greater degree than Cameron or May could have stomached. And while even May recognised the benefits of a close relationship with the EU, Johnson has expressed a preference for an Australian-style no-strings relationship - fine if you live on the other side of the world, but unusual if you live next door. In short, if Cameron is a liberal and May is a SJW, then Johnson is the
"dirtbag left", the Bernie Bros who want universal healthcare but think feminism is stupid and liberals are worse than Trump.
(I don't think "dirtbag left" is a good description of Sanders himself or most of his supporters for that matter, but it is a label that some of his supporters coined for themselves to show their disdain for political civility).
Flaws with this approachNone of the three politicians selected are good examples of the anti-conservative philosophies I have attributed to them. You shouldn't use David Cameron as an exemplar liberal for example. However, for illustrative purposes I think their relative approaches help bring out the difference in the philosophies.
This approach ignores much of the diversity in modern conservative thought. For example, there is no consideration of all forms of genuine social conservativism which is at best sceptical of LGBT rights, opposes women's rights, and prioritises the nation state and the nuclear family. Similarly there is no examination of fascist, populist, libertarian, or religious conservativism, which are not particularly relevant in a UK context but are in other countries.
To ConcludeIn this post I've used the last three Conservative leaders as a way of distinguishing between different facets of anti-conservativism, as well as using anti-conservative ideologies to illustrate the differences between those political leaders.
Liberalism believes in giving people freedom in order to let them improve their lives. This is illustrated by David Cameron's commitment to austerity.
Progressivism believes in addressing social inequalities. This is illustrated by Theresa May's stated commitment to addressing social inequalities.
Social democracy believes in solving problems by throwing money at them. This is illustrated by Boris Johnson's blank chequebook.
In all three cases, conservativism is by far the dominant ideology. But the shades of conservativism are markedly different (particularly in Johnson's case) and help us understand variety within modern conservativism as well as within opposition to conservativism.
Is this a joke or are you seriously asserting that the three previous conservative leaders were really liberal,including current leader Boris Johnson.
16 Mar 2020, 6:20 pm
