23 August 2018
Tapping Up a Revolution
Changing Course – a key Tory skill.
By J R Thomas
Before the summer break we were musing on how and if the Conservative party might survive the turmoil which now besets it. But last week occurred an event that might put that in context. The death was announced of Sir Peter Tapsell, a Tory knight of the shires, grandee, Father of the House of Commons – and Conservative rebel. He was MP for the Lincolnshire seat of Horncastle and retired from the Commons in 2015 at the age of 86, energetic and argumentative to the end.
Grandee and rebel – an unlikely combination of attributes, you might scoff, and indeed it cannot be denied that Sir Peter was very good at holding several contradictory opinions all at the same time – and arguing forcefully for all his divergent views in the same conversation. He was from a modest family whose history was in colonial government – which led Tapsell to take an especial interest in the politics and problems of the Commonwealth countries in Africa; and also to be strongly anti-racialist. He was a friend of many African leaders, being especially close to Nelson Mandela – though never backward in criticising the sad excesses of some regimes. He was a strong supporter of Harold Wilson’s difficult negotiations with Ian Smith over Smith’s intention to establish Rhodesian independence with a white minority government. Although he was not alone in this stance in the Conservative Party, he was the only one who made a public proclamation of his views by voting with Labour in parliamentary divisions on the subject. He maintained his career as a stockbroker through much of his political career, feeling that having an external life was of vital importance to understanding the lives of people outside the Whitehall hothouse. It made him rich but at the same time he was keenly aware of the lives of those less fortunate than himself and was very much one of that almost forgotten breed, the “One Nation Tory”.
He was against reform of the law on homosexuality, and also against Britain’s joining the EU (vigorously campaigning against the terms of the Maastricht Treaty), which makes him sound indeed a true old Tory squire, but he remained throughout his life a Keynesian in economics and against monetarism. He said that he disagreed with every single thing that Enoch Powell stood for – but when Powell lost his Commons seat, urged the Conservative Association of his neighbouring Lincolnshire safe Tory seat to adopt Powell as their candidate (they didn’t and Enoch went to Northern Ireland). He opposed Mrs Thatcher on most things and ran Michael Heseltine’s unsuccessful campaign to replace her in 1990. Thatcher, though, admired him (and Tapsell, her) and several times suggested he might become a minister in the Foreign Office – he always refused.
And there in that microcosm of one man is the secret of the success of Conservatism to survive. Tapsell became an MP under Harold Macmillan in 1959, and ended serving under David Cameron fifty six years later. That, you might argue, is not much of a journey, from Etonian actor manager to Etonian actor manager, but through all the swerves and reversals of Conservativism in between, Sir Peter held, Vicar of Bray like, to the support of his constituents and the respect of the House of Commons. It is true that he was usually in rebellion against something, but he was always able to understand the mood of the moment and the direction of the world. Both the leaders of his party and his voters on the remote Lincolnshire Wolds knew him to be a man of principle with his country’s best interests always at heart. What he wanted was what was best for the people, both in Britain and in Africa; and if that meant his positions were not always entirely congruent, then so be it.
That is also how the Conservative Party has always survived – it may have occasional moments of strong principle – whether that be monetarism or the urge to play a leading role in the EU, and the party certainly has orientations. It is generally against intervention (but not always) and cautious on reform (but not always) and prefers lower levels of taxation (but not always). But it is usually prepared to consider the world and to adjust its principles to the mood. Occasionally a leader arises – Peel, Disraeli, Thatcher – who is prepared to seize the debate and give it a shake and move things off into a different direction. But more often strong Tory leaders will prefer to understand what might meet the popular will and to find a vote winning way of doing it. Often that comes off – Salisbury in the dying days of the nineteenth century and MacMillan dismantling the Empire come to mind. Sometimes it doesn’t – Chamberlain and ultimately Cameron both found they had gone too far out on a wing pleasing the public to be able to return and pilot the aeroplane.
Some leaders have got it wrong of course, observers wondering more than once if the party would survive. Peel got it right but failed to carry his party with him, keeping it out of office for twenty years. Andrew Bonar Law in 1912 was on the point of getting it very wrong – effectively calling for an armed rebellion and mutiny in the army over Ulster’s stance against Irish independence in the troubled years before the First World War. The outbreak of the war in Europe saved him. And possibly the Conservatives; it is hard to see how the party would have survived inciting civil war.
But generally the Conservative party has a remarkable ability to throw its leaders over the side along with the blame for catastrophes; as the splashes of the departing Anthony Eden, Neville Chamberlain, and Ted Heath confirm. (Mrs May is presumably taking swimming lessons this summer.)
And although the party currently may look to observers like a confused argumentative drunk who has spent the whole weekend stumbling from bar to bar, the public, if you believe the opinion polls (and this column, as regular readers will know, usually does) seems very forgiving, with the share of voters who say they would vote Conservative in an election now, at around 38%. Level pegging with Labour indeed, though that is hardly comforting. And for all the talk of schism and Christmas card lists being heavily pruned for ever, the party is not quite as split as one might think. There are a few wild card die-in-a-ditch Remainers, but actually very few who will stay in the ditch when tanks finally rumble up to them. If Mrs M does really mess up and we end with a Brexit that keeps all the EU liabilities and gives us none of the advantages of a clean exit, then there will be a significant number of dissenters on the other side of the ditch, it is true. But that looks increasingly unlikely. No deal may turn out indeed to be the best deal, probably secretly welcomed by most backbenchers, and whilst if that happens there will be lots of finger pointing, Mr Corbyn will either be continuing to frighten or will have been replaced by somebody more electable (even more electable, if you prefer). Either of those possibilities will keep the party united.
So to those of you who enjoyed our summer break test “Will the Conservative Party Survive?”, and spent the fortnight on the beach with fried toes trying to work out the answer, here it is:
YES.
