Colin Tudge predicts big political re-alliances over the next few years – with a growing army of Greens
All political parties are coalitions. As someone once remarked re the Church of England, no two people sharing a pew think exactly the same, and this is abundantly true too of politicians sharing a bench. But some parties are more divided than others, and the bigger they are, the more schismatic they are likely to be. Both Labour and Conservative are highly heterogeneous, and in addition to the inevitable, interpersonal differences, the mainstream of both parties divides fairly neatly into two quite distinct camps.
The divide in Labour is between those who, roughly, follow in the wake of the late 19th-early 20th century founders of the Labour Party, best represented by Keir Hardie; and the Labour Left, which veers towards Marx. The Keir Hardie school, now represented by Keir Starmer, is basically left-of-centre social democrat. It favours a mixed economy, and in general tends to see the economy as a pragmatic device that should help us to achieve the social ends of kindness and justice (or that at least is the ideal).
The quasi-Marxist school, though itself inevitably heterogeneous, also aspires to achieve equality and justice but sees the economy as the means to achieve this, and in particular has faith in Marx’s own idea that the workers should own the means of production. These days, more practically, the “Marxist” ambition tends to translate into state ownership of – well: as much as possible. Jeremy Corbyn has retained his seat — as an independent—and for the time being at least is the neo-Marxists’ leading representative.
The Tories are split between the right-of-centre social democrats and the out-and-out Right. The former, as social democrats, again favour the mixed economy but with emphasis on private enterprise and private ownership. At their best they too seek to improve the wellbeing of all society but believe in the style of Plato and Cicero that this can best be achieved by entrusting our affairs to an elite of individuals who, supposedly, are intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us. In a democracy those supposedly superior individuals are elected – a meritocracy indeed. In a feudal society they just are. The last Conservative governments who fitted the right-of-centre social democratic bill were those of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, who ruled off-and-on from the 1950s to the early 1970s, when Labour resumed control under Harold Wilson, and then James Callaghan.
But Margaret Thatcher defeated Callaghan in 1980 and also brought Macmillan-Heath-style Toryism to an abrupt end when she introduced her party, and hence Britain, to the joys of neoliberalism — and then via Ronald Reagan to the US and thence to the whole world. To the neoliberals (as to Marx, though of course on a quite different track) the economy is supreme; and the economy to the neolibs means the global market. All producers and traders of all kinds, from one-acre farmers in Africa to Tesco and Tata, are invited or obliged to compete with all other producers and traders for profit and market share. The extreme neoliberals want the market to be as “free” as possible: “deregulated”; not hampered by what they see as pettifogging laws, but left to make its own rules; and to be as ruthless as the various competitors can get away with. Social justice, insofar as they have such a concept, is supposedly ensured by the “invisible hand”, which Adam Smith envisaged as the sum of all the internal restraints within the market, which keep it on track. But Smith, who was a moralist first and an economist second, was writing in the 18th century, when markets were very different. In the modern age of transnational corporates it should be obvious to everyone that the invisible hand cannot alone ensure that the market works in the world’s best interests. But this isn’t obvious to the dedicated neolibs, for whom the “free” market is God. It isn’t clear that Smith would have approved the modern interpretation of his ideas, any more than Marx approved, even in his own lifetime, some at least of the manifestations of “Marxism”.
The two Conservative schools seem quite distinct. No-one opposed Margaret Thatcher in her early days more vigorously than Macmillan and Heath.
So how will things pan out in the next few years, now that Keir Starmer’s Labour has such a huge majority? Logically, and I think sensibly, both Labour and Tory should recognize the deep rift within each of their parties and build accordingly. Labour should split between the left-of-centre social democrats led at present by Starmer, and the out-and-out Left, led for the time being by Corbyn. The Tories should recognize the division within their own ranks and find someone to lead a right-of-centre social democratic party in the style of Macmillan, and leave the out-and-out neoliberal Right to join Nigel Farage’s Reform. The Tories, long term, should be grateful to Farage. By siphoning off the neoliberal, post-Thatcherite right-wingers, he leaves a Tory rump free to re-create the right-of-centre social-democratic tradition. The governance of Britain would then be divided between the two versions of social democracy, roughly as it was in the days of Macmillan v Harold Wilson, or of Heath v Wilson. But we will also have two more, extreme parties agitating on the wings, now represented by Farage and Corbyn, and some would say that in a democracy that is no bad thing.
However: None of the aforementioned parties takes the natural world seriously enough, or anything like, and this is a huge and potentially fatal oversight at all levels: practical; social; spiritual. So for my part I will continue to support the Greens. They are still very much a minority. But Caroline Lucas stood heroically as the sole Green MP in a largely hostile or at least indifferent House of Commons from 2010 to 2024 and although she has now left parliament she laid a good foundation and after yesterday’s General Election the Greens now have four MPs – a 400 percent mark-up. They won’t be able to go on growing at such a pace but if they did they would be the majority party within a couple of decades.
In truth, nothing less than a Renaissance can save the world now. But a Green majority or at least a decisive Green presence would at least be a step in the right direction.
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