WAS IT really such a gamble, when John Major resigned as Tory leader, up' in a leadership election?
We may have to wait for some memoirs to confirm the real story, but on the evidence so far, it appears that the entire episode was stitched up well in advance, in a deal between Major and Heseltine.
Hezza, recognising that he could only win the leadership himself at the risk of triggering a throughgoing split in the party, threw the weight of his Europhile camp behind Major, in exchange for a promise of real power in the party and in government.
The deal isolated the Eurosceptic right wing around John Redwood, leaving him just 89 votes, and giving Major a 2-1 victory.
And the same deal has now installed Heseltine as John Major's Minder, the key driving force of the government, with his own 'granny flat' giving privileged and constant access to Major in 10 Downing Street.
While important sections of the Tory establishment, not least some national newspaper owners and editors are nervous over Major's succession of electoral disasters, the leadership challenge also involved some key political issues. At the centre of the upheaval is the deep antiEuropean chauvinism at the roots of the Tory Party itself.
It was clear from the outset that the dividing line would not be domestic or social policy, where the Tories are in general united both on principles and to a large extent on tactics, but on Europe.
Under pressure from the Euro-sceptic rebels on the back benches and the hardliners in his own cabinet, Major had allowed government policy on Europe to slide dangerously away from the wishes of British capital.
The Tories are the party of the ruling class, but there is a certain level of political autonomy which leaves room for a conflict of interest.
The policies in John Redwood's campaign platform, which could have opened the door for the even more rabid nationalism of Portillo in the event of a second round, of making further progress: would have pushed this split they have even discussed even wider. postponing next year's Inter Most of the CBI and key Governmental Conference in industrial leaders, along with the hopes that a later date the banks and finance houses, would see Labour in office in lean towards the idea of a common European currency Major's platform, while and further consolidating the carefully avoiding an overt European Union as their best commitment to a single curhope of battling through the rency, firmly rejected the intensifying competition and Euro-sceptic line. That is one division of the world into war- reason why among those most ring trade blocs. assiduously canvassing in his The humiliating trade con- support was that doyen of cessions wrung out of the Europhiles, Sir Edward Japanese car industry last Heath. month by US negotiators un- But the other reason why derlines how tough this com- Major was able to cement this petition is becoming: British block between the (laughably capital knows it cannot with- named) 'left' of his party, the stand such pressure without Europhiles and the centre, the collective strength of the was because on almost every EU. other political question the Of course the complexity Tories are basically in agreeor achieving a single currency has been recognised by other Of course the rhetoric apEuropean governments, pears rather different - just as which is why the deadlines for John Major's early use of 'one nation' rhetoric appeared to The humiliating offer a contrast in policy from Thatcher's language of overt trade concessions class war. But the change of wrung out of the style cannot conceal the continuity of policies: Major's Japanese car government, working in the industry last month same framework of marketiby US negotiators sation, has been every bit as right wing and reactionary as underlines how Thatcher. tough competition It is John Major's government which has stepped up is becoming:
the privatisation programme, British capital brought in the racist Asylum knows it cannot Act, pushed through the draconian Criminal Justice Act, withstand such scrapped unemployment and pressure without sickness benefits (replacing them with brutal new measthe collective ures, the Job Seekers Allowstrength of the EU. ance and Incapacity Benefit, designed to cut benefits to 500,000 claimants), brought it have been repeatedly post- in the market reforms in the poned. NHS and imposed meansThe Euro-sceptic rejection tested charges on community of any notion of a single cur- care for the elderly. rency, or even the commit- In fact the terms of the ment to a referendum which leadership debate were a little might scupper a hard-won confused: it was the 'right agreement would senousiv wing' John Redwood who weaken Britain's links with suggested paying the nurses a the EU. decent wage, relaxing on hospiIt is not least for his dogged tal closures, and guaranteeing a hostel place for everyone sleepcommitment to proceea towards a single currency that ing rough on the streets, while Tony Blair has begun to win the 'left' wing Heseltine has supporters among Britain's in- been battling to privatise the dustrial and financial leaders. Post Office.
A Blair government is John Redwood flirted widely seen by other EU gov- rather ineffectually with ernments - including Chan- populism, calling for more cellor Kohl's Christian law and order, preservation of Democrats - as the best hope army regiments and the royal Guess who really won the leadership contest? yacht, and made great play of the need to direct new tax cuts towards the Tories' traditional middle class supporters ("families hit by the recession, small businesses and 'prudent pensioners'").
Yet it is Major's new-look government which is now promoting the 'populist' voucher scheme designed to subsidise the private nursery costs of the prosperous middle class, at the expense of the working class families who depend on council run nurseries and playgroups.
Redwood's vague plan to cut public spending across the board by 1.67 percent to finance 'one-off' £5 billion of tax cuts failed to disguise the lack of any serious policies that were not already part of the Major government's agenda.
His bizarre pledge to eliminate the sleaze factor by vetting the sexual and financial indiscretions before appointing ministers must have terrified many of his more aspiring potential supporters.
As London's Evening Standard pointed out, those think tanks bubbling away, all those fierce, pinkcheeked blue-souled young men in University campuses all over the land excitedly invoking the mantra 'Newt Gingrich'" came to nothing. "When the crunch came, he failed to convince intellectually. He had no ideas."
Cut down
So Major stays on, reinforced by Heseltine. The Euro-sceptics are marginalised. Redwood is cut down, and the disloyal Portillo is dispatched to Defence, where he will be in charge of closing some of the regiments Redwood promised to save in order to make the spending cuts Redwood promised to make.
Nothing has really changed. The policies which have lost the Tories almost all their council seats, and left them trailing at historic lows in the opinion polls, remain intact. The scandals of the privatised utilities, the sleaze, the fiasco of rail privatisation, the crisis in the housing market, the feel-bad factor, the gut reaction against market values continue undisturbed.
Skulking disgruntled on his back benches, a third of Major's MPs have shown by their votes and abstentions that they are so hostile to his leadership that they would risk a general election rather than back him.
Major has secured a stay of execution, scraping together a basis to continue to the next election: but his government's electoral decline is due not to its divisions but to mass rejection of its policies.
Short of a miraculous economic recovery, it seems that not even the political ineptitude of Tony Blair can avert a Tory defeat.
Then the crisis would reemerge centre stage. And that, of course, would reopen the floodgates for a real leadership challenge by the Tory far-right.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 87, July 15 1995, Page 4.