Editorial
Hague's failed fudge
splits feuding Tories
IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, this year's Conservative Party Conference was a moderate success
for William Hague. The party emerged at the end of the week more buoyant and seemingly
united than it started.
For a brief moment it seemed as if he had done it. His sticking plaster seemed pretty
waterproof even on the central question of Europe. But almost as soon as the party had
left Blackpool the rows were erupting again with all their old ferocity.
Now it is impossible to tell how many senior Tories will have resigned over Europe by
the time anyone reads this. Two have already gone from the Shadow Cabinet this week while
Heseltine, Clarke and Hurd have been vocal in their dissatisfaction.
At Conference itself Hague had stayed on the high wire - backing off from the
pre-existing formula of remaining outside EMU for at least two parliamentary terms and
replacing it with the vaguer "not for the foreseeable future".
While this shift might have been seen as a sop to the Europhiles he also criticised the
fact that Britain ever went into the Exchange Rate Mechanism - a definite nod in the other
direction.
With the overwhelming majority of the Parliamentary Party - what's left of it -
determined to chart an anti-EMU course on principle the truce could not hold long. This
divide is not on some secondary issue that only comes up in obscure and internal party
debates but on one of the most decisive issues of British politics this century. The
wounds are bleeding copiously - the long term survival of the patient is in doubt.
In some ways it seemed as if the Tories could only go up after the rout of the general
election had left both morale and organisation in tatters.
However Hague was not proving to be a very effective leader of the opposition against a
New Labour Government which time and again stole traditional Tory clothes and policies.
He seemed to be trying in learning lessons from Blair's success in image making. His
conference address suggested repackaging the party as more caring than their opponents.
Conservatives, he argued, had shown " their understanding and tolerance of people
making their own decisions about how to lead their lives" and later that compassion
was "not a bolt on extra to Conservatism, it's at its very core".
He was clearly upstaged by Portillo's speech early in the week, which was similarly
along libertarian lines. Upstaged not only because Portillo is more charismatic but
because he, not weighed down with leadership responsibilities, was critical not only of
the party's record or its leadership but its membership.
He got away with it by starting out by saying that as the man who had lost Enfield
Southgate on a 17 per cent swing he had no right to lecture anyone.
On top of this new direction for the party signalled by Portillo and Hague there were
also plans to revamp Party organisation. Discussions had already started around the
leadership election which followed the ritual slaughter on May 1.
Dragging the Tory Party into the 20th Century is no easy task as the organisational
forms - or rather lack of them - are not some oversight.
It is not because Maggie was preoccupied with more interesting issues like the poll tax
that she forgot to apply her clean broom to the Party structures.
Rather the absence of a national structure at all, the arcane method of leadership
election and the overall lack of democracy and accountability are products of the origins
and the class base of the Tory Party.
While Hague's plans, aided by his spin doctor friends, seem relatively competent they
will no more be able to unite the party than his futile attempts on Europe.
In the end however it is on the question of European integration and monetary union
that not only William Hague but the Tory Party with him will fall and fall.
This isn't necessarily to say that future electoral defeats will all be as decisive as
last year's. It is to point out that a Conservative Party arguing bitterly with its allies
at the CBI is unlikely to win an election, however many enemies its opponents have made by
that time.
Click here to get
in touch with Socialist Outlook
Home PageSite IndexWhat we fight for Back
Issues The Fourth International About this Site. Links