Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World's Most Successful Political Party

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The conference willmirrorthe flagship Conservative party conference withkeynote speeches and panel discussions, and will giveOne NationMPs the chance to discuss what should bein thenext Torymanifesto – which they are keen toinfluence. “It's clear that One Nationpolicies are bothpolitically popular and in the national interest. Making that case loud and clear is in the interest of the Conservative party as a whole," said Boston and Skegness MPMatt Warman, who is a member of the group. Elsewhere in the town, John Payne, a retired insurer, said he would be voting tactically in the seat to remove “the worst government in my lifetime”. Will Tanner and Rupert Yorke are deputies for Booth-Smith, with Tanner on the policy side and Yorke on political duties. Tanner is a former thinktanker who helped found the centre-right operation Onward, which specialises in thinking and research about the “red wall”. Yorke was brought with Sunak from his days in the Treasury and at the time handled relations with MPs. The thinker Evans, Stephen. (2009). "The not so odd couple: Margaret Thatcher and one nation Conservatism". Contemporary British History. 23 (1): 101–121. doi: 10.1080/13619460801990120. S2CID 143943408.

The problem emerging in affluent, liberal Tory seats comes with a parallel debate over tactics raging among Conservative MPs on the One Nation wing. Some want to take a “more muscular” stance with the right of the party. Others want to maintain a softer approach, cajoling Sunak and his team behind the scenes. They point out that while the blue wall may be wobbling, their wing of the party is better represented in the cabinet now than it has been for years.

Tory Nation

He draws comparisons to the Republicans in the US, who, he argues, have moved towards a more “red meat populist, protectionist party”. “As I say, I don’t think it has happened necessarily yet,” he continues. Gauke insists there is a responsibility on the One Nation Group to push for the party to remain a broad church. In any eventuality, there has got to be a One Nation group that holds the party leadership to account. It's got to be a strong force, potentially against a very right-wing Tory party under Suella," another ex-Cabinet minister who sits in the group told PoliticsHome.

In the early 1900s, the Conservative and Unionist party’s mounting panic about defeat by the Liberals led it into a familiar place: the gutter, from where it repeatedly warned of the danger posed by people entering the UK from abroad. “The whole scum of Europe may come to this country,” said one particularly charming pamphlet, “by merely concocting stories about being political or religious ‘refugees’, however improbable their stories.”

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Theirsocially liberal, environment-consciousandpro-Europepolitics had beenTory orthodoxy sinceformer prime ministerDavid Cameron became party leadernearly 20 years ago.But Brexit, particularlyBoris Johnson's unyielding approach to negotiations,demoralised the Europhile One Nationgroup, and divided itsMPs over Johnson's unorthodox decision toprorogue parliament in pursuit of a hardline divorce from the EU. The move, later deemed unlawful, united a number of outraged One Nation Tories withfurious opposition parties whoaccused Johnson of seeking to avoid scrutiny of his Brexit deal. This period of Tory civil warleft the group"broken", admitted aformer Cabinet minister. Green said a significant number of the MPs contributing to the group were from the new intake of 2019 and were keen to contribute ideas on “levelling up” the divide between north and south. “This is exactly what their voters, first-time Conservatives, want to see.” The ERG, certainly for a period of time, felt like a party within a party. They appeared to have from the outside a whipping structure and were highly organised and everything else. We would say that we are not a party within a party, but we absolutely want there to be a space for like-minded Conservatives to meet and to discuss and to potentially discuss approaches to government business, issues of the day,” says Morgan. In one respect Johnson decidedly set the tone for a contemporary Tory Party that has been plagued by sexual and financial scandal. Sexual impropriety among politicians is nothing new or necessarily important. The pious William Gladstone supposedly said that he had known eleven prime ministers, seven of whom he knew to have been adulterers, by which he didn’t mean that only the other four were fit for office. And at the time of the Profumo affair in 1963, Evelyn Waugh wrote to a friend deriding the factitious indignation: “To my knowledge in my life time three Prime Ministers have been adulterers and almost every cabinet has had an addict of almost every sexual vice.”

Europe, fatal topic of Mrs Thatcher’s last term,” wrote Watkins thirty-two years ago, and Europe haunts the Tories still. This melancholy tale is told in The Worm in the Apple: A History of the Conservative Party and Europe from Churchill to Cameron by Christopher Tugendhat, who belongs to an endangered species, the liberal Europhile Tory. A journalist turned MP, he took the path to Brussels and the European Commission, and today sits in the House of Lords. He’s now eighty-six, and his kind of enthusiasm for “the European idea” was found among Tories who had served in the war or grown up in its shadow far more frequently than among their successors. A formal dining club could no longer cut it. “There was a feeling of it’s not enough to sit around and have companionable meals,” says a member. “There was a need to be more muscular in asserting ourselves.” I'm a one-nation Tory. There is a duty on the part of the rich to the poor and to the needy, but you are not going to help people express that duty and satisfy it if you punish them fiscally so viciously that they leave this city and this country. I want London to be a competitive, dynamic place to come to work. [35] Middle England, with all the social rituals, institutions and traditions that hold it together, has lasted for a long time. And Chris Horrie and David Matthews, two left-leaning journalists - Chris is from Manchester and David's parents are from Guyana - are fascinated by it. Bochel, Hugh (2010). "One Nation Conservatism and social policy, 1951–64" (PDF). Journal of Poverty and Social Justice. 18 (2): 123–134. doi: 10.1332/175982710X513795.There is a tussle going to define Boris. We are reconciled to Brexit because of the democratic mandate from the election. But there is still a fight to be had about what sort of party we are – over agriculture and trade, over the economy and coronavirus support. Is this an attempt to bring out the liberal, one nation Boris? Yes, it is.” By the end of the 19th century, the Conservatives had moved away from their one-nation ideology and were increasingly supportive of unrestricted capitalism and free enterprise. [23] During the interwar period between 1919 and 1939, public fear of Bolshevism restored the Conservative Party to one-nationism. It defined itself as the party of national unity and began to support moderate reform. As the effects of the Great Depression were felt in Britain, the party was drawn to even greater levels of state intervention. [24] Conservative prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin pursued an interventionist, one-nation approach which won support because of its wide electoral appeal. [20] Throughout the post-war consensus of the 1950s and 1960s, the Conservative Party continued to be dominated by one-nation conservatives whose ideas were inspired by Disraeli. [25] The philosophy was updated and developed by the new conservatism movement led by Rab Butler. [24] New conservatism attempted to distinguish itself from the socialism of Anthony Crosland by concentrating welfare on those in need and encouraging people to help themselves, rather than foster dependency on the state. [26] Liam Booth-Smith started as part of Boris Johnson’s team in No 10, having served as a former policy adviser during Johnson’s Foreign Office days. He was sent to Sunak’s Treasury as part of a newly formed “joint economic unit” within Downing Street, set up by Dominic Cummings so No 10 could keep a close eye on the chancellor. But Booth-Smith prospered under Sunak and moved with him into No 10 to become his chief of staff, reflecting the prime minister’s tendency to promote loyalists from within. He is regarded as a powerful force, with a number of allies within the team, and recently told any aides to resign if they do not think the Conservatives can win the next election. The election guru