Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 23:05:08 +0000
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Break up of British political pattern 


When does a trend become irreversible?

Perhaps it is in the last week that the impending split in the mighty
hegemonic British conservative party, the party that has dominated British
politics for 2/3 of the years since the second world war, has become
irreversible.

It is not just personalities. It is a clash of material forces. 

The signs?

Yesterday, Heseltine, who conducted a shrewd guerilla action observing the
conventions of loyalty, against Margaret Thatcher, and toppled her, went
out of his way to emphasise that "Conservative Mainstream" was not going to
become a separate party, in the way that the Social Democratic split from
Labour in the 70's had become. 

Today, Shirley Williams, one of that 70's "gang of four", argued quietly
that when the issue is major enough, it is very hard to contain it within
one party. A process of accelerating antagonisms occur. 

The crunch is coming next week, with a vote in the House of Commons on the
Amsterdam Treaty. It is likely that the new firmer Eurosceptic Conservative
shadow cabinet will call on all Conservative MP's to vote against. The
Europhiles have come out fighting openly., and will defy this.

The fact that canny Heseltine went out of his way to raise the possibility
of a split only to refute it, is evidence that he considers it a real
possibility and he intends to conduct the campaign to avoid putting the
Europhiles in the wrong.

The Labour government is moving to massage the split. This week the
unprecedented Cabinet committee with representation from the Liberal
Democrats on it, will include for the first time on its agenda, European
monetary union. The signal is there that Labour is open to cross party
co-operation with Europhile Conservatives. Indeed it is clear that it is in
the interests of the Labour Party to foster a cross party campaign on Europe.

And a further signal. The capitalists are beginning to fight among
themselves. Which capitalist really has substance behind his (sic)
interventions. Goldsmith, the Referendum Party head who slanted the shape
of Conservative politics so much before the election, is dead. A Yorkshire
industrialist who has funded the party has just resigned because it is not
Eurosceptic enough! - a sign that he doubts his influence by staying in. 

A company like Dixon's, a high street retailer of electrical goods, has
started to protest that the Confederation of British Industry in its
pro-Europe stance, is not representative. But it is far from the largest
company in Britain, and its protestations almost serve to make the point
against itself. 

A new argument is emerging among business. Perhaps the times have changed
and it is no longer appropriate to expect that business will support one
major political party against another. This is the ideological
justification for co-operating with the Labour government on a pragmatic
basis.

Unless he has another heart attack, Heseltine will win this battle. He is
fighting because he has more to gain by fighting than by not fighting. Even
from an unfavourable starting position, the balance of economic and
political forces are favourable.

As Will Hutton, the former economics editor of the Guardian, the current
editor of the Observer, and the author of "The State We Are In" and "The
State to Come", predicted two or even three years ago, if the Conservatives
get it wrong over Europe they will be out of office for a generation. That
is coming to pass.

Meanwhile New Labour is shaping the map of consensus pluralist politics in
its own favour.
The political map of Britain will never be the same. And when you consider
the global impact of Thatcherism, that also, to some extent, means the map
of the world.

The Thatcherite project had some real success. But it is over, and its
heirs are about to be humiliated.


Chris Burford

London.




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