How the new Whig Oligarchy brought us the politics of Brexit
Stop me if this sounds familiar. A bien pensant elite has over the course of decades slowly cemented its grip on power. Members of said elite attend the same schools and universities, intermarry, and provide each other with jobs. Talented outsiders can break into this golden circle which assimilates them gracefully, but this is relatively rare and takes a generation to cement itself. However, this system is to be shaken by two vast crises that occur in a few years of each other sparking debates about the nature of the nation. Yet even the insurgent forces unleashed by these earthquakes draw leaders from the established elite. Am I talking about today or the latter days of the Whig oligarchy?
The peril of studying history is of course believing your areas of interest provide unique insight into current events. Nonetheless, I am convinced there are some uncanny resemblances between the politics of today and those of the latter half of 18th century.
By the mid-18th century the Whig oligarchy reached its apogee. The Tory party had been driven into extinction. It would only revive in the 1790s/1800s, sharing little with its predecessor but the name. Comfortable in its grip on power Whiggism became less an organised political force than a series of accepted political and cultural practices. Political leaders cultivated personal loyalties and dispensed patronage to form coteries of supporters. Dynasties formed as sons and relatives were inducted into the family business as reliable supporters.
Today the two-party system somewhat limits these excesses, but politics is personal in a way it has not been for generations. The Blair years were defined by Tony Blair’s slow estrangement from his close friend Gordon Brown. The next Labour Party leadership contest was between the Miliband brothers, socialist aristocrats thanks to their left-wing intellectual father Ralph Miliband. The Labour Party seems positively infested with the scions of previous luminaries. In addition to the Milibands prominent examples include Hilary Benn, David Prescott, and Stephen Kinnock.
Still the modern-day apogee of personal relationships as the door to political power was David Cameron’s chumocracy. Friends made at Eton and Oxford rose with him. Patronage also helped secure loyalty. A ministerial position is a valuable prize. A stint as a prominent minister not only satisfies vanity but leaves one set for life. After politics one enters the lucrative speaker’s circuit, joins corporate boards in various well-paid roles of limited utility, or even becomes editor of the Evening Standard. When Boris Johnson was poised to support Brexit Cameron appealed to personal friendship fortified with a hefty bribe of a senior seat in the cabinet. Unfortunately for Cameron, Johnson had higher ambitions. Similarly, personal assurances to Cameron by his friend Michael Gove were ultimately not enough to stop him campaigning against him in the 2016 referendum.
This reduction of national politics to the psychodramas and personal loyalties of politicians is of course deeply galling. However, there are steep personal costs to the politicians too. The inevitable breaches and betrayals of politics are brutal. Like Brexit, the French Revolution polarised political opinion along unusual lines. Charles James Fox welcomed it as did initially Pitt the Younger, the man who had usurped him as Prime Minister. Fox’s greatest friend Edmund Burke did not. Despite his reforming credentials Burke believed change must be gradual lest devastating unintended consequences occur, a founding tenet of Conservative political philosophy. Fox and Burke’s relationship ended in the Commons itself. Clashing in debate over the Revolution Fox expressed the hope there was “no loss of friendship”. Faced with the reply “I regret to say there is” he proved unable to respond overcome by tears. Their friendship never recovered. Even Fox’s attempt to visit Burke on his deathbed to reconcile failed.
Today, Brexit and the subsequent Tory leadership contest has sundered the once cozy Cameroonian Notting Hill Set. Former friends and godparents to each other’s children many allegedly no longer speak. If Fox and Burke are a guide they may never again. Brexit seems to have levelled an even higher personal cost for Boris Johnson estranging him from his family. So far his long suffering wife Marina has left him, his brother Jo has abandoned him politically, his sister Rachel ran for Change UK in the EU elections, his brother Leo seems to signal disapproval, and his father Stanley voted Remain and slyly digs at his son by joining the Extinction Rebellion. Johnson’s mother at least voted for Brexit. As politics becomes personalised political differences take cruel emotional tolls.
In the 18th century it took the quick succession of America’s gaining independence from the UK (1783) and the French Revolution (1789) to utterly disrupt the system, paving the way for something new. The 2008 Financial Crisis and the 2016 Brexit referendum may do this to the current system. But if the 18th century is any guide the elite will likely still do just fine.
Crises do offer an opportunity for populist revolts. Simmering resentments erupt against an elite that is seen as corrupt, and too inclined towards European values and tastes. The Frenchified city-dwelling aristocrat with corrupt ties to financial services conspiring to deprive the freeborn Englishman of his ancient liberties was a mainstay of 18th century popular politics. The resonances with the Europhilic London metropolitan-elite liberal plotting to subvert the “Will of the People” that haunts Brexiteers’ dreams are uncanny.
While the crises of the late 18th century did not dislodge the elite that dominated politics it did at least end the Whig oligarchy system, creating a new party arrangement. The current crises seem to have not even managed that – yet. Even then the elite still ruled as populist revolts found their leaders among them as “great Commoners”.
In the supposedly insurgent Labour Party that rails against the global financial industry and inherited privilege Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and the powerful party adviser Seumas Milne all attended private schools. Corbyn’s other great ally Dianne Abbot did not – she attended a grammar school – but made up for it by sending her son private. All, bar Seumas Milne, are of course close friends from their time relegated to the margins of the party. They may abolish private schools if they come to power but Jeremy’s son Seb will surely keep his post in McDonnell’s office.
The parallels get even more uncanny when one considers key Brexiteers. The privately educated City banker Nigel Farage certainly bears a strange resemblance to John Wilkes. A grinning demagogue famous for raking and drinking, Wilkes assailed King George III and his Prime Minister the Earl of Bute as anti-democratic tyrants. He rose quickly to fame thanks to a good eye for provocation and propaganda. In the end he joined the establishment, becoming Lord Mayor of London. Johann Zoffany painted a portrait of Wilkes and his daughter Mary that is on display in the National Portrait Gallery. He would later lose his popularity for his role in supressing the Gordon Riots.
Boris Johnson is reminiscent of the earlier figure of Pitt the Elder. This is not necessarily a compliment. As a consummate political opportunist, Pitt the Elder specialised in stoking patriotic fervour to push the government into rash actions only to critique their execution. He used this to drive out his opponents and claimed the premiership for himself. When in power he quickly enacted measures he had once lambasted, and secured his reputation by having the good fortune to be in power when the Seven Years War was won.
Whether Johnson manages to obtain this historical triumph depends entirely on the consequences of Brexit. The Seven Years War cemented Pitt the Elder’s reputation heralding Britain’s status as a major global power. Whether post-Brexit Great Britain becomes Global Britain or Little England remains to be seen, but regardless history suggests the same bien pensant elite will still be in charge.