The next election may prove an extinction event for the Conservative party
“The thunder had long grumbled in the air; and yet when the bolt fell, most of our party appeared as much surprised as if they had had no reason to expect it.” That rueful recollection by Tory leader Lord Bolingbroke of his party’s unpreparedness for the catastrophe of the Whig coup of 1714 and the general election of 1715, which put the Tories out of office for 69 years, has an eerie resonance of the predicament of the Conservative Party today.
History does not repeat itself – the constant permutations of events and personalities over the centuries make such a pattern impossible – but it does sometimes move in ellipses. That is especially the case in situations where the institutional context has remained broadly similar, as in the instance of a British parliamentary general election, when the size of the electorate has radically increased, but otherwise the party system and rules of engagement are little changed, compared with the dramatic revolutions in constitutional arrangements in other countries over the same period.
Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke had served as the ambitious Secretary of State in the Tory administration led by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford as Lord Treasurer, in those pre-prime ministerial days. Until the advent of Boris Johnson, there was no comparable example in British political history of a party leadership snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. For the Tory victory, at the general election of 1710, was a landslide of historic proportions, following a period of Whig ascendancy.
At the 1710 election, the Tories won a majority of 350 MPs out of 558. Again, by a curious parallel, the issue had been relations with Europe: the Tories had been elected to end the Whigs’ ruinous prosecution of the War of the Spanish Succession. This they succeeded in doing, at the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, though otherwise their policies were in disarray and their parliamentary party viciously divided. Nevertheless, at the general election of 1713 (required under the Triennial Act), their majority was only marginally reduced: 358 to 200.
The core policy they needed to enact was to repeal the Act of Settlement and restore the Stuart succession, thus ending the legacy of William of Orange, embroiling Britain in European wars in the interests of foreign realms – the Netherlands in William’s case, Hanover under the Georgian epoch. But the Tory leadership lost its political will, paralysed by the in-fighting between Oxford, frequently drunk, and Bolingbroke, who quarrelled so violently in the presence of Queen Anne it contributed to her death shortly after. Oxford petulantly resigned in a rage and Bolingbroke, disoriented, invited the Whig leaders to dinner, in search of an unnecessary compromise that demoralised his supporters.
Just before she died, Queen Anne handed the Lord Treasurer’s white staff to the Duke of Shrewsbury and the Whigs inherited the earth. Invoking the Act of Settlement, they disqualified the 53 people next in line of succession to the throne and summoned the 54th, the Elector of Hanover, to rule under their tutelage as George I, at which point, despite the charade of anointing the usurper, Britain clearly became a crowned republic. A change of sovereign required a further general election in 1715, carefully managed by the Whigs to give them a majority of 343 seats to the Tories’ 215.
The Tories did not return to office until 1783, under Pitt the Younger. For the Tory Party, which almost disappeared from the House of Commons, the 18th century largely passed in a Rip Van Winkle slumber. Yet that exclusion from office for what, in those days of lower life expectancy, amounted to three generations would have seemed impossible in the heady days of 1710 – just four years before the extinction event that eradicated them from politics for an entire historical period.
It is not mere historicism to dwell at such length on a political debacle that occurred more than three centuries ago, considering it holds such instructive lessons for the self-annihilating Conservative Party of today. So startling are the parallels, it is necessary to remind oneself very firmly of the axiom that history does not repeat itself. It does, however, seem to be preparing an elliptical parallel, bearing a remarkable resemblance to the past.
A Tory Party elected with a large majority, primarily to end conflict with Europe; disastrously torn internally by factionalism and conflict of personalities; instability created by conflicting leadership contenders; a failure of political will, leading to non-delivery of key policies and an appearance of anarchy in government; feeble attempts by the leadership to appease irreconcilable opponents; a loss of principle and consequent disillusionment of supporters – does any of that strike a familiar note?
If a Tory MP of 1714 were brought back to life today and taken to the House of Commons, apart from the absence of periwigs and a lack of bear-baiting amenities, would he notice any significant changes from his experience of Tory politics? It is difficult to imagine so.
The first justification for the study of history is the academic ambition of pure knowledge; the second is the possibility, greater than in any other discipline, of learning lessons from the past that may inform our behaviour in the present and future. Are the Tories incapable of learning anything from their own history? Of course, part of their problem is that they know no history, either of their party or their country.
Even by the frivolous standards of fanciful historical parallels with which undergraduates attempt to engage bored tutors in their essays, the analogy is tempting. For the Treaty of Utrecht, read Brexit; for the royal succession substitute immigration; for Oxford and Bolingbroke substitute David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
In terms of modern history, there is much material for sober reflection. The general election of 2019 was a potentially Disraelian moment: the abandonment by Red Wall voters of the Labour movement they had hereditarily supported since universal suffrage, like a shift in the earth’s tectonic plates.
There was a moment for the Tory Party to engage their support for generations, by securing a Brexit that did not exclude Northern Ireland, ending illegal immigration and enforcing a near-moratorium on legal entry; repealing Labour’s Equality Act and enforcing common-sense freedoms in universities, schools and everywhere else.
Instead, we are inundated with asylum seekers, monopolising hotel accommodation, RAF bases, barges on rivers – the Government has even had the provocative impertinence to ask people to take them into their homes, while liberal judges aggravate the chaos.
And why? Because the Conservative government cannot find the courage to quit the ECHR, because it is so marinated in leftist obsession with all things European. It has just removed five pro-Brexit MPs from a scrutiny committee because of their known opposition to imposing new EU red tape on parcels sent to Northern Ireland and replaced them with Remainers. “But Rishi Sunak voted Leave…” is the tired mantra. Try that out on the doorsteps at next year’s general election.
After 13 years of supposed Tory rule, our borders are wide open to unrestricted immigration, our core fighting army is smaller than Marlborough’s in the War of the Spanish Succession, free speech is a distant memory, children are being brainwashed into a mental illness in schools, our taxes are at record levels, our bank accounts can be closed overnight for the expression of conservative opinions. And what is the Tory Party doing? It has just suspended a local councillor for saying that, in the Christian perspective, Pride is a sin.
When the party supposedly representing conservative values is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Stonewall, what do conservative voters do? The same as American conservatives did to Bud Light, is the obvious answer. People see a silent woman, praying mentally some distance from a closed abortion clinic, being arrested for thought crime, then contrast it with the police facilitating hugely disruptive Just Stop Oil protests and they get the message. Just as they get the message when Coutts, after all its dissimulation, is exposed as having closed Nigel Farage’s account on political grounds.
When all the wells have been poisoned – the banking system, the Church of England, the police, the judiciary, the universities, the schools and, above all, the Conservative Party – the public recognises it is necessary to recalibrate the entire political system. That will take time. The upcoming by-elections will not be a reliable guide, only a general election will convey the public’s verdict on Rishi Sunak’s dire government.
When the Tories show any sign of life, it is to confirm their commitment to Remainer politics and their hostility to Christianity. Both those provocations carry, in corollary, prospects of heavy voter retaliation. That is why the 1710-1715 parallel canvassed here has real relevance: not simply because of the similarity between Tory behaviour then and now, but because of the possibility of the next general election confounding the expectations of psephologists – of a heavy Conservative defeat, followed by the familiar see-saw politics of recent centuries.
There are grounds for believing that a current Labour lead of around 20 points is the least of the Tories’ problems. There is a realistic possibility that they are facing an extinction event; that there may be no road back, not just for 69 years, but forever. It is impossible to think of a single pro-conservative constituency or interest group they have not alienated. It is as if they woke up every morning and asked themselves: what stick can we poke in the public’s eye today to provoke them? The recent highly successful National Conservatism conference showed the growing confidence and articulacy of the conservative movement; but few people at that gathering regarded the Conservative Party as home.
It is obvious that conservative forces are gradually coalescing to the point where a new party will contest the ground so uncertainly occupied by Rishi Sunak’s discredited rabble. That is the difference between today and 1715: there will soon be an alternative to Toryism and that will end the imposture we call the Conservative Party, that bunch of entitled, woke, cake-eating buffoons who have too often tested the patience of the electorate, though they will surely be the last to realise it.
“The thunder had long grumbled in the air; and yet when the bolt fell, most of our party appeared as much surprised as if they had had no reason to expect it.”
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