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

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Because we'renot mad and sit there ranting and ravinglike some other organisations do, we don’t get heard that much," said one former minister. Another policy he said was “non-negotiable” for Conservatives like him was continuing the commitment to 0.7% of GDP on aid spending. Earle has set out clearly and eloquently why our democracy is incapable of solving our political problems' ROBERT VERKAIK, author of Posh Boys As such, achange in strategy is in the works. The caucusis looking atcreating a more professional media operation to help increase its visibility through opinion pieces, media interviews and One Nation events. In a bid to demonstrate a renewed a sense of purpose, an unusually large number of One Nation MPs attended the Tory Reform Group'srecent summer reception in Westminster. The TRG is a non-parliamentary, centre-right organsiation withstrong ideologically and professionalties withthe One Nation group. Gauke has another nagging fear about a development that may put off younger voters even more. “I still think hanging over all of that is what is going to happen in the event of a Conservative defeat at the next general election, followed by a vacancy for the leadership and a party membership that is going to get its say.

You can draw parallels, but I think that the scale is completely different,” he argues. However, he adds: “But is there a risk that in the years ahead the Conservative party becomes increasingly a populist, to some extent nationalist party? That it narrows its appeal, that the range of views that are considered to be acceptable become significantly narrower, that the next generation of candidates that are selected are selected on a strict test of their enthusiasm for a no deal Brexit, for example? I do worry that that might be the future for the Conservative party.” 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 At the start of the Tory leadership race, the One Nation Group held hustings to encourage the candidates to sign up to their values. The caucus has commitments around the union, global leadership, the life chances agenda, social responsibility, investment in public services, localism, environmental stewardship, belief in free enterprise, law and human rights and democratic renewal. One-nation conservatism has its origins in the repercussions of the Industrial Revolution, which had caused widespread inequality, poverty and social discontent in Britain. [16] Tory politicians such as Richard Oastler, Michael Thomas Sadler and Lord Shaftesbury combined their elitist responsibility and a strong humanitarian element with their involvement in the Factory Acts. [2] They were critical of individualism and classical economics, [2] they also disliked the 1834 New Poor Law and believed in the role of the state in guaranteeing decent housing, working conditions, wages and treatment of the poor. [2] 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.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. Members of the Young Conservatives, the youth wing of the Conservative Party, campaigning before the UK general election, 1955

In other words, there are two aspects to One Nation Toryism: first, the belief in the nation and its essential unity; second, the recognition of the connection between the party and the people and the choice of policies, rhetoric and an electoral strategy to maintain it. The former is a constant; the latter varies with time and circumstances. Nonetheless, Tory Nation capably explains two innate Conservative traits that are beyond doubt: an unquenchable lust for power, and a deep belief in stooping to conquer. When the party hits trouble, they become even more pronounced - which explains why, even after endless disgrace and its recent seismic loss of councillors in many of its old Middle English redoubts, the possibility of this amazingly successful political institution winning an unprecedented fifth term in power has not quite been snuffed out.

Bridgen, P. (2000) "The One Nation Idea and State Welfare: The Conservatives and Pensions in the 1950s‟, Contemporary British History 14#3: 83–104.