The not so New New Right? A reply to ‘After Cameron: the New New Right and the unchaining of Britannia’ by Matthew Lakin (original) (raw)
Related papers
From Crisis to Coalition describes internal party aspects of the British Conservative Party's recovery from landslide defeat to leading a coalition government. The book, by three significant historians of the Conservatives, provides many nuggets of interest. The reader should be aware that it is much more narrowly focused than the subtitle and cover blurb suggest. Three-quarters is devoted to Cameron's modernisation project and the 2010 election. Only 23 pages discuss 1997-2005, and a figure as significant as Michael Portillo rates merely a single entry in the index.
Whatever happened to Conservative Party modernisation?
By way of an introduction to this special issue, our aim here is to bring together and interpret some of the main themes and issues to come out of the selection of articles presented below in order to make sense of the overall fate of David Cameron’s attempted modernisation of the Conservative Party. On the basis of the evidence highlighted by each of the contributors to this issue, we make a number of arguments. First, that Cameron’s early attempts to steer the party into the centre ground of British politics can be judged to have been reasonably effective. Second, that in 2007–2008, in the context of the emergence of economic difficulties leading to the financial crisis, the party found itself at a crossroads, and it chose to exit that crossroads with a turn, across a number of policy areas, back towards a more traditional Thatcherite or neo-liberal agenda. Third, we argue that the financial crisis and the political instability it generated is not enough on its own to explain this turn to the right. Rather, these events should be seen as having acted as a catalyst for the exposure of three main fault lines in the party’s modernisation strategy: (i) its lack of ideological coherence; (ii) its potential for serious performance deficits because of a lack of consistency in the political leadership displayed by Cameron; and (iii) its vulnerability to party management problems.
Reply: The strange survival of Tory conservatism
Global Discourse, 2015
It is always gratifying to discover that academic colleagues have read your work, and even more so to find that they have been sufficiently enthused (or perhaps, occasionally, enraged!) to review it. To have one's book discussed at length in a journal symposium is therefore particularly flattering, especially by reviewers as considered and munificent in their commentary as Mark Garnett and Murray Leith. As such I would like to thank them both, but especially the former given that he had already made a number of very generous remarks about my work in a wider review essay elsewhere (Garnett, 2013). During my time as a doctoral student Garnett's work did much to stimulate my thinking about the state of Conservative Party politics, and while I sometimes demurred from his conclusions, I continue to greatly admire not only its intellectual depth but the unfailing lucidity of his prose.
British conservatism after the vote for Brexit: The ideological legacy of David Cameron
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations
Following the referendum on membership of the European Union (EU), this article assesses the ideological legacy of David Cameron on Conservative politics in Britain. It focuses on three areas of ideological tension in contemporary conservatism, namely, European integration, the divide between social liberals and traditionalists, and the future of the Union post-Brexit. Applying the concept of heresthetics to offer a theoretically informed account, it argues that while Cameron enjoyed some successes in ‘the art of political manipulation’ with electoral benefits, his desire to modernize conservatism was ultimately undone by his failure to restructure the key issue dimensions animating his party’s ideology. Ultimately, this failure undid his premiership, leading to his downfall.
New Labour or the normalization of neo-liberalism?
This version is the pre-copyedited, preprint version. The published version can be found here: 'New Labour or the normalization of neo-liberalism', British Politics, 2 (2), 282-88, 2007. For some, the landslide victory of the Labour Party in 1997 held the promise of a reversal of the socio-economic transformation of Britain that had been achieved through nearly eighteen years of Conservative government. But it did not take long for the Blair government to disappoint these hopes. For, in many ways, the three successive Labour Governments under Blair's continuing authoritarian plebiscitary tutelage have deliberately, persistently, and wilfully driven forward the neo-liberal transformation of Britain rather than halting or reversing it. And, as Blair proudly proclaimed at the 2005 Labour Party Conference, every time that he has tried to introduce modernization, with hindsight he regrets that he has not been more radical.
The role of the British Labour Party a century on
2002
There is broad agreement that, under its new unofficial name of 'New Labour'the British Labour party has undergone a metamorphosis. About the nature and contours of that metamorphosis there is much less agreement. There has been a voluminous debate about its policies and ideology-about how significant and deep-seated the changes are and what they signify for the actions of Labour as the UK's ruling party. What does New Labour stand for–and for whom?
The Erosion of Party Politics in Britain
New Political Science, 2001
This article looks at the erosion of democratic practice enacted by "New" Labour in Britain under the leadership of Tony Blair. Building on the internal reforms of the 1980s, the process of Labour Party "modernization" has created an exclusive, top-down managerial style of leadership. This type of party leadership and management has far-reaching implications for British politics more generally, not least the role of political parties. The current crisis of the Conservatives and the destruction of representative democracy within the Labour Party pose serious questions regarding the mediumterm future of parties as voluntary membership organizations. These changes are placed in the context of a possible longer-term transformation of British political structures in order to exchange the long-established administration of the Conservative Party for a new type of governmental machinery. The aim is not a new "traditional" party of government, but a partyless formation built around a dominant central presidential gure and his of ce-a change which necessitates abolishing the Labour Party and social democracy as they currently exist. It is argued that this anticipated remedy to a protracted crisis of the British state accords closely to the requirements of neoliberal economic management, while drawing upon developments in the wider global environment. However, if this is to succeed, Blair's "modernizing" tendency needs to be able to articulate a coherent ideology that strikes a popular chord. Thus far, Blair's managerial approach to politics may have scored a few points against the old party ideologies, but it has also undermined attempts to promote an alternative ideology-even one of a "partyless" nature. Labour and the Crisis of the British State