Enoch Powell and the Liberal revival
The political situation which confronts the nation is at the same time both simple and exceedingly complex. Its simplicity resides in the probability that if most of the Government's reckless gambles succeed, or at any rate look to the majority of the People that they are succeeding, then Mr Heath and his Conservative Party will be returned at the next election, Mr Thorpe and his Liberal Party will have suffered yet another transitory revival, and Mr Wilson and his Labour Party will further weaken themselves with internecine recrimination and doctrinal dissension. If, however, the Government — which means Mr Heath — should fail or look to the majority of people to have failed in its gambling then the future becomes most obscure, although not necessarily dark and gloomy. In this event a major political realignment might occur. Both major parties could well split apart, thereby making, with the Liberal Party, five factions contending for public support and thereby also bringing about, as a by-product, the probability of a coalition government. Such a realignment is not inevitable: should Mr Wilson's undoubted Political skill succeed in patching up the Labour Party so that it looks and sounds acceptable to the electorate, then Mr Heath's failure could be matched by Mr Wilson's success, the two-party System will have asserted itself again, the Liberal Party will again be scattered and dismayed, and, their hopes apart, the chief casualty will be Mr Heath. Neither he nor Mr Wilson would be likely to survive, or to wish to survive, as leader of his party after an election defeat; and indeed Mr Thorpe's position would be insecure if the Liberal Party failed substantially to increase its representation at the general election.
The Liberal Party and its new found friends and admirers deceive themselves if they genuinely believe that its recent by-election successes reflect a public endorsement of its principles and policies; these successes reflect instead a very great disenchantment with Mr Heath's Conservative Government and With Mr Wilson's Labour Opposition. Given this disenchantment and the political respectability of the name Liberal, thousands of voters are casting aside their party loyalties and are voting for the third man. They are voting against Mr Heath, and to a lesser extent against Mr Wilson, rather than for Mr Thorpe. They are voting against the present set-up, against the present gang and the previous gang, against that consensus which, ironically, the Liberal Party seeks to establish and express.
The Liberal Party's attack upon the 'distance' of central government, upon the party hacks of the two main parties and their tired men and policies, upon machine politics and so on, and its emphasis upon 'community ' politics (as if there were any Other kind) is all very well so far as it goes, and it obviously strikes a ready response among those dissatisfied with the party of their normal allegiance, but it is thin gruel with which to sustain a major political campaign. There may be some mileage in the Liberal Party's notions of partnership in industry, but surely not much: the starry-eyed aspect of the Liberal Party is unlikely to prove electorally beguiling. Mr Thorpe takes great Pride in the Liberal Party's pro-Market fanaticism, in its support for prices and incomes policy, and in its ' enlightened ' attitude towards race and immigration. As to the Market, the Liberal Party is out to step with the country and, incidentally, with its own historic principles of free trade, cheap food and the securing of our liberties through parliamentary sovereignty. As to prices and incomes policies, these have been tried and failed before, which nevertheless both Mr Heath's Conservative Party and Mr Wilson's Labour Party propound and enact, and which, incidentally, accord ill with the liberal instinct to reduce the extent of state interference.The Liberal Party's stand on immigration and race may be noble when expressed by Mr Thorpe; but how loudly is that stand expressed locally, and how generally is it realised among those who have lately voted Liberal that the Liberal Party regards the Conservative and the Labour Parties alike as being too hard, not too soft, on matters of immigration and race? Do those who vote Liberal know that Liberal policies will mean more taxation, not less, more domestic bureaucracy and more Brussels bureaucracy and not less, more protective tariffs and not less, higher rather than lower food prices, and, last but not least, more immigration and not less? Is it for liberal policies that voters in their thousands have deserted the Conservative and Labour Parties and voted Liberal? The answer is obvious and negative.
The liberal vote is far more a protest vote against the men and policies of both the major parties than an affirmation of liberal policies and an endorsement of liberal men. Those who would dispute this need only to ask themselves what they think would have happened at Ripon or Ely, or what would be likely to happen at Berwick, were Mr Enoch Powell to have stood, or to stand, for election. Public opinion poll results which demonstrate Mr Powell's popular support are censored; other public opinion polls are arranged so that his popularity is not tested. The discussion of the recent by-election results is conducted with hardly any reference to Mr Powell, and Mr Thorpe and Mr Wilson are discussed as the alternatives to Mr Heath, when the probability is that the alternative for whom the public increasingly yearns is Mr Powell. To state this is not to affirm or to endorse Powellism; it is, however, to state the obvious. And when the obvious is regarded by most of those in control of press and television as unutterable, it may be remarked that a political situatiop which could rapidly become morbid already exists.
Mr Heath's policies are very largely Mr Wilson's and almost entirely Mr Thorpe's. Those who seek an alternative to the policies of these men may express their resentment at the present set-up by voting for Mr Thorpe and his merry men, but how many would remain loyal to the Liberal Party were a new standard to be raised? And how many, come to that, would remain loyal to Mr Heath? And to Mr Wilson? The old system is on trial. In Mr Heath, since his conversion to the policies of intervention and the politics of consensus, that system has found its most vigorous exponent. Should his huge gamble fail, then the party political structure of this country may be entirely recast in such a way that Parliament will come more accurately to represent the people and more vigorously to guard their liberties and interests by the re-assertion of its sovereignty.
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