The myth of Labour disunity
Patrick Cosgrave
The currently fashionable (in some quarters) coalition theory of British politics states that if all the second-raters, and all the failures, come together in government the nation will be saved. Certain of our most striking political talents — and perhaps most notably that of Mr Powell, would be beyond doubt excluded; and I now even hear suggestions that Mrs Thatcher would be unacceptable to such coalition 'mongers as the Editor of the Times, on the grounds that she has definite ideas and beliefs.
However, it is not of coalition as such that I am writing this week, but of the kind of division which exists in both the major parties. For any such discussion it is important to understand the true intellectual bankruptcy of the coalition theory, which might be re-phrased through the adaptation of an old adage — "if they couldn't hang us singly they can make a good shot at hanging us together". My argument is that the Labour Party is far less, and the Tory Party somewhat more, divided than it seems. Those among the coalitionists who understand something of the truth of this proposition are planning their tactics accordingly; the tactics of Mrs Thatcher and those of her Shadow Cabinet who are loyal to her seem at the moment to be less considered.
• Every argument in favour of coalition is seen with particular favour by Mr Heath and that coterie of his friends who meet regularly under the benign guidance of Lord Aldington, from time to time enticing other Tories, some senior, into their little social gatherings, all unsuspecting of what is being plotted. Now, it is, of course, doubtful that Mr Heath will ever again hold high office. Once the referendum is over interest in him will wane and if a Heath cabal continues it is most likely to be led by Mr Peter Walker. Nor can anybody except the most starry-eyed of those still living in the Heath bunker (and there are one or two ) imagine him standing successfully against Mrs Thatcher at any future election. If he were ever to make a comeback it could only be through the machinations of coalition, which would translate him upwards and exclude Mrs Thatcher. It is a small hope, but its continued existence demonstrates (apart from his possession of a sulking temperament) why Mr Heath has rigorously avoided every opportunity of making even the most banal profession of loyalty to Mrs Thatcher, a refusal which will prove even more odious to the Tory Party in the long run than the intrigues which he is fomenting with the aim of dividing the party.
It is unlikely, then, that Mr Heath can win; but he can do considerable damage. He has already successfully created two myths — that the Conservative government was well-prepared in 1970, when it had made no decisions on the fundamental question of economic management; and that, in February and October of last year, he somehow told the truth about what needed to be done to rescue the country, whereas he merely advocated somewhat strenuously policies that had already been tried and had already failed, and which were, anyhow, based on false analysis. But it would be idle to deny that there are a number of influential Tories outside his own coterie who believe, like religious fanatics of yore, in such policies (in their essence syndicalist and collectivist) and who understand that their views are shared by the right wing of the Labour Party — hence the making of a Coalition.
Partly because division is unusual in and unfamiliar to the Conservative Party any division, whether covert or fomented, is especially dangerous to that party. But there is a more important dimension to the difference of opinion which exists. To delineate it clearly we need to separate what is mechanistic from what is philosophical in current political and economic argument.
The illusion that there is material for a useful coalition in Britain today stems from a growing awareness on the part of the sane people in all parties that the government spending deficit must be reduced as part of any serious programme against inflation. This may be called monetarism, if you like, but it is really no more than common sense. Mr Heath and Mr Benn are, of course, the big spenders of our time, and they would probably resist this bald conclusion; but Sir Keith Joseph insists on it, and Mr Mr Healey is gradually coming round to it.
Now, the immense importance of Sir Keith, not only to the Tory Party, but to the general political health of the country is that, the mechanistic parts of the necessary economic policy having been disposed of — and he who does not accept them will find events imposing them — he tries to reason out what should be done thereafter from a moral base. That is to say, he believes that government policy generally, and economic policy in particular, should be designed — once the absolutely necessary steps towards balancing the budget are taken — to encourage the emergence of the kind of society, in his case of free society, the vision of which one has presented to the electorate. For the so-called Tory moderates — who now include Mr Heath — having no principle about the kind of Britain one wants has itself become a principle. _ Even Labour moderates — like, say Mr Jenkins — who might one day be found in a coalition with those overtly or covertly disloyal to Mrs Thatcher, at least have attitudes, usually in the field of social and educational morals, and usually what we nowadays call permissive. But there is nothing as politically, intellectually and morally empty as a coalition-minded Tory.
The split between the moral and the amoral Tories has real depth; and it is made deeper by the fury with which moderate Tories regard principled Tories: That fury is based on a blind unwillingness to admit that principles can exist because one does not have any oneself. The split in the Labour Party is far less real: the only difference between Mr Wilson and Mr Healey and Mr Jenkins on the one hand, and Mr Benn and the left wing on the other is over what I have called the commonsense of economic mechanics. Mr Benn and his admirers either do not accept that the Government cannot go on spending money it does not possess without bringing on ruinous inflation; or they believe that the so-called rich can be soaked for the needed cash; or — on the fringes — they look forward eagerly to a crash which will destroy the capitalist system and replace it by a wholly collectivist one. The third of these points lies, of course, at least at the back of the minds of all on the Labour left; and I believe that many of them, Mr Benn included, and certainly Mr Foot and Mr Helfer, all of whom are civilised and agreeable individuals, appreciate neither the suffering that a crash would involve, nor the totalitarian and bureaucratic lineaments of the state which their policies would create. But at least they have the merit of being willing to
confess that they would pefer an egalitarian to a free society, and the merit of stating their principles honestly and openly.
But the great point for any Conservative to grasp is that there is no division of principle between them and the so-called Labour right on matters of general policy or aims. That is why Mr Benn was able to rise in a recent debate and quote Mr Wilson ad nauseam in support of his own policies — for it was Mr Wilson, in almost every case, who first put them forward; nor could any Conservative find a single sentence in Mr Wilson's television interview with Mr Peter Jay — the new locus classicus for Wilsonian policy — which repudiated a single specific thing that Mr Benn had done; the best that could be managed was a statement to the effect that the direction of institutional funds was not Cabinet policy — but, then, Mr Benn had never said that it was. Even the so-called Manifesto Group of Labour moderates — those who have set themselves up stylistically against Mr Benn and his friends — ground their policies in the last Labour manifesto, the very credo of the Labour left.
For this reason I was appalled at the ineptness of Mr Heseltine, the Tory industry spokesman, in his last parliamentary confrontation with Mr Benn (who destroyed him). Mr Heseltine was trying to exacerbate a split in the Labour Party which did not and does not exist. Consequently, Mr Benn had no difficulty whatever in repudiating Mr Heseltine's argumentS — it did not even require his very considerable forensic talent to do so. It is crucial for the Conservative Opposition to state, not the disunity of the Labour Party, but its fundamental unity, which is greater than their own. Only by demonstrating to the nation where the Labour Party as a whole is leading us, and persuading the electorate that it is not somewhere we want to go, can the Conservative Party stand a chance of deserving power.
Mrs Thatcher will find that a difficult enough task, given the mutterings behind her. And this brings us to a final word about the Tory coalitionists. The Labour Party knows where it wants to go: some want to go more slowly than others; some accept with greater patience than others that the journey to a collectivist heaven may take some little time yet; but there is no fundamental disunity. Therefore, Conservatives who have the Heath type of commitment to collectivism, and who join a Labour coalition are committing themselves to a Socialist Britain: even if the Labour left stayed out of such a coalition its creation would merely mean the presence of two as opposed to one major left wing party. It is not a consummation that any conservative could wish unless he was blind or, like Mr Heath, consumed with envy and hag-ridden with self-righteousness.
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