While we wait to see (as discussed yesterday) how well the centre will hold and organise itself in France and in Europe, and while on the other side of the Atlantic we watch what was once a mainstream centre-right party descend to the depths of something that can fairly be called neo-fascism, it’s worth taking another look at Britain. As usual, it sits somewhere in between.
Britain’s Conservatives have not shown the same sort of resistance to the far right that Europe’s Ursula von der Leyen has, even when she knew it might cost her her job, or that France’s Republicans did when they rose up against their rogue leader after he tried to take them into the far-right fold. Nor, however, have they subsumed their identity entirely into an anti-democratic personality cult like America’s Republicans.
They did remove two successive leaders, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, when their (slightly different varieties of) Trumpism seemed to threaten electoral carnage. But if it had been up to the grassroots members, Johnson would probably still be in charge, and while the MPs tried to save the furniture, electoral carnage happened in the end anyway.
So far, at least, the Conservatives and the far right are separate parties. The closest thing Britain has to a Donald Trump is Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. In some ways he is not very close; he is both more intelligent and less flamboyant. His personality cult is almost understated, in a rather British sort of way. For years I have referred to him as “Lord Haw-Haw” and I still think that captures the essence of him.
But it is Farage that a large section of the Conservative Party now looks to as its inspiration if not its savior. The desire to lurch further right as a response to defeat was already there before the defeat happened, but it has certainly not gone away. Polly Tonynbee in the Guardian (not an unbiased source by any means) reports on the various groups of Tories clamoring either for union with Reform or a wholesale adoption of its policies.
Farage, as befits a Briton, is torn between a European and an American strategy. In western Europe, the prominent far-right leaders – Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders – have mostly stayed clear of the centre-right mainstream, aiming to displace it or reduce it to dependent status. In America, on the other hand, there was no independent far-right movement to speak of; the Trumpists succeeded by moving into and taking over the Republican Party.
Britain’s electoral system makes the independent route more difficult: Reform’s 14.3% of the vote won it only five seats. But Le Pen’s 13.2% back in 2017 won her only eight, so the possibility of further growth should not be dismissed.
In whichever form the threat presents itself, the Conservatives, like their counterparts in France, will one day have to make a choice. Giving the seething hatred of modernity that their membership has often displayed, one might despair of that being anything other than surrender. But there are some contrasting signs. Even at the height of the Johnsonian madness, support for Ukraine remained very strong, so Farage’s Putinism will go down poorly in some quarters. And Trump is correspondingly less popular; for the moment his embrace is not doing Farage any favors, although if he regains the presidency all bets will be off.
There is also a strand of pro-market thinking in the Tory right that may help to keep it tethered to reality – something Toynbee acknowledges, although she takes the opposite evaluation. (She also thinks it’s a quality that Farage shares, but I see little evidence for that.) But America is currently giving us plenty of examples of former free-market advocates who prove capable of a 180-degree turn when lured by the demons of racial animus, or perhaps just by the promise of electoral success.
For now Rishi Sunak has agreed to stay on as an interim leader to avoid a hurried transition, but a Conservative leadership election cannot be long delayed. That may clarify some of the party’s internal differences, or it may just succeed in sweeping them under the carpet for a bit longer.
The World is Not Enough 