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Deadly Dull Consensus
Earlier this week EURSOC reported on how new Conservative leader David Cameron seems to be planning to bring the Tories as close to Labour as possible. Today Anatole Kaletsky argues that Cameron's strategy risks blighting Britain with the stagnant "consensus politics" that has blocked change on the continent for decades.
Kaletsky says, correctly, that the slogan "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" can't be applied to democratic politics - at least not by principled campaigners. So, he wonders, is Cameron's apeing of New Labour policies an ideological conversion or an electoral trick?
If it's an ideological conversion, we're all in trouble. For evidence, look across to the continent, where "politics is paralysed in all three of the great nations of Europe — Germany, France and Italy — by the refusal of politicians to debate serious issues such as the future of the European Union or the welfare state."
"... Just as European voters today are offered no real choice by their parties on issues such as EU integration, economic liberalism and the burden of taxes, the only choice for Britain will be big or bigger government, high or higher taxes and public service bureaucracies managed by Tweedle-Dum or Tweedle-Dee."
The result? Long-term, continental Europe-style decline for Britain.
It's an outcome European voters appear reasonably happy with, given their voting patterns in recent elections. But for a British party to offer such an option - and a Conservative Party at that?
On the other hand, it might be all bluff. Cameron might, after all, be a wolf in dead sheep's clothing. Voters will be lured by his One Nation "compassionate conservatism" but once he's in office, he'll reveal himself, Senator Palpatine-style, to be an evil Sith Tory after all.
On the face of it, it seems highly unlikely, though Kaletsky points to George Bush's conversion from 2000's compassionate conservative to what he describes as "the most right-wing, ideological President in modern American history." The trouble with this trap is that as Kaletsky reports, is that Bush's popularity ratings plummeted shortly after he came to power. Had 9/11 not happened, he argues, Bush would have been a one-term president. Furthermore, Bush II has hardly pleased his party's free-market radicals, increasing public spending to dizzying levels. So much for compassionate and liberal conservatism.
From EURSOC's angle, Cameron's move to the centre does have its roots in the "Christian Democrat" consensus of continental European politics. There are no Christian Democrats as such in France, whose long-suffering citizens have Gaullists instead, while in Italy the once-formidable party has become just one of the factions in Silvio Berlusconi's dodgy coalition.
Nevertheless, the stagnant cosyness is there - and one only has to look at the European Parliament to see how it works. In the Parliament, the two largest groups are the Socialists and the EPP-ED grouping, made up largely of Christian Democrat style parties. On economic issues and some social issues, the two groupings differ. But on issues of EU intergration, they vote together as a bloc commanding around 70-80 percent of MEP votes.
Any parties, whether on the left or the right of this centrist coalition, are easily dismissed by party leaders and their supporters in the media as "extremist."
One can see the appeal for Cameron in bringing his party into the BBC's acceptable opinions tent - for once, Tories will be able to sneer at "extremists" outside the consensus, rather than being dubbed so themselves. But he should be aware of the price of such a move.
