The most right-wing government in history?

Has the Tory party been 'hijacked' by its extremes?

There’s an old joke, which has many variations, but goes something along the following lines: a king called, let’s say Boris, is complaining to a visitor about his nickname.

‘Look at that city down there,’ he says. ‘You see the bridge crossing the river that leads into our city? I built that bridge. But do they call me “Boris the bridge builder”? No.’

‘And you see the great church in the middle of our city, overlooking the square? Well, I built that church. And do they call me “Boris the church-builder”? No.’

King Boris pauses, then looks over at his visitor and laments: ‘But shag ONE sheep…’

It’s an old joke, and one that could apply to the Conservative Party as it approaches its fifteenth and final year in office.

According to a recent YouGov poll, the Tory party is now perceived as being as right-wing as Nigel Farage-era Ukip, and this is certainly a perception shared by the commentariat. I regularly see people claiming that we have the most Right-wing administration in living memory, that the government is enthralled to populists, that the Tory party has been hijacked by the Right; and if it isn’t already, it soon will be.

Yet how right-wing are the Tories? How these things are measured is obviously subjective, but it is certainly not that difficult to weave an alternative narrative.

On economic issues, the main charge concerns austerity, and the common belief that the Government has hollowed out the state; there have certainly been some serious cuts to local government services, which at least partly explain why so many councils are on the point of collapse, or why, for example, rough sleeping has hugely increased since 2010.

Yet as any self-employed person this time of year will be aware, taxes in Britain are not low. On total government spending, Britain is comparable to Sweden, while the country has dropped to 22nd place in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World index, economic freedom generally being associated with the centre-Right.

What about social issues? The most well-known progressive Tory innovation was gay marriage, which David Cameron regards as his proudest moment. It seems almost undeniable that gay marriage was going to happen anyway, because in a society which accepts utilitarianism it is unarguable. So it’s strange that he was proud of something which was without question going to happen with an alternative government, and had little real opposition. Rather like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Arc, Cameron was a protagonist in a story which would have turned out exactly the same if he hadn’t turned up. But certainly had the Tories passed gay marriage alongside significant conservative reforms, it might have been seen as skilful triangulation, the hallmark of successful post-revolutionary conservative leaders of the past; this wasn’t the case.

Immigration is the most obvious area where the government of Boris Johnson and his successors has been notably liberal, indeed radical. But they’ve also liberalised British society in lots of ways that didn’t really get noticed, such as no-fault divorce, legalised abortion pills for use at home, and even anti-praying measures outside family planning clinics.

There are also so-called ‘nanny state’ policies traditionally associated with the Left, such as the ban on plastic straws, calorie counts on restaurant menus or more recently anti-vaping laws. Again, you might agree or disagree with these sorts of policies, but they are not traditionally right-wing.

Then there are environmental laws. It’s commonplace to hear people ask ‘why aren’t we doing anything about climate change?’ and we have an increasingly febrile protest movement aimed at doing something, yet Britain has done more than any country to reduce its carbon footprint, and at huge cost. Net zero, in particular building regulations and energy efficiency standards, is certainly not ‘doing nothing’.

The Environment Act 2021, for example, introduced ‘biodiversity net gain’ which requires all developers to provide 10% additional biodiversity over any loss they cause. So even if you have no impact, you must still use land somewhere to provide an extra 10%. It also introduced a new environmental duty on government which hugely slowed down our ability to build roads or houses. It also means that a Bill can’t be introduced to lower environmental protections without a ministerial statement, which is questionable as a matter of constitutional law.

Then there is the Social Value Act of 2012, under which all public sector commissioning has to ‘have regard to…. economic, social and environmental well-being in connection’ - and this even applies to military spending.

There are recent rent reforms, which mean an end to no-fault evictions, on top of the Online Safety Bill, which was pushed after the murder of an MP by an Islamist. The latter, which further regulates perceived hate speech, clearly empowers progressives who tend to be society’s moral gatekeepers.

Then there are ‘equity’ issues, which go to the heart of the political divide. More than anything else, what people mean by ‘woke’ is a belief in equality of outcomes, either between races or men and women, something which is profoundly opposed both by conservatives and most traditional liberals. Yet our fascist government endorses this idea.

As Ryan Bourne recently wrote: ‘Bizarrely, just as America is waking up to these horrors, the British government wants to entrench diversity, equity and inclusion in finance. The Financial Conduct Authority recently held a consultation on introducing mandatory diversity and inclusion strategies for firms with more than 251 employees. Among other requirements, companies would need to aggregate and disclose workforces’ demographic data, including on gender, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, before setting “stretching but realistic targets” to “address underrepresentation” at various organisational levels, reporting to the regulator. Diversity and inclusion shortfalls would be treated as a “non-financial risk”.’

In 2017, the Government introduced ‘mandatory gender pay gap reporting for all employers with 250 employees or more’, and it has toyed with doing the same for race. Even the current Defence Secretary recently said he wanted greater gender parity in the military because it ‘did not reflect wider society’.

Theresa May’s race audit on race equality was typical of her premiership, which often employed harsh, unwelcoming nationalist rhetoric for Tory-voting audiences while in practice quietly expanding progressive domination – the exact opposite of what a successful Conservative government should be doing.

But it is also about what they haven’t done, the obvious example being the late New Labour Equality Act, which effectively embeds progressive ideas into offices up and down the country, and which the Conservatives have had 14 years to remove. The Equality Act enshrines the Public Sector Equality Duty, which requires every public body, whenever they do anything, to ‘have due regard to… eliminating discrimination… advancing equality of opportunity… and fostering good relations’ with people with ‘protected characteristics’. Among its most egregious effects has been active discrimination against white men in the Armed Forces. The minister in charge, however, insisted that ‘increasing diversity’ was vital to Britain’s defence.

Even where the Tories have introduced solidly conservative laws, such as the Nationality and Borders Act which give us the ability to restrict visas to countries that don’t take back their offenders, we haven’t used them.

Of course, the Rwanda plan is controversial to many, although this is similar to what other European countries are proposing, and something which Tony Blair also considered. Indeed, many Tory policies which get compared to the Third Reich are fairly milquetoast compared to the Third Way, Blair’s government being considerably more right-wing, and authoritarian, than the current regime on many issues.

I wonder if this idea of an extreme Tory Government is in part influenced by nostalgia, and a tendency to look fondly on past enemies, especially those who lost. John Major has become something of a national treasure in the Brexit era, while in the US even George W Bush is seen as a benevolent figure by people who (correctly) compare his personal qualities with Trump. Yet Bush was routinely compared to Hitler at the time, while the same insults levelled at Tories now were also thrown their way. Just as the NHS is always about to be sold off, the Tory party has been ‘lurching to the right’ since our parents were at school.

Besides which, that loveable old Tory Party of the past had far more ‘colourful’ figures than today’s version, whatever the faux nostalgia for the ‘sensible’ party of the past. Few of today’s Tory MPs today are hard right in any comparable way; indeed they aren’t even that ideological. Many, once out of office, reveal quite obvious progressive sympathies; others make a living telling a willing audience that their party has drifted dangerously to the Right and that they are one of the good guys.

Ironically these moderate Tories tend to be from the party’s Europhile wing (RIP), and express a desire for a more grown-up country in touch with our continental allies; yet the Tories are obviously nothing like as Right-wing as the largest Right-of-centre parties in most neighbouring countries – Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party, the Brothers of Italy, the Swiss People’s Party or the Freedom Party of Austria.

Another obvious explanation for this perception is that journalists have drifted way to the Left of the public at large, and like in the US, are also more heavily concentrated in networks and locations which are overwhelmingly progressive, and so everything outside their social circle appears frighteningly right-wing.

Or perhaps it is that the Tories, while ideologically all over the place, still have right-wing vibes, being filled with politicians who double as columnists slamming the latest ‘woke’ initiatives while doing little to materially fight this culture war. But it also suits both the progressive media and the Conservative party to maintain the fantasy that the government is more right-wing than it actually is, that Patel or ‘Cruella’ are really getting tough on immigration; this drives outrage content for newspaper while helping to placate the Tory base, until the point comes when they realise it’s not really true.

And then, of course, there is Brexit, something which was genuinely both revolutionary and Right-wing, and which has used up a huge amount of the party’s energy and credit, with less than ideal results.

So yes, they did shag that one sheep – and for some reason people seem to remember that.