The Changing Face of British Conservatism

Decades sometimes attract epithets which indicate their most distinctive features and, barring unforeseen events, the epithet which will be applied to the 1980s in Britain can scarcely fail to include the word 'Conservative'. The General Election of June 1983 ensures that this decade is virtually certain to be dominated by Conservative governments. And, as the present Parliament re-assembles to continue its prolonged first session, the historian may be prompted to reflect that its final session – and the term of the government – should expire little short of the two hundredth anniversary of the event which did much to bring about the foundation of modern Conservatism. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 – and the radical threat which this posed in the 1790s to the established political and social order in Britain as well as in France – rallied the bulk of the political nation to a defence of that order. This, then, is an appropriate time at which to consider the development of a movement which, after almost two hundred years, shows every sign of vigour and health. What have been the faces of Conservatism during this period? And does the evidence thus far of the 1980s denote the emergence of a significant new 'Thatcherite' face?

At various periods in the party's history, the defensiveness inherent in Conservatism on political and social issues has assumed a reactionary or a repressive face. This aspect was most noticeable in the 1790s themselves and in the years after 1815; in both periods, radical and reform movements were met with strong resistance. Resistance was also evident in 1831-2 when the Tory party, in opposition, threw its might – unavailingly – against the Whig Reform Bill. Tories saw this as making dangerous inroads on the political structure of the country and as presaging encroachments on landed property. In 1846, the protectionist wing of the Tory party bitterly attacked the repeal of the Corn Laws as a betrayal of the landed interest. And the Liberal reforms after 1906 likewise evoked violent resistance. If the first Reform Bill in 1831-2 had been regarded as the 'beginning of the end', the Liberal reforms were opposed as the 'end of the end': the end of the political and social pre-eminence of the old order. And there were Tories ready to die in the last ditch rather than submit to that. On all these occasions, the defensive face of Conservatism contorted itself into the diehard face.