It’s a bit weird writing anonymously, so I’ll give you something to work with- I’m a member of the Labour Party. I have been for nearly 5 years, been part of plenty of election campaigns, served in positions of responsibility in my local party, spent far too many hours on the door knock for someone my age, and thoroughly discussed many minutes of the last meeting. I’m what I’d hope to characterise as “proper Labour”, I’ve worked hard for the party, and I intend to continue doing so, but that isn’t what this article is about.

I’m in a relationship with a member of the Conservative Party. And I have been for a good while now. I love him. I really do. But other people aren’t so accepting. 

Telling people I’m dating a Tory elicits a response I should have seen coming, given the current state of division in our political discourse, but I’m far too much of an optimist to. “What are you doing that for?”, from someone who’s never met him. “I don’t know how you do that!” from someone who doesn’t know him. “I couldn’t do that!” from someone who doesn’t know what they’re missing! You’d think he had some contagious disease- and to be fair, I have had people move physically away from me after finding out! The sudden change in people I considered friends is really quite sad, especially given I’m more involved in Labour and the Left than they have ever been, and they’re trying to tell me I’m being a bad leftie, and what I’m doing is wrong. 

One girl, who I didn’t think was ever expecting to be this blunt in her dislike for real life Conservatives actually stood in front of her, upon meeting him, literally refused to talk to him, positioned her body language away, wouldn’t look at him, but was entirely willing to talk to me, sat next to him! 

People on the left, like me, have a habit of thinking they’re better than people on the right, and being intolerant and acting like engaging and debating them is beneath them, and thinking it’s justified because they’re Tories. They seem to forget who is running the country, and how winning means a thorough argument for Labour having to be made. Anyone who chooses to associate with a Tory is contaminated with the same brush, as a Tory- wrong and acting immorally. Thinking we’re better than Tories has really worked out well for us in the last few elections, right? The public agree we’re better than the Tories, right? Oh wait… 

The general public isn’t so black and white, they just want what’s best for their family and the country as a whole. 

Those Never Kissed A Tory shirts disgust me. They’re acting as though no world exists outside of politics. As though we’re lacking in division in this country. I thought the time of people being punished socially for who they loved was long over. What does this say about our national discourse? Our tolerance for other people? The expected purity, the desired purity, to never question the desired belief. What a scary pursuit- to want people who have never questioned, and thus strengthened their belief. They just say to people on the other side, that we don’t want to associate with you, we don’t want your votes, we don’t want you in our lives. And well, no matter where you stand politically, to seek to govern is to seek to represent the masses. Those shirts are bad for our political discourse because they inhibit the ability of the opposition to provide a strong alternative, because they reduce the ability to claim to represent the people. 

They’re not even a campaigning tool, they’re not pro Left, they’re just a pure instrument of division. And they’re exactly what Labour, in my opinion, doesn’t need. Do we forget people have personal lives, are well rounded people and aren’t just their political views? We seek to govern, so we need to seek to represent the people, by being tolerant of other people’s views. I thought the Left thought love trumps hate and love should never be a political statement.  

My relationship should not be a political statement.

I’d just like to see a political discourse where we can all debate freely as equals. None of the Tories I’ve come across are pursuing the values of the Conservative Party because they like watching people suffer or enjoy horrendous inequality in a society, they are doing what they believe to be right. So are we. So instead of attempting to demonise the opposition, we could just accept that we are bound to disagree and find a way to campaign against each other in elections, but love each other in life. 

Love is love, right? 

This article was written anonymously by a Conservative Supporter in response to a tweet by Fr. Calvin Robinson, a conservative commentator, who attacked a number of Conservative Party groups as as left wing infiltrators.

What is a commentator? A commentator, effectively, is a person who tries to gain legitimacy by reflecting the views of an ideological population or a value system, and analyse the approach by political parties through the lense of this. This inherently is not a problem, as many commentator’s give valuable insights into perspectives on issues with their ideological flair. However, people such as the Reverend Calvin Robinson tweeting out “Why is there a Black Conservatives event?I’m not a black conservative. I’m a conservative. Skin-colour is irrelevant. Conservatives do not subscribe to Leftist ideologies, identity politics, CRT. These are not conservatives. They’re well-meaning liberals adopting neo-Marxism.” followed by “The rot in the Conservative Party is deep. Tory Reform Group, LGBTQ+ Conservatives, Women 2 Win, Conservative Women’s Organisation, 50:50 Parliament, CARFE, and now 2022 Group. The Party has been captured by liberals obsessed with identity politics. Infiltrated by the Left.” This was in reference to Steve Baker (a self professed Libertarian) showing support to footballers supporting standing up to racism by taking a knee and supporting the 2022 group. 

The question is, what does this reflect? Though for sure the principles he espouses are certainly coherent with the current party, where identity doesn’t matter but instead the belief system held by all these people are the uniting factor and  everything else should be forgotten. This is not inherently a flawed idea. What is a flawed idea, is that anyone who does not subscribe to this idea is Liberals and/or Cultural Marxists. This though is not the case. There is a rich history of the Liberal Tory movement of the 1820’s and the following development of more Liberal Conservatism that predates any reminisce of Thatcherism, but even within this, i find it shocking that anyone would deem a member of any government standing up and stating that racism is bad, and people who are showing support to those who are also saying that is something to be against. 

The reality is that, on the issue at hand, what Baker was talking about, is not reflective of the possible legitimate criticisms of certain demonstrations which involved destruction of property and vandalism. Footballers bending a knee is a prime example of what we deem to be important in today’s society, civil society. The ability to demonstrate and share your views is something this country takes pride on, and people who demonstrate and take action for their beliefs is nothing to be against, and the government being for a demonstration made by citizens of this nation is the incoherent argument for which to base yourself to be a true conservative, whereas the others are liberals. This is not a solely liberal policy, its one of the foundations of this nation’s values, and as conservatives, we are a party and ideology which should champion it, especially considering the claims by many conservatives that they feel as if they are being silenced and have referred to free speech laws in their defence. I agree with them that free speech is important, but in contrast to Robinson apparently, I believe it’s a universality, whereas he deems it to be something that is solely for his side. 

On the second issue in the tweet, being against sections of society having their own group. I am someone who’s not in favour of identity politics. I believe we should not place our identity as someone so important as to demonise others who don’t share it, and put on a pedestal those who do. I also dont believe its the most important thing to be tackling in this country, and I think that we should all primarily come together and just go through our daily lives without considering what gender identity someone may be. With that in mind, the idea that groups such as LGBT Conservatives shouldn’t exist is propostuous. It is something that doesn’t exclude people, that brings people into the party to discuss how to make the party better, and influences its relations to groups that clearly have struggles in relating to a party that they, especially now, deem to have let them down. It’s important for any party to have these groups as they form a basis of influencing how we look at the country from new perspectives, and are important in invigorating the party to keep up with modern times, something the party is known for but since the 1980’s has struggled with.  Now, this may be new to some people, but as an avid football attendee, I’ve seen signs and flags across stadiums of various communities within the fanbase that are being represented, and it’s a thing of pride, I’m sure, for many of those. Philosophically speaking, but I’m sure that many in these groups feel the same when they feel as if they have an area of discussion and debate, and can feel represented in the corridors of power that influence government policy.

The most harmful thing though, is the blatant attack on the Tory Reform Group. For those who don’t know, this is a group that forwards the principles of the One-Nation Conservatives, which is the more liberal side of the party. This idea was originally theorised by Disraeli and coined by Baldwin, but its principles actually predate Peel, the first Prime Minister of the Conservative party. This also has findings in the Tory party, with Pitt being one of the first Prime Ministers to call for the end of the slave trade, Liverpool, along with Castlereagh and then Canning, developing the idea of Liberal Toryism, and Canning’s Little Senate before his time with Liverpool boosting the principles of Liberal Toryism. Effectively, the left side of the Conservative party has a rich history within government and within the party, and has only been out of the limelight during the post-Thatcher period of the party, mainly following John Major. This attack of Conservative identity, ironically so, shows the true agenda of Robinson, as someone who solely wants his idea of Conservatism to be the dominant force in Conservative party politics, and brands anyone who disagreed as ‘not conservative’, yet the reality is that his form of conservatism clearly is not popular with the public, and in fact even with the short tenure of this new government, which is firmly more aligned with Robinson, has had a disaster with the mini-budget being a failure, and poll numbers showing 30%+ deficit to Labour. The reality is that the party needs the Tory Reform Group more than ever to save it from the hard right economics that in a time of a cost-of-living crisis, has freaked the markets out. The markets, for the record, is one of the basis for the hard right as ‘free-marketeers’. 

What we have learnt through this look at what Robinson says is that commentators don’t always reflect realities of situations, and sure perhaps he is representing some people, but foundationally, it’s dripped in fiction and blindness through ideology to the realities of the Conservative party. This party should be welcoming to all who wish to contribute to the forward thinking history of the party, as Peel did what was best for the country,  Sailisbury united people over unionism and Derby and Baldwin furthered democracy. Robinson is someone equally who deserves to be in the party, but his attitude to those who differ replicates that of the lard left in Labour and their attitudes to the moderates. He in fact argues against himself by wanting people united by Conservatism but then discounting those who disagree with him as people of the left. He is a hypocrite, and in my personal view, has discounted himself as someone who can be taken seriously as a Conservative commentator.

The 2010s: Change was the Mantra

The 2010s were a period of great political turbulence. For a decade, we were passengers on a political rollercoaster with dramatic turns shaping the political atmosphere, the rise of political insurgents and their eventual falls, and all with such speed. The Governments of the 2010s were marked by small or no majorities. A big cause for this was the rise, and in most cases fall, of third parties. The 2010s were really an unpredictable period of British political history, and yet, it will also be remembered as a Conservative decade where we saw the same party stay in office, even if it would do so with three different leaders and a remarkably different gleam to the one that took office in 2010.

Notably, the 2010s were filled with ambitious campaigns for change. The Liberal Democrats, who had for two decades been the main vehicle for political reform entered office. Closely followed campaigns which reached their peak for Scottish Independence and independence from the European Union, both of which were driven by third political parties in the SNP and UKIP. Then in 2015 Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, offering a very different vision for Britain driven by a socialist lens. Finally, Boris Johnson entered office in 2019 offering a new vision of levelling up and changing the country’s status on the world stage in a world of Brexit opportunities. For most of these, there were mixed results on how successful they proved to be.

There are two fascinating readings you can make into the 2010s that seem very much contradictory. On the one hand the decade was defined by the return of the two-party system. 2010 had seen the smallest combined vote share of the Conservatives and Labour, yet just two election cycles later in 2017, the Conservatives and Labour achieved their greatest combined vote share in 47 years. Furthermore, the breakthrough of third political parties such as the Liberal Democrats in 2010 entering office and UKIP winning the 2014 European Elections were more noteworthy for their ability to essentially get wiped out in subsequent elections. 

An alternative reading of the success of third parties however would stress just how politics has been changed in the last decade by these third parties. The SNP were able to endure after reaching their peak in 2015 when they went from 6 MPs in 2010 to 56 MPs. They have also gone on to be able to win a majority of Scottish seats in parliament in the two general elections since. Furthermore, in 2019 after just 5 months of creation, the Brexit Party were able to win a national election in the 2019 European elections, following on from UKIP’s footsteps in 2014. Arguably this victory invigorated support for Boris Johnson and dramatically changed the direction of the Conservative Party. Outside of electoral success, third parties have been huge parts of major changes in our society, from the Liberal Democrats key role in the 2013 legalisation of same-sex marriage to the 2016 Brexit referendum which became a major issue following the successes of UKIP in Britain.

The 2010s were a unique time of turbulence in our party system, but however remarkable or unremarkable these third parties were in terms of their electoral success across the entire decade, they changed the fabric of the two parties themselves. From the SNP hindering Labour’s stranglehold on Scotland where they used to be able to rely on over 40 seats consistently going down to just 1, to the Brexit Party which became a major pressure on the future of the Conservative Party, the impact of third parties takes multiple form, both electorally, and through their actions. 

Credible Third Parties: Building up the Third Coalition

Voters and political actors wanting to make radical political change can often find themselves using an avenue outside of the two party system due to a natural belief that as these two parties are the status quo, real dramatic change can only occur outside of these two vessels. Yet most simultaneously understand that every government in the last hundred years has had the Conservatives or Labour Party in control (at least as a senior partner). Because of this there is a naïve view that, for instance as a voter, it is better to pick from a bad pair than waste your vote on a third party that might deliver change. There’s also a lot to be said that the Liberal Democrats in their coalition with the Conservatives had a big impact in declining the reputation of third parties on political change. Looking at an issue such as tuition fees, they fell in line rather than sticking to their guns once in office which had a really dramatic impact on the reputation of the party. The challenge for third parties comes down primarily to one word: credibility. 

Most third parties are hindered by the fact they lack credibility. Most people would agree that of the huge swathe of third parties in the United Kingdom, very few will ever make a breakthrough and make an actual impact on national politics. For those who reside in these small parties which rarely have much, if any representation even at a local level, it doesn’t seem to phase them. Often the members of such parties are very principled individuals who find sticking to what they believe in far more important than coalescing together in order to have an impact on the political atmosphere. This is why often these third parties are mired by splits and infighting. For instance, from 2017 onwards UKIP without the unifying figure of Farage broke down. Following 2017 where its vote share dropped by over 80% of its 2015 figure, it saw a split in the subsequent leadership election where the runner up split off to found her own political party ‘For Britain’. Similarly in the European Parliament caucus, MEPs split off to join smaller minor parties most Brits have never come across such as the SDP, Libertarian Party and the Thurrock Independents. 

The two main parties are often described as being broadchurches and actually one thing cited as a benefit of being a third party is that you don’t have to try to be broadchurch. Yet, the reality is, most successful third parties find themselves having to form large coalitions of support still. For instance UKIP was united behind a single message of euroscepticism, while the Liberal Democrats have been able to keep people together behind being the vessel of political reform, the vessel of social liberalism and more recently being fanatically in favour of the EU. The Liberal Democrats provide a perfect example of third parties coalescing with the SDP and the Liberals merging in 1988 following a disappointing election in 1987. Furthermore, they proved that being a larger coalition was more viable long term, despite an early by-election in which the continuity version of the SDP were able to beat them in their first by-election tes. The sheer political force of the larger coalition of the Liberal Democrats, with more people and funding, were able to overcome that early electoral challenge and in an actual general election far surpass the rival continuity versions of these minor parties.

In terms of the Scottish Nationalist Party, arguably the most successful third party in Britain at the moment, they benefited similarly to how UKIP did: keeping party discipline and unity behind a single issue of Scottish nationalism. Even though today the Scottish Green Party and the Alba Party provide alternative opportunities for nationalists, Alba for instance has failed to make any ground at all in spite of the big name of Alex Salmond. Part of the major success of the SNP has been its ability to adapt with the party originally leaning to the right, but realigning to the left in the last few decades in order to better represent Scottish voters. The success of the SNP has been undoubtedly the biggest demonstration of third party prowess, spurred on by the recently created Scottish Parliament which has allowed it to to stay relevant, and within a political system designed to accommodate for numerous parties. The referendum in 2014 on Scottish independence tells us just how successful this third party was in being decisive in government decision making and putting the issue of Scottish independence onto the table. Third parties really can have a political impact, but their success all too often relies on their ability to diversify with a unifying figurehead, issue or ideology. 

Final Remarks

In this short article I’ve tried to establish two different things. First of all, third parties can influence politics. The 2010s have demonstrated a period of time where third parties came in and out of fashion, but their ability to bring issues to light and enter offices of government really made an impact. I then tried to argue the importance of having third parties which are large coalitions. Without diversification of third political parties they are unable to garner enough support and attention and continue to remain small clubs of powerless people.  

Political reform is something I believe in strongly and when looking at the records of previous governments, it is difficult to expect the two main political parties to be serious at political reform when it is likely to hurt them. Within Scotland it has been seen that adopting a new political system to the Westminster model can change the way in which politics is conducted but that this happens at the detriment of the Conservatives and Labour. Expecting either of these two parties to hurt themselves in order to better the way in which we do politics is rather naive. 

Bringing that together, there is a real place for a diverse third political party to offer an avenue of political change. People should not feel as though they need to vote, campaign or fund the two party system when we have seen in recent years just how impactful third parties can be on our politics. Third parties can have their place in British politics. For now it is a difficult road to travel, for the system works so much against their goals, but for any politically engaged person, I hope that the takeaway from this article is that you do not need to capitulate to the two party system, and that it is perfectly legitimate to support a third party without undermining your own political intentions.

Why we should return to two tier counties

It is often argued nowadays that local government must become more efficient and compact. The unitarisation that has followed has broken up or merged councils to create new unitary authorities in the name of this aforementioned “efficiency”. However this policy in itself is flawed in my opinion and is so for three key reasons; representation, collaboration and specialisation. These reasons are why I believe we should bring back Avon and the two tier counties.

In Defence of Representation

We cannot represent smaller communities with monolithic huge councils nor mid size unitaries. This is where small district councils hold their strength and utility. South Gloucestershire for example has to represent the urban communities of the wider Kingswood area, the northern fringe of Bristol and the rural communities around Yate and Thornbury such as Alveston or pucklechurch. This is quite difficult and builds a reliance on the often elderly tory dominated parish councils whose turnout figures would make any true democrat collapse in horror. District councils are small enough to represent communities but big enough to wield some political and financial power. County councils can then take the role of representing the larger communities and do the more strategic running of large-scale services in that wider interest that they can represent. This is representation done right, local people running local services for locals in their local area.

In Defence of Collaboration

Many hands make light work and this is true in the context of local government. District councils could trial out policies on behalf of county councils and county councils can help district councils collaborate. District councils can learn from their fellow district councils. The more councils we have the more the opportunity for innovations in the ways local councils provide services. Districts can consult on county council services while counties can help with procurement for their districts. We have already seen examples of councils in this way. Just look at Devon with the county council acting in a strategic role in tackling climate change, guiding the districts while councils like Mid Devon district council implement change. Bringing back two-tier counties would see more of this ideally . Now yes this is an ideal but shouldn’t we be building the ideal?

In Defence of Specialisation

A jack of all trades is a master of none but still better than a master of one. And the one virtue of unitary councils is their general ability to do anything while specialising in nothing. Two tier councils can develop specialised services for their area, for instance a more unique education provision over a larger area with an upper tier authority or a more personal way of providing welfare or employment support. Specialisation is why the NHS has many different trusts for different functions. One size fits all authorities just aren’t good enough for our health so why should we trust them for our local governance? Specialised services are what we need for local government. The central government with its eye watering bureaucracy can manage the generalised affairs and we can enjoy the fruits of specialised local labour. We can see this ever present in the juggling of BANES (Bath and North East Somerset) council which must provide for the needs of the urban city of Bath while doing the same for the rural north east Somerset area with vastly different needs. A generalist council is a council that can’t specialise for its local community and as a result we all suffer.

In Defence of Avon

Avon itself was a much maligned county. Avon was hated. Avon was the butt of jokes. But Avon was what we needed even if we couldn’t see it. It was a beauty and it is a beauty that we need now more than ever. So let’s bring back that beautiful county with new gorgeous districts, and many more pretty county councils so we may make local government work better. You may disagree, be disgusted by or detest my words but in defence of Avon I stand for what I have said and hopefully many of you will stand with me. Standing in defence of Avon County Council.

This Article was written by Valerian, an irregular contributor to The Next Conversation. If you have been inspired and would like to join us as a regular, or irregular, contributor, please message @aidancccc on twitter, join our discord or email us at thenextconversationuk@gmail.com