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Tories turning anti-war
During the British general election in May, Iraq was ignored as much as possible by Tony Blair, who merely said that we must draw a line under the war and "move on," although moving on from a calamity is never easy. But now the issue has erupted onto the political stage here, and in unforeseen fashion.After the Conservatives' third successive defeat, Michael Howard resigned as party leader. As the contest to succeed him warms up, the question of Iraq is eclipsing the divisions over Europe that have for too long poisoned the Tory party. When Kenneth Clarke, the chancellor of the Exchequer in the last Conservative government, stood before for the leadership, he was unpopular with some Tories because of his attachment to European integration. But with that issue faded, he has now staked his renewed bid on his opposition to the Iraq war, which was "a disastrous decision," he says. Both in America and England, the politics of the war were never clear-cut. Differences cut across party lines and defied the stale metaphor of left and right. In Washington, bizarrely as "the realists." In London, Blair cajoled or bullied a majority of his MPs into supporting the war and relied on the support of the official Conservative opposition during the brief sojourn of Iain Duncan Smith as party leader before he was brutally ejected in a party coup. Duncan Smith vied with Blair in his enthusiasm for the war and his uncritical support for the Bush administration, as did his predecessor, William Hague. His successor, Howard, went further still. Yet there are also Tories who opposed the war, including men eminent in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. One is Douglas Hurd, a former foreign secretary. His warnings were echoed by other former cabinet ministers like John Gummer and Douglas Hogg. Another ex-chancellor, Norman Lamont, has endorsed Clarke's bid, as well as his description of the war as "a diversion from the core task of the pursuit and destruction of Al Qaeda." Malcolm Rifkind, one more former foreign secretary, also a contender, repeats his view that the war was "extremely foolish and unnecessary." All this has much enlivened the Tory contest, but it should not really be so surprising. Polls confirm that the Iraq war was markedly more unpopular among ordinary Conservatives than Labour voters. Some Tory MPs say privately that their constituency party members were 2-to-1 against the war even when it began. There has always been a curious paradox in the position of Tory right wingers, violently hostile to the European Union but supporting the United States without question, even when it is perfectly obvious that American and British interests cannot always coincide. In most European countries, there are parties of the right on the Gaullist model, whose primary definition is the national interest of that country. Only here do we have a dominant section of the Tory party who believe that they should always support the national interest of another country. Those Tory Europhobes rage against the threat to our sacred national sovereignty from bureaucrats in Brussels, and yet seem happy for England to become a client state of Washington, and for the British Army to serve as the American Foreign Legion. At times the Tories have looked like what, in a lethal phrase, Leon Blum years ago called the French Communists, "a foreign nationalist party." Now the contradiction is sharper than ever. Toryism, or English Conservatism, has traditionally been pragmatic and unideological, and the conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott used to say that it had nothing in common with any of the categories of Continental politics. Today one could add that English Conservatism has nothing in common with American neoconservatism. Oakeshott also said that Conservatism was not a doctrine but a disposition; neoconservatism is a doctrine and a half. Polls show Clarke far ahead of his Tory rivals in public support. Iraq may not be not the main reason for that, but the fact that all along he called the war dishonest and said that it would lead to chaos in Iraq and an increased terrorist threat here has done him much good. He and those other Tory sceptics are entirely different from the reflexively anti-American left. They would warmly embrace American allies: not the neo-cons, but men like Haass. "Democracy is difficult to spread and impossible to impose," he has said, and Clarke and Rifkind would surely echo those words. For some time past the Tories have looked in deep trouble, maybe even terminal. It might just turn out that their salvation is as a truly sceptical or realistic party of the national interest. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-09-09 |
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