Why The British Political System is Biased towards the Conservatives

and Why Constitutional Reform is Desperately Needed.

The Conservative Party has been in power in the UK for 69 of the last 100 years. For 13 of the years it was not in power the country was run by New Labour, who only remained successful because they had moved onto Tory ground. This reduces the period of anti-Conservative rule to 18 years of the last 100. Why is the Tory ideal of the rule of the rich and privileged, and opposition to equality and rule of the people, so popular in Britain? The mechanics of the electoral system and constitution may have a baring on the matter, but I intend to focus on the psychology of voting and political engagement. I propose that the British are different to most western democracies in this respect. The difference is down to history.

Since medieval times Europe has had a political culture that is quite different from the rest of the world. In other places, and in previous times, most societies were ruled by a despot or a godhead – people dealt with the government like they dealt with the weather, they had no control over it, and whether it was acting in their interests or not they just had to cope as best they could. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in Europe the Germanic warriors who re-established society did not have the statecraft to fully impose their will. What evolved was a political contract between the rulers and the ruled. This was firstly between kings and the aristocracy, then by early modern times between the aristocracy and the upper bourgeois, and then in the UK in more recent times between the aristocracy / upper bourgeois and the people.

Most of continental Europe went on a divergent path from England from the seventeenth century. Here, parliaments were closed down and absolute monarchs reigned supreme until a long series of revolutions, invasions and devastations forced European states to start again on first principles, often on multiple occasions. These ‘restarts’ were dealt with in a rational manner that has led most western democracies to espouse the sovereignty of the people. Even where parliaments are sovereign outside the UK the Napoleonic Code makes everybody legally equal. Theoretically, at least, there is no contract between the rulers and the ruled because they are both the same group. In the UK it is quite different: The crown in parliament is sovereign, and although the people are legally free they have never been deemed legally equal – the existence of an aristocracy and a monarchy advertises the fact that we are not. In Britain the old system is still intact - a contract between the rulers and the ruled still has to be negotiated, because theoretically these are still different groups.

This is not to say that states in continental Europe do not have elites that have a disproportionate say in politics. But when the French – let’s say – vote in an election, they do so with a different attitude and expectations to the British. Psychologically, the French people are taking an active part in ruling their country when they vote in elections. The British people are merely negotiating with their ruling class when they do the same thing – they do not think of themselves as ‘rulers’, and they know that the negotiations may not necessarily be successful for them as a whole.

The USA is difficult to explain using these arguments. The American people are sovereign and have been legalistically equal since the civil war, but the elites have in fact become a ruling class through slavery, historical suppression of left wing movements and the presence of ‘big money’ in the electoral system. Sovereignty is not just provided by a law or a constitution, but by power relations between groups and the attitude of the governors and law-makers. The distinction between a nation where the people rule through elites but they are psychologically one group and do not have to negotiate with another, and a nation where the elites are definitely a separate group and a contract between ruled and rulers must be achieved, could be somewhat arbitrary. But in a situation where the elites have assumed the power to ignore the will of the majority, or act without enquiring of the will of the majority, must be one where there is a separate ruling class.

Sovereignty was a concept developed in Europe that explains who the governors govern for, and who has the ultimate authority over a state. Even a dictator cannot rule a state by himself completely arbitrarily. A ruler needs to attract the loyalty of soldiers, administrators, bankers and so on to have any power. This can be done through money, through fear and protectionism – facilitated by an aggressive group who are already loyal to the ruler – through formal consent or popular belief. In medieval Europe monarchs and princes achieved the loyalty of self-interested warriors through their personal capabilities, and were then able to implement power over the people. There then developed the popular belief that the ruler’s sovereignty was supplied by God – the people informally consented to royal rule in return for justice and protection based on religious and moral thought. The warriors became aristocrats and as the monarch had to rely on them to implement his rule they had to be consulted. As technology and culture evolved more groups or classes acquired the power to insist they be consulted, or indeed seize sovereign power for themselves. In England the civil war proved that the king could not be sovereign by himself – sovereignty ended up being shared with the aristocracy and the upper bourgeois, and later on the number of people they were forced to consult grew until it became everybody. In other western democracies it is not that the public merely has to be consulted by their rulers – they are formally their own rulers and delegate the power to rule to some of their number.

The ideology of the Conservative party is a descendent of aristocratic ideology, which is above all else, to hang on to power – which they do tenaciously. The Tory ruling class is completely amenable to giving concessions to the ‘ruled’ in some areas if it means they can carry on ruling. Labour governments, when they happen, do not represent a complete defeat of the Tory ruling class – the ‘ruled’ have merely come to the negotiating table in a particularly strong political position. This ruling class still has control over the economy, the infrastructure, the justice system and the media while Labour is in power. Conservative governments may give a few concessions on behalf of the ruling class, Labour governments generally force some concessions from the ruling class – but the ruling class is still in place and will resume full control when the Tories re-capture government.

Most Tory prime ministers and cabinet members have been old Etonians, they revel in their status as ‘toffs’. They promote the monarchy and British exceptionalism. They have established a personality cult of Winston Churchill as a ‘toff’ who saved the people in their darkest hour and mythically went on to win the Second World War. The Tories are always subliminally telling us that it is the British system of negotiating a contract between the rulers and the ruled that led to the British empire, the Industrial Revolution, the ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ and even the NHS, and that we would be idiots to dump such a glorious way of doing things. According to them it has been historically responsible for all British wealth and power, and despite the fact that they may not like the Tories, a large majority of the British people tend to agree with them.

This association between the Conservatives, the British way of doing things and ‘Making Britain Great’ gives the British public an undeniable bias towards the Tories. Even after Tory governments have provided us with an unnecessary period of severe austerity, a chaotic handling of Brexit, a calamitous lack of care during the Covid pandemic, and an economic outlook that is the direst of all the developed states, the Tories are still riding high in the polls and likely to win the next election. Even when the Labour party has ideas it is at a disadvantage. If it faces the ruling class at the negotiation table with with demands that are too weak, it becomes too much like the Tories – and as the Tories represent the whole ‘glorious’ British system, much of the electorate will side with them, having nothing much to lose. But if Labour becomes too radical – as it did under Jeremy Corbyn and in earlier times, Michael Foot – it is seen as a dangerous attempt to break the system that ‘Makes Britain Great’, even if it might bring more equality and justice.

The Labour party has only had two real successes in its history. Its landslide victory in 1945 was after war, depression and more war – the British had had enough and were in a revolutionary mood. The Atlee government made great steps forwards in economic justice, by creating the NHS and the welfare state. Just as importantly it began an economic system where the government intervened in the economy for the good of the people. But it made no constitutional reform. Due to a lack of economic growth the Tories were to get back in and reconstitute the ruling class in a weaker form. Thirty years later, with economic recession and industrial chaos rampant in the western world, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher took the opportunity to dissolve Labour’s economic settlement, demolish the unions and begin a long process of undermining the other reforms. The ruling class were back at full strength.

The New Labour victory in 1997 was under very different circumstances to 1945. The economic crisis of the 1970s, and the collapse of communism in the east, seemed to indicate the victory of neo-liberalism world-wide and the rejection of socialist ideas. Tony Blair won his landslide due to Conservative indifference to rising poverty, their disunity and economic incompetence. The Blairite stance in negotiating in the name of the ruled with the rulers made very small demands and was in many ways a temporarily successful attempt to make New Labour the new party of the ruling class. Services would be well funded and ‘hard working families’ would be helped, but the Thatcherite free market regime would be left in place and if anything expanded. Private and public debt would facilitate the spending and private investors were corralled into supporting government infrastructure. The public soon fell out of love with New Labour but the party went on to win two more elections because the Tories could find no way to differentiate themselves. The Conservatives then came back into government in 2010 on the back of an austerity policy due to the 2007-8 crash that was caused by neo-liberal policies world-wide.

The Conservative party has an underlying and possibly unconscious sadism to it. To keep the system going the ruling class must be seen to be superior to the rest. They must be at ease with themselves, comfortable, powerful and confident even when they do not know what they are doing. The suppression of the rest of the population through setting it against itself and undermining its chances of economic survival will make the ruling class look even better off and more secure. The Thatcher government did this through aggressively destroying industry and creating millions of redundancies when industry could have been quietly wound down through retirements over time, if it needed to be. The Cameron government placed the costs of depression squarely on the shoulders of the poorest in society. This was all done through the narrative of ‘the government budget is like a household budget’, which all economists and many other people know is untrue, but nevertheless was accepted by the majority for the good of the British system.

When the large economic zone of the empire went, the ruling class of Britain opted to have Europe replace it. When Europe started encouraging equality and popular sovereignty this seemed to undermine the British system and led to some of the ruling class turning against it. This is the origin of the Tory split on Europe – membership of a large trading block is needed to keep the UK living in the state that it is accustomed to, but that trading block undermined their hold on power. Some Conservatives felt that they could maintain their power under a European Blairite-style agenda. Others felt it was a compromise too far and were willing to gamble with the nation’s economic security for a full revival of the ruling class. Brexit won the referendum through the usual appeal to the sanctity and superiority of the British political system, and a phoney appeal for greater democracy.

The egotism of the British public – the need to be seen as superior to other nations – seems to have come from an insecurity about the loss of empire. In modern times, it has been normal for great powers to harbour notions of racial superiority while they are great. It is taking Britain a long time to recognise that it is not a great power any more. This may be because the empire suffered relatively few serious defeats during its time – even the loss of the USA was compensated by the gain of India. Most other great powers have a history of ups and downs, whilst for 300 years or so the British had the experience of becoming consistently more powerful and better off. Even the Second World War, that led to the loss of the empire, was interpreted as a great British victory. The British people are not willing to admit to defeat because historically they are not used to it, they are not willing to recognise the reality of their nation’s decline, and they are ruled by a system that must convince them of their superiority if it is able to survive. The only way to create a properly just and unbiased democratic system is for the British to realise that they are no more exceptional than other countries.

The idea that it is this system of contract between the rulers and the ruled that has led to all British achievements, which there are many, is spurious to say the least. Many great empires have risen and fallen, many civilisations have made great leaps forwards in technology, knowledge and ideology – they have had many different political systems and modes of rule. Relative freedom and wealth may well have helped the British facilitate the industrial revolution. But the fact that the medieval Arabs and Chinese also made giant leaps forwards under completely different political circumstances tends to disprove the theory. The historical Anglo-Saxon knack of impressive economic expansion was down to the fact we were on an island, and therefore relatively secure, we were experts in seafaring and able to dominate the oceans and that led us to monopolise the slave trade and build a fortune. Whether this was down to geographical luck, good decisions, or embarrassingly immoral ones, it had nothing to do with the British political system.

A system with a ruling class cannot be a democracy - for the people have no equal say. It has elements of democracy, but these are suppressed by an oligarchy based on wealth and corporate careerism. How powerful these democratic elements are, are completely in the power of the oligarchy when the ‘ruled’ are at a low ebb politically. Whilst the general public may not always get political decisions ‘right’, the oligarchs have no way to maintain they are more often ‘right’ than the public – especially when membership of the ruling class has no connection to intelligence or morality. If the public in a democracy make a mistake, they make it together and can try to resolve the problem together. Any other system leads to division and exploitation. A ruling class has no reason to understand or particularly care about the needs of the people or real world problems, so long as they can maintain their power by probably insincere concessions. They can escape the deprivations of environmental catastrophe, economic depression, discrimination and even to some extent mental illness, fairly easily.

It is time that England matured into a post-colonial old age, and left its anxiety stricken mid-life crisis over its position in the world behind. England has the human resources, and the know-how, to be a comfortable and content country if it were only to take the decision to do so. This is an English problem, and not a British one – Scotland and Wales long ago learnt to give up any hubris they might have had, have been shackled by the union, and Scotland - at least - is likely to free itself of the system. The only way for England to do this is through thorough-going constitutional reform. If the English are told repeatedly by their politicians, and by their history, that they are not the equals of their bosses and they do not have the competence to rule themselves, many of them will believe this is so. We need a narrative and a constitutional system that gives the people equality, justice and sovereignty. Only then will we be able to fully express ourselves as other nations do, and work to resolve the many economic and social injustices that face this country.

While England remains with its current and long-standing political culture, and constitutional arrangement, it cannot remain happy for long. It may have worked for us once, but it is now based on the delusion that we can be a great power in some respect. In a world that contains giants such as the USA, China and Russia this is obviously a falsehood. Nations that we see as our equals, or even our inferiors, give their citizens greater rights, freedoms and power than we do. This will only create more bad feeling in England. We are led by people who care more about the greatness of the nation, and their association with it, than they do about the people of the nation.

Constitutional reform, or more fundamentally the creation of a new constitution, is something that a moderate Labour leader could bring to the table without having to associate themselves with socialism – which they are loathed to do due to a pathological love of small government. While it is radical, and has the electoral disadvantage of breaking the system, it may act like the 1945 Labour manifesto and actually get the support of the public – if the public is informed properly. If it is done well it will change the country forever, and in a good way.