Remaking One Nation: The Future of Conservatism

Timothy, the top political adviser to former British Prime Minister Theresa May, pleads for a reorientation of the British Conservative Party toward a new centrist ideology. The fundamental problem facing the Tories—much like what their Republican cousins across the pond are facing—is the unpopularity of the neoliberal agenda of lower taxes and economic deregulation that the party has espoused since the election of Margaret Thatcher 40 years ago. The consequent rise in inequality, social exclusion, regional blight, environmental degradation, substandard schooling, and rocky race relations has bred cynicism about government. Tory evangelizing about Brexit and nationalist identity politics generated some blue-collar support in national elections in 2019, but what now? Timothy seems sure about what the Tories should oppose: he lambasts stereotypical liberal “elites” who combine free-market economics with pro-immigrant identity politics. Yet he struggles to find an alternative. He proposes a new “communitarian” capitalism, combining a traditionally left-wing agenda of higher taxes, stricter regulation, and worker co-management of firms with stricter controls on immigration and a general (if vague) respect for “the ethnic and cultural identities of white Britons.” How current Conservatives would accept and enact this odd mix remains a mystery.