Exaggeration is the political pundits’ stock in trade: nobody built a loyal readership on equivocation. But Matthew Parris’ recent commentary about the Conservative Party’s direction under Theresa May borders on the hysterical.
A few weeks ago he used his Times column to hyperventilate about a Conservative Party ‘paralysed in the headlights of a dangerous surge of reckless populism and in thrall to its own right wing’. Last Saturday, he returned to the theme and wrote of a ‘deep, deep shift under way in our party…leaving anyone once attracted to the strong strand of tolerance and moderation we found powerful in the Conservative tradition feeling cowed, discouraged’.
You would have thought Matthew might have justified his claims with examples of liberal or progressive policies being junked in favour of new right wing ideas. But no. He didn’t because he couldn’t.
The reality is that Theresa May is extending the fight for women’s rights with her plans for a new Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill. She is using the power of government to defend people on stretched budgets from price gouging by big utility companies. She is funding major reforms to technical education so the 50 per cent who don’t go to university can gain rigorous new T-level qualifications that will equip them for skilled employment in a fast-changing world. Even as Matthew was writing his column accusing the Prime Minister of a rightwards drift, she was defending the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of our GDP on aid and rejecting pressure from the right wing press to scrap it.
So why is he feeling so beleaguered? The answer is simple. He is horrified that the Prime Minister is pursuing a clean break with EU institutions and assumes that this can only mean that she has been captured by the right. But this is groundless paranoia.
That some liberal Conservatives are appalled by the vote to leave the EU, I understand, even if as a fellow supporter of the Remain campaign I do not share their gloom. What I cannot get my head around is why they think membership of the EU is necessary for Britain to be a liberal country and do progressive things. History tells us otherwise. We are the heirs of a long and proud tradition far older and more substantial than the supranational construct of Messrs Monnet and Delors. In 1807, Britain led the way in abolishing the global slave trade. In 2015, Theresa May built on that historic achievement with another fine reform, the Modern Slavery Act. We didn’t need the EU for either.
Theresa May is not given to grand declarations about her political philosophy. But for 20 years she has done as much as anyone to make the Conservative Party more representative, more humane, and more in touch with ordinary people’s lives. We can be confident that any government she leads will display the values she has espoused throughout her political career.
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