How Thatcher Hurt The Right

When Thatcher assumed Downing Street in 1979, a revolution of sorts had occurred in British politics. For more than three decades, British politicians had committed themselves to a post-war economic consensus: Keynesian economics, state ownership of key industries, strong trade unions, and progressive taxation. After the perceived economic failures of the Callaghan-formed government, which culminated in the Winter of Discontent, Thatcher’s promise to curb trade union power and rein in inflation resonated with British voters. It is important to recognise that Thatcher’s platform was an economic one. Of the five points that headed the Conservative Party’s 1979 manifesto, one pertained to economic growth, one pertained to inflation and the trade unions, and one pertained to streamlining social welfare provisions.

 

Margaret Thatcher presented herself as an economic saviour, and given Britain’s state at the time, it is easy to see why this was appealing. Between October 1978 and October 1979, the retail prices index rose by 17.2%, and Britain was still licking her wounds from the widespread workers’ strikes of the Winter of Discontent. A man acts immediately when he and his countrymen are too poor to eat, but Britain’s ailments in the 1970s were social and spiritual too. While Britons battled the Winter of Discontent, a whole host of cultural problems reared their heads. 1973 was the first year in which the total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a mother of the course of her lifetime) fell below the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman). In the same period, the number of heterosexual marriages fell drastically. After a steady increase between 1959 and 1972, the 1970s saw the steepest decline in marriage numbers, from 426,000 in 1972 to 369,000 in 1979.

The combination of a fall in marriage number with a fall in births indicated the death of the traditional British family. These problems were swept under society’s rug at election time, giving way to the seemingly more pressing economic issues of the time. It would not be accurate to characterise Thatcher as a cultural progressive (she has faced much criticism for her views on immigration and homosexuality). Nevertheless, Thatcher’s laissez-faire attitude regarding economics naturally influenced her statements on social relations. During a 1987 interview with Women’s Own, Margaret Thatcher was questioned as to whether the government had a responsibility to provide for the poor. In rebuke of societal expectations for provisions, she famously quipped,

There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people...

The modern British right has often defended Thatcher, pointing to the idea of self-responsibility but the mindset that we should act independently of one another, and reject the idea of a collective, is contradictory to the idea of establishing a stable societal order, the ultimate goal for conservatives. In his magnum opus, De Officiis, Roman statesman Cicero writes

non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici

This translates to, "We are not born for ourselves alone, our country and our friends have a part in us." For many on the right, this is antithetical to notions of self-ownership. The Thatcher-Reagan revolution of the 1980s was driven by the thought of Milton Friedman, who was a great proponent of self-ownership and private property, and the idea that we are responsible for only ourselves and accountable to only ourselves has dominated conservative circles since. However, if we define conservatism as a social philosophy that seeks to resist hedonism and degeneracy and promote the virtues of religion, family and nation instead, it is clear that conservatism demands collectivism. Institutions like the Church, the nuclear family, and the country are inherently collectivist, and anyone who promotes rampant individualism will inevitably give way to movements that deride conservative institutions. Secularism in the West was brought to the forefront under the guise of Enlightenment individualism, and the reputation of organised religion fell with it. Second-wave feminism was promoted under the guise of making women independent from the bonds of family, and the nuclear family fell with it. Social conservatives should not employ blanket individualism, as individualism betrays conservatism. Thatcher's premiership demonstrates this.

Thatcher's premiership was ultimately detrimental to the Right in that it set a precedent for the Blair premiership. In 2002, Thatcher was asked of her greatest achievement. Did she mention her three consecutive election victories? Perhaps it was her contribution to the Cold War? Was it her two-month defeat of the Argentinians? No, Thatcher responded with "Tony Blair and New Labour". The advent of New Labour spelled a decisive end of the Labour Party's stance as a truly socialist party. Blair, much like Bill Clinton, welcomed market reforms. He welcomed private providers into the NHS while reducing VAT on fuel. Some might see this as a conservative victory, but forget that the bitter trade-off that the Right was forced to accept the end of British traditionalist politics. Blair disempowered Middle England via devolution, before recognising homosexual civil unions a few years later. The nail in the coffin for British traditionalists came in 2011. Cameron, having previously cowered from his opposition to homosexuality, endorsed same-sex marriage. 

Thatcherism has hurt the Right immensely. First, it reduced conservatism to a market obsession. When that was co-opted by the left, the Right had no legs left to stand on, and thus the Overton Window shifted.