FROM BRUGES TO BEVERIDGE

Why examining the coalition's DNA reveals the seeds of its own destruction

Marjorie Smith

One of Labour's main strategic pre-occupations has to be how to unpick this coalition of parties (if not of interests).  Any hope of returning to government has to be dependant on the Tories and the Lib Dems either hanging separately or being hung together. Either the coalition splits, or it becomes overwhelmingly unpopular at the next election.

Whilst an extended marriage of convenience, at first glance, may well be in Labour's interest, with the probable deep unpopularity of this coalition becoming a political fact. It would also mean five long years in opposition and having to fight the next general election with a new 'reformed' electoral system stacked against the party.

Make no mistake, the early indications of this coalition's instincts concerning electoral reform do not presage well for Labour. Cameron's proposals to cut 100 plus MPs combined with significant changes to constituency boundaries is a direct threat to Labour's medium and long-term interests. Both the Tories and the Lib Dems will become increasingly desperate to hold on to power in a mutual embrace as electoral unpopularity will surely hit them in the medium-term.

The coalition's pre-nuptial agreement already includes proposals to shore-up the coalition in the face of real threats to its existence. The proposed 55% threshold of MPs needed to call a new general election before a government has completed its five years term of office is a naked attempt start building the first steps into locking Labour out of power for at least one to two generations.

The coalition's proposals to stack the House of Lords with well over a hundred new Tory and Lib Dem peers is a blatant attempt to gerrymander the constitution in favour of the coalition's political interests. A gerrymandering, it should be noted, that was completely absent from either of the coalition's manifestoes. It is also clearly in the interests of the Tories and the Lib Dems as separate parties, as they can reward their financial benefactors and influential supporters with the prizes of patronage.

Whilst most of the Mainstream media in the UK seems to have meekly accepted that the recent compact between the (what is now quite apparent) two UK parties of the centre-right is a sustainable concoction. The DNA of the two parties is still radically different, as any perfunctory analysis of the make-up of either party reveals.

The coalition's leadership may well sit (and fit) comfortably with each other, after all they share common backgrounds, common schools, common universities, all very different from the experiences of the common man. There is very little political capital to be made out of trying to divine differences between Clegg and Cameron (One Nation Tories in all but name) or, for example, between Osborne and Laws (Thatcherite free-marketeers). These are However, there are also significant elements in both parties, presently marginalised, that are as different as chalk and cheese. 

For simplistic (but pertinent) purposes, it is highly revealing to examine the two extremes of the coalition. If one accepts that there are still some well-meaning centrist, or even some who would claim they are of the centre-left, then they are to be found in the Beveridge Group of Liberal Democrat MPs. Whilst many of those on the right of the Tory party are members of the Bruges Group, a radically eurosceptic group that also appears to share a deep and abiding belief in free market fundamentalism with libertarian tendencies.

It is quite apparent that the fault lines between the Tory's Bruges group and the Lib Dems' Beveridge group are very deep and, in the main, irreconcilable on most social and international issues.

It is into these obvious fissures that Labour has to drive home, at every opportunity, exposing the crass hypocrisy that is so blatantly obvious in the make-up of the coalition. The idea that Lib Dem figures such as Simon Hughes and Don Foster can sit comfortably on the government benches with the likes of Bill Cash, John Redwood and the odious David Heathcoat-Amory is an illusion that deserves to be shattered.

The social market values that the Beveridge group purports to share is a total anathema to most Tory MPs (including most Ministers) and that is why most of the Lib Dem MPs belonging to the group have been deliberately ignored for Ministerial posts (even at junior level). This faction of the Lib Dems could be a rich source of discontent and internal unhappiness with the direction of the centre-right coalition.

In Prime Minister's Questions, Deputy PMQs, Ministerial Questions, speeches in the chamber, Select Committee meetings, appearances on TV, radio etc, i.e. at each and ever opportunity, Labour has to focussing on exposing and magnifying the discomfiture of Beveridge group Liberal Democrat MPs. The idea that there is a permanent air to this coalition needs to be exposed as a lie as soon as possible, before the commentariat in the UK media persuade everybody that this is an established fact.

What should also be exploited is the deep, but presently underlying, anger on the Tory backbenchers about Cameron's acceptance about the status quo in the European Union. There are a host of Tory eurosceptics, both inside and outside of Parliament, who viscerally hate the EU and deeply resent having to make accommodations with Clegg over the European issue.

These very same people are ant-statist and instinctively opposed to nearly all aspects of public expenditure (except for the Ministry of Defence obviously). Again, this exposes a rich seam of discord for Labour to exploit mercilessly.

This campaign against this contradictory coalition should also be extended to local government and with party activists. At every turn the Labour leadership, MPs, Councillors, party membership and the wider Labour movement should be exploiting the discomfiture that is already there about this posh alliance and the growing discomfiture that is to come.

Every Labour party member and supporter has an opportunity to contribute to undermining this real threat to labour's interests by foreshortening the lifetime of the coalition by helping to spread a growing discord amongst its supporters and members, thereby establishing an irresistible momentum that will destroy this iniquitous government.