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.

HAIL CAMERON; THE WORKERS' FRIEND

By Marjorie Smith

David Cameron's recent pronouncement on a future Tory Government's relationship with the rest of the EU will have the delightful unintended consequence of the UK having to fully adopt the working-time directive if the Tories win power at the next election.

What the strategically-inept Tory leader has not factored into his calculations is that far from fatuously claiming he will repatriate powers from the European level, he has by his actions ensured the complete opposite.

The recent comments of the French Europe Minister Pierre Leliouche that Cameron will 'castrate' any UK influence in the EU under a Tory Government, is scarily accurate in his prediction. The tone of Cameron's speech yesterday allied with his decision to abandon the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament is, as seen from the rest of the EU, as foolhardy in the extreme and a strategic blunder of immense proportions.

By the very nature of being in a club with 27 members, deals are done all the time so as to maximise the interests of your own particular Member State. The larger the Member, exponentially, the greater the influence. However, if one wants to take an oppositionist stance within the EU, then one's influence and clout declines dramatically.

The amazing consequence of Cameron's actions is that if he carries on ploughing his lonely furrow in the EU (and wins the next general election) then it can be confidently predicted that the TUC's long campaign for the UK to fully adopt the working time directive will have a successful outcome.

Because the UK is perceived as a constructive and highly influential member of the EU, other Member States are quite prepared to make the odd political accommodation for it, when asked. For some strange reason, the Blair/Brown Government see the UK opt-out to parts of the Working Time Directive as a totemic political issue in the UK. They seem to have been cowered by the right-wing press, the CBI and the City over this issue.

Hence, by explaining to some of its EU partners, the self-perceived difficulties it would face if it had to fully adopt the directive, they have been indulged by a few Member States so as to form a blocking minority, when votes are taken. However, that coalition of Member States is predicated on the UK being seen as a constructive partner in the EU.

If the UK became, once again, a one-person awkward squad then the dynamics of the UK's relationship with its EU partners would change dramatically. At present the Member states that support the UK in its (so far successful) campaign to keep the opt–out are Poland, Germany, Estonia, Bulgaria, Malta and Slovenia.

It is extremely unlikely that a Merkel-led coalition (with the liberal Free Democrats) will continue to support the UK over this issue, especially as Cameron has already led his party out of the main centre-right group to set up his own group made up of the vacuous, the vile and the venal under the banner of the European Conservatives and Reformists. In addtion, when a large Member State switches position, then it is normally followed by at least one or two smaller Member States.

Consequently, when the working time directive is next reviewed, the UK will find itself isolated, or with insufficient friends to be able to successfully block any changes to the Directive. The UK opt-out will disappear, we will have to adopt the directive in full and Cameron will have egg all over his face.

All this because of Cameron's lack of strategic thinking, which, except for unintended consequences, bodes ill if this man ever get the keys to number ten.