Sean Gabb outlines recent British history, with emphasis on “the project” — the gradual take-over of the educational and cultural power-centres of Britain by a self-styled new ruling class and the total melt-down of the Conservatives:
Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs at an informal meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council on 15 February 2018.
Photo by Velislav Nikolov via Wikimedia Commons.
I will begin with what I believe has been a loose Project unfolding through my entire life. Since about the 1960s, we have seen the rise of a new ruling class, committed to the transformation of Britain into a new sort of country. Because I have discussed the Puritan Hypothesis at some length here and here, I will now give only a summary. In short, the new ruling class wants to reshape our thoughts into its own conception of The Good. This means a long-term project of securing cultural hegemony through control of education and the media, and a shorter-term project of compelling us to act as if we already believed in the new order of things. Though I will emphasise that it is in no meaningful sense either Marxist or socialist, the overall Project has been carried through by a careful use of what Louis Althusser called the ideological state apparatus and the repressive state apparatus.
One important element of this Project has been to maintain the appearance of political diversity. Because Britain — or at least England — is a rather conservative nation, this means ensuring a Conservative Party that makes conservative noises, but never does anything measurably conservative. I spent several years after 1997 grumbling about “the Quisling Right.” Though I have mostly fallen silent since then, here it is the idea of the Quisling Right briefly stated in a speech I gave in 2005 during a debate with Boris Johnson.
Though I will not call their predecessors real conservatives, the Conservative Party was taken over in 2005 by a small group headed by David Cameron. These people spent the next five years making vaguely conservative noises, without ever challenging the new order of things that had come fully into shape under the New Labour Governments. Because of this, they failed to win an election against Gordon Brown, but were able to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, who were just as committed to the new order of things as Labour.
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I think it a reasonable conclusion that the Conservative Party is the Quisling Right — and, or but, or both, that it is run by a clique of politicians unfit for any conceivable purpose. Theresa May will leave office with the label fixed to her of the worst Prime Minister in history. But the reason she was able to last so long is that she had no obvious replacement. As I write, her most likely replacement is Boris Johnson. He is lazy. He is unprincipled. He is a thug. He is an adulterer who paid for at least one of his mistresses to have an abortion. He was a ludicrous Mayor of London. He was the worst Foreign Secretary I can recall. This Conservative Government has landed us in a first-class national and international crisis. It has provoked the European Union into refusing to entertain any leaving terms short of the ruinous. It has made no good preparations for leaving without a deal. It has landed us in a position where the best exit involves throwing ourselves on the mercy of the Americans, and to hope that they will treat us no more ruthlessly than they did in 1940. The last person we should ask to navigate this crisis is Boris Johnson.
It seems the sheep in the Parliamentary Party have agreed he is their only hope of keeping their seats at the next election. Perhaps the Party membership will be taken in by his Churchillesque wind-baggery. But this will not do. He will be brushed aside by the Europeans. He will be taken for a ride by his fellow Americans. That is if, before then, he can avoid a general election in which he will by murdered by Jeremy Corbyn. I am told, in his defence, that only he who is without sin should cast the first stone. Well, I have never done what Boris Johnson so far has. So, if I am not the first to ask for one, hand me a stone, and make it a big one.
No conspiracy here. These people have failed us. But it was never their purpose to do otherwise. More importantly, they have failed the Project. For that, I suppose, we should feel minimal gratitude. Even so, their survival in office for so long raises a further question with no comforting answers. How could a clique of total incompetents have been allowed, without meaningful challenge, to take over and run into the ground one of our main parties of government? What does this say about us as a people?
