Fascism, Thatcherism And The New Right

Margaret Thatcher entered Downing Street as Britain faced continuous economic struggles after the winter of discontent and enormously high levels of inflation. Some say she increased inequality, others say she saved the economy. Thatcher was evidently a divisive figure, largely down to the transformative measures she implemented. These measures were so significant and long-lasting, Thatcher s ideologies and policies have been placed under the family of isms - Thatcherism . Academics and scholars are still today debating the nature of Thatcherism. Thatcher is often regarded as being part of the New Right , yet this is far from a universal conclusion. In order to reach a coherent conclusion on this contentious debate, a working definition of the New Right must be established in order to provide a methodological framework for the necessarily analysis to take place. However, firstly, the political context in which Thatcher operated in must be examined. A central theme in this political context was the role that the fascist National Front had on the Conservative Party in the 1960s and 1970s. A definition and examination of fascism will be supplied in order to understand the extent to which fascism impacted the Conservative Party. The 1970s ended with Thatcher crushing the National Front in the 1979 General Election and she was then able to transform British politics. Thatcherism and its policies naturally presents the question Should Thatcherism be considered part of the New Right?

Fascism did not emerge until relatively early in the 20^th century. As Payne stated, neither a fascist nor a fascist doctrine existed as such before 1919 .[1] Payne also stated that fascism is probably the vaguest of contemporary political terms. This may be because the word itself has no implicit political reference .[2] However, Ernst Nolte identified a six-point fascist minimum .[3] It is expressed as antimarxism, antiliberalism, anticonservatism, the leadership principle, a party army, and the aim of totalitarianism.[4] As Payne highlights, this typology correctly states the fascist negations .[5]

The 1970s was a new era for right-wing fascist groups. This was because the National Front, led by Chesterton, formed in 1967, after numerous pre-existing fascist parties, including The League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party merged in order to unite the once disunited extreme political right of Britain.[6] The uniting of these fascist groups did at first appear to be politically successful. As Lohe highlighted, the results of some local and Parliamentary by-elections in the early 1970s, appeared to suggest that the Front was making progress.[7] However, as Lohe also highlighted, this progress did not materialise in the early 1970s, as the Front s average share of the poll was 0.5% lower in 1975 compared to 1970.[8] However, despite its limited electoral effect, the National Front was nevertheless growing. As Hanna identified, membership of the front had increased by 50% between 1972 and 1973.[9] In addition, branches of the party had increased by a dozen in 1973 as well.[10] Towards the end of the decade, in the 1979 General Election, the Front mobilised more than 300 Parliamentary candidates.[11]

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Conservative Party did find themselves associated with fascist tendencies. Conservative MP Peter Griffiths stated in 1964 if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour .[12] In addition, as Longpr highlighted, the National Front included members who served as Conservative councillors in the 1960s and 1970s.[13] Moreover, Conservative politician Enoch Powell referred to black children as wide-grinning piccaninnes .[14] Furthermore, Powell s infamous Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 warned of the national danger of the growth of a population descended from immigrants .[15] As Taylor stated, whether Powell intended to or not, Powell had given mainstream respectability to the kind of racist language and opinions held by the far right and supplied a new organisation, the National Front, with the oxygen it needed to grow .[16] The Rivers of Blood speech was certainly influential in racializing immigration discourse. Powell was keen to embrace the counter-culture politics of the 1960s by channelling the anger felt by many traditionalists and conservatives (with big and little Cs) at the onward march of multiculturalism and the dreaded permissiveness into a new kind of Toryism .[17]

Counter-culture politics was not exclusive to the political right either. Tony Benn, aimed to take the left away from Wilsonianism and re-invigorate British socialism in the 1970s and 1980s .[18] As Cockett highlighted, there was certainly this sense of disillusionment with Whitehall and Westminster, which paved the way for forms of counter-culture politics both on the left and right of the political spectrum.[19] Cockett argues that the reason for this was because the political mind-set of parliamentarians had been forged in the ideological struggles and debates of the 1930s and 1940s .[20] There was therefore a clear sense of disjuncture between the politics of desire and the politics of Westminster .[21] This sustained fascisms prominence in British politics right up until the 1979 General Election.

Thatcher knew that she must win back National Front voters in order to form a government.[22] Central to winning back votes from the National Front was a broadcast in 1978, when she stated British people feared that they might be rather swamped by people with a different culture and, you know, the British character has done so much for democracy, for law, and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in ... We are a British nation ... with British characteristics .[23] Despite uproar from the press, public opinion was very much behind Mrs Thatcher s comments .[24] Her swamp rhetoric clearly echoes a tough stance on immigration. This massively contributed towards the Conservatives achieving a majority at the 1979 General Election. The National Front were convinced that 1979 was their time for an electoral breakthrough.[25] However, they achieved just 1.4% of the vote.[26] A humiliating defeat - which the party never recovered from. Thatcher had evidently undercut fascism and fascism was sent back to the fringes of British politics.

It is critical to conceptually distinguish how fascist philosophy differs from that of the New Right. The New Right refers to an intellectual movement in the United Kingdom and the United States that emerged in the 1970s within the Republican Party and the Conservative Party retrospectively.[27] Key thinkers of this movement included Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Freedman, and to a lesser extent Barry Goldwater, and Sir Keith Joseph .[28] As Beech stated, the New Right was new in reaction to the established interpretations of conservatism that existed in both the Conservative Party and the Republican Party.[29] Marchak defined the New Right as rejecting the Keynesian consensus of the post-war era, and extols the virtues of free enterprise and entrepreneurship .[30] Marchak s reference to the Keynesian consensus must be analysed. Marchak argues that this consensus was shaped on steel industries, mass production and mass consumption, nuclear families, and nation states .[31] Marchak went on to state that the New Right expresses dissatisfaction with democracy, equality, social welfare policies, collective bargaining, and other citizens rights achieved throughout the previous three decades .[32] Gamble echoes this definition, as he stated the New Right broadly sought to connect free-market liberalism with social conservatism and to reassert the traditions of social order and public morality to conservative politics in the face of the emergence of the permissive society .[33] The New Right could therefore be summarised as being neo-liberal .[34] Yet crucially, the New Right is not a hegemonic term. It does vary in different contexts. As Gamble stated, the New Right is not a single body of doctrine.[35] Kerr and Marsh even compared the New Right to a chameleon as it lacks any precise definition.[36]

However, it is clear that the New Right is not ideologically compatible with fascism, as fascism is both anti-liberal and anticonservative. Moreover, the New Right do not share the fascist aim of totalitarianism nor the deployment of a party army, so it is evident that the New Right and fascism are not ideologically linked in any way.

Based on Marchuk s definition of the New Right, it is clear that Marchuk would place Thatcherism in the category of New Right. This is because she states by the end of the 1970s this ideology (New Right) was adopted by the British government .[37] As Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in 1979, it is therefore logical to postulate that Marchuk would consider Thatcher to be New Right . However, this conclusion should not necessarily be universally postulated. Analysis of the link between the New Right and Thatcherism has resulted in conclusions which are miscellaneous. This is largely down to the fact that Thatcherism in various socio-economic and temporal contexts embraced various principles. Whilst there may have been broad principles that can be identified with Thatcher government throughout the 1980s, such abstract tenets allowed significant room for evaluation and pragmatism, which may, in part, help explain the varied impact of many initiatives .[38] As Beech stated, the terms New Right and Thatcherite are not synonyms .[39]

However, Marchuk s definition of the New Right will be deployed as a methodological framework and an analytical tool to conclude whether Thatcherism should logically be considered part of the New Right or not. It will not be possible to examine every Thatcherite policy or ideology, but some core themes within the notion of Thatcherism will be analysed.

There are plenty of indicators of the links between Thatcherism and the New Right. As Taylor stated, she led the party in a significant shift to the right .[40] The newly formed Conservative government was determined to end British decline and the crisis of state authority by making an ideological and political break with social democracy .[41] Central to Thatcherite economics was individual liberty, which is economically contingent on the notion of laissez-faire . This is an economic model which was formed by the prominent philosophers Adam Smith and John Locke.[42] Laissez-faire rests on the axiom that the individual is the basic unit in society. This ideology was certainly advocated by Thatcher. As Coutts et al stated, the Thatcher government embraced a laissez-faire approach to the supply side of the economy .[43] There are an abundant amount of examples which verify this. Firstly, Thatcher reversed the 1940s settlement of nationalisation, by selling nationalised industries back into private ownership.[44] Numerous industries such as steel, railways, airways, airports, aerospace, gas, electricity, telecoms and water were all privatised.[45] This was done to take Britain away from social democracy, and to create a free society and it is clearly ideologically linked to the New Right.[46]

As Marchuk previously identified, the New Right extols fee enterprise and entrepreneurship.[47] This naturally includes removing state intervention and regulation. Thatcherism actively did this, by rejecting the Keynesian consensus of labour protections. As Marchak highlighted, by the end of the 1980s, unions were struggling to survive due to less bargaining power.[48] This was achieved by numerous forms of anti-un ion legislation in Thatcher s first term.[49] Moreover, Thatcher attacked the current high levels of public spending.[50] These policies did cause social division and anger - reflected by the miners strike in 1984.[51] Thatcher would not back down either, referring to the miners as the militant miners .[52] It is therefore evidently clear that Thatcher was influenced by the New Right.[53]

Another characteristic of the New Right, which Marchuk identified was the dissatisfaction at the notion of equality.[54] As Dorey highlighted, intrinsic to Conservatism is the premise that inequality is both inherent in free societies, because of innate differences in human nature .[55] Therefore, Conservative ideology is anti-egalitarian and Thatcher clearly advocated this ideology. Dorey highlighted five subtle ways that Thatcher abandoned egalitarianism. They are: highlighting the allegedly pernicious consequences of egalitarianism venerating the rich as wealth creators who provided jobs and prosperity for everyone else conversely, pathologising poverty, whereby socio-economic deprivation was attributed to individual deficiencies, rather than systemic or structural factors blaming the poor themselves, rather than capitalism or the market impugning the motives or legitimacy of those who advocated equality enacting specific policies which, directly or indirectly widened the gap between rich and poor .[56] It is therefore evident that Thatcher was anti-egalitarian.[57] This provides further indication that Thatcherism should perhaps be categorised as New Right .

Indicators between Thatcherism and the New Right are not just exclusive to economics. As previously examined, Thatcher s speech in 1978 warned the country of the affects that immigration would have, and this echoes New Right tendencies. Thatcher s remarks exacerbated already innate preconceived ideas about the compatibility issues between the white Briton and the immigrant [58]. Thatcher s hostility went further than rhetoric. In 1981, she passed the British Nationality Act which restricted eligibility of British citizenship for immigrants.[59] As various scholars such as Diamond highlight, far right politics, (subsequently New Right) and anti-immigration ideologies are often inextricably linked.[60]

As Matthews summarised, Thatcher s record is usually summarised as heavy on union-busting, spending cuts, privatization and deregulation, undoing as much as she could of the social welfare that Asquith and Attlee built .[61] It is therefore no wonder, that many scholars such as Marchuk and Matthews associate Thatcherism with the New Right.

However, there are anomalies in the categorisation of Thatcherism within the paradigm of the New Right. As Marchuk previously stated, the New Right reject Keynesian concepts and the imperativeness of the nation state is a core Keynesian concept. Despite allegations of Britain s plans to dispose of the Falkland Islands, Thatcher insisted on reclaiming the Islands after they were invaded by Argentina.[62] We have to recover them for the people on them are British they still owe allegiance to the crown and want to be British .[63] Thatcher certainly did not abandon the imperativeness of the nation state.

Further anomalies can be discovered based on Marchuk s definition of New Right and subsequently the rejection of Keynesianism. Thatcher was an avid promoter of the nuclear family. She frequently voiced her support for this family model, for example, she said government could only get to the roots of crime and much else besides by concentrating on strengthening the traditional family .[64] Macintyre even argues that Thatcher lit the torch for traditional family values .[65] Moreover, other anomalies are discoverable. As Evans stated, Thatcher did have budgets which proposed increased taxation. Furthermore, as Vidal stated, Thatcher will be remembered for her short lived green period in the late 1980s when she helped put climate change, acid rain and pollution on to the mainstream political map . Certainly in a contemporary sense, advocating green policies are often not linked with New Right and right-wing politics in general. Therefore there are numerous anomalies which cast doubt on whether Thatcherism should be placed in the paradigm of the New Right or not.

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