There could be no better accompaniment to a long holiday drive – particularly through France – than the brilliant recent Rest Is History series on the beginning of the French revolution. It not only tells the tale of the extraordinary transformation of France in a few short years, but also reminds us how – for the British conservative in particular – the events remain strong in our imagination. From Edmund Burke to Margaret Thatcher, conservatives view the French revolution as an example of the disorder, chaos and violence that occurs when institutions are swept away. It is a salutary lesson in what happens when the mob takes charge.
For those of us who are children of the 1980s – when riots were more common than today – resistance to mob violence was fundamental to conservatism. Whether it be inner city disturbances or Arthur Scargill’s flying pickets seeking to intimidate working miners, these were not treated – at least not initially – as legitimate grievances that had to be addressed but acts of criminality that had to be punished. Power belonged in parliament, not on the street.
This was not a view that was uniquely held by conservatives but it was, perhaps, held most straight-forwardly and emphatically. The liberal left were more likely to be critical of the police’s behaviour, more sympathetic to the political grievances – if not the methods – of those engaging in violence. The miners’ strike caused Neil Kinnock, as leader of the Labour Party, no end of difficulty as he sought to combine a supportive position for miners facing redundancy while distancing himself from the revolutionary Scargill. Thatcher faced no such complications and conveyed strength and determination.
Forty years on, we have another summer in which men – fuelled by intoxicating substances, self-righteousness and self-pity, and the excitement of a scrap – engage in violence. To the extent that there is a political grievance lying behind this, it is anti-immigration, a cause of the right.
To mainstream politicians, the events of recent days should cause no great political dilemmas. We have seen appalling criminality. The law needs to be enforced, the police backed, and punishment meted out quickly. Even for those of us who believe that we imprison too many people in general, tough sentences serve an important purpose in restoring order in these circumstances. The government has responded appropriately, straight-forwardly and emphatically.
Conservatives should be supportive and broadly have been. Not only is that the right, responsible and properly conservative approach, it is where the public, including their supporters, are. Polling by More in Common shows that the attitudes of Labour and Conservative voters to the riots are broadly similar. When asked whether those participating in the riots and protest “speak for me”, 14 per cent of Labour voters and 16 per cent of Tory voters said yes, 86 per cent and 84 per cent respectively said no. Given a binary choice of whether the protestors are “standing up for” or “shaming Britain”, Labour voters split 79/15 in favour of “shaming”, Conservative voters 75/18.
As one might expect, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters are even more condemnatory of the rioters. The outliers, however, are Reform supporters with 41 per cent saying that the people participating in the riots and protest “speak for me” and 50 per cent saying they are “standing up for Britain”. Just 41 per cent say they are shaming it.
This, for the Conservatives, creates an opportunity where politics and principle happily coincide. Nigel Farage is left in the difficult position where if he strongly condemns the rioters, he alienates broadly half of his support; if he condones them he alienates the other half and makes it harder to broaden his party’s appeal. It is a divide that can be exploited.
Even before the riots began, Farage badly misplayed his hand. His immediate response to the tragic events in Southport was to imply that the killings were at the hands of a Muslim recently arrived in a small boat and that the truth was being covered up. Farage’s intervention must surely have convinced some of the rioters of the truth of these internet rumours.
Even had his implications been true, the rush to put out a statement to that effect was irresponsible. As it happens, it was a baseless claim to which his only defence was that he was a fool, not a knave, essentially arguing that if Andrew Tate had claimed it was the case, it must be true. A shocking – if not entirely surprising – misjudgement.
This should be the moment for the Conservative Party to attack Reform. A leadership election is under way, however, and all the candidates initially appeared nervous about offending the pro-Farage instincts of some of the party membership. To his credit, Mel Stride has in recent days been prepared to call out Farage, followed by James Cleverly. The others are ducking the issue.
The Conservatives do need to win back many of their previous voters who have defected to Reform. But the assumption of many Tories is that they need to become more like Reform to do so. There is an alternative approach which is to expose the thuggery and extremism that, at the very least, is tolerated within the party.
When Farage is caught disseminating baseless internet rumours, when he gives succour to the rioters by denying that the far-right is the issue, when he appears to favour the rule of the mob over the rule of law, he should be taken on. It is time for the Tories to expose him for what he is.
[See also: Hatred and division in deep England]
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