Calls begin for the Break-up of the Coalition before the Election

Lost amid the (justified) fuss about Mrs Miller’s Elite Housing Benefit (or Barn Benefit, as it became in the end) was a very interesting document published by the Bow Group, a Tory discussion group whose members assure me it is no longer the flabby Butlerite organisation it used to be.

 

They wrote and told me about it, quoting a number of people including no less a person than Lord Tebbit, urging the break-up of the Coalition before the election (an event I have many times predicted, and which, if it comes, must come soon after the Euro and local government elections in May. Let us see how bad these are for both Tories and Liberal Democrats).

 

Personally, I don't think anything can now save the Tory Party as an actual organisation, thought its image may be bought and sustained by British oligarchs, and maintained by state subsidies and by BBC rules on airtime which inevitably favour established, dying parties against new, lively ones.  But the mere expression of the sentiment is interesting, as is David Davis's long-awaited (and in my view far too late) declaration on quitting the EU in this week's Mail on Sunday.

 

This is one of those moments when the old incantations of loyalty and conventional wisdom just don't work as well as they used to. Let's quote some Bob Dylan, from his Suze Rotolo phase: 'The words that are used to get the ship confused, will not be understood when they're spoken - for the chains of the sea will have busted in the night, and be buried at the bottom of the ocean'. (Actually, Dylan says 'barried', but I'm sure he means 'buried').

The document was timed for the Tory Spring Conference, but may seem more pressing about a month from now when we finally disciver just what the Farage effect is (quite big, but not quite big enough, is my guess).

By the way, have Nick Clegg’s chances of remaining leader of his party into the election been increased or reduced by his performance against Nigel Farage, do you think? 

 

Here’s what the Bow Group said

: ‘It is time to return to conservative principles and dissolve the coalition

 

On the day of the Conservative Party's Spring Conference a host of Conservative MPs, Lords, journalists and activists call for the dissolution of the Coalition and a return to freedom and democracy in the Conservative Party"

 

On the need for the coalition to breakup, there are a number of supportive figures within the party calling for the Conservative party to ‘go it alone’ to propose conservative legislation as a minority administration. This would not only go some way to winning back lost core supporters, but would also allow the Conservative party to make the tough decisions necessary to restore our economy back to full health.

 

Ben Harris-Quinney, Chairman of the Bow Group: “Despite progress on the economy, genuine popular opinion and the sense of being the force behind a national movement have been lost by the Conservative Party, and at the current rate UKIP will overtake the Conservative Party as a membership organisation within 7 years. At least to the country at large, it will be impossible to define our own ideology as a party whilst in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and if we can't do that before the next election, it will be impossible to win a clear and Conservative majority. That is why we call for the dissolution of the Coalition Government, to allow the Conservative Party a year to set out its stall to the country as a party of solid conservative ideology. A party of competence and long-term vision as well as short-term pragmatism.”

 

Lord Tebbit: “The coalition is “beginning to smell past its sell by date, and the sooner it is broken up the better, never to be returned to. What’s more, there really were no excuses for David Cameron's failure to win enough support from the electorate (in the last election). His attempt to win Lib Dem support by moving across towards the Lib Dems ideologically meant that he reinforced the conviction of Lib Dem voters that the Lib Dems were right, but left many of our own voters feeling lost.”’