TORIES AT BRIGHTON
By W. J. BROWN, M.P.
IN the past I have attended many Labour Party Conferences and Trades Union Congresses. Last week, for the first time in my life, I found myself at a Conservative Party Conference. It was not in a political capacity, however, that I went to Brighton. I went as a journalist, commissioned to produce a running commentary on the proceedings for an evening newspaper. I found it extremely interesting to compare the conference with conferences of "the Left" which I have attended in the past. Some reflections may be worth recording. The conference at Brighton constituted an essentially middle-class gathering. There was an occasional lord ; there were a number of Conservative trade unionists, and a sprinkling of working-class housewives. But predominantly this was a gathering of men and women (in a large proportion of cases of working-class origin) who had established by their own efforts a recognisable posi- tion in industrial and commercial life. It was a gathering, that is to say, of self-made people, and it embodied much of the typically British virtues of initiative, self-help and independence. Politics apart, it was a gathering of types of which any country might well be proud.
What is conveniently known as "the platform" dominated the proceedings to a much smaller extent than is customary at Labour conferences. At such conferences, Ministers and ex-Ministers speak at great length, often to the exclusion of ordinary delegates who have much that they want to say. At Brighton there was only one speech of an hour's length—and this was after the conference proper was over—to wit, Mr. Churchill's speech at the demonstration at the Dome. Most platform speeches did not exceed ten minutes. Nor were Members of Parliament given the preference they are often accorded at Labour conferences. Indeed, Members of Parliament were told, at the beginning of the proceedings, that they had many other opportunities of spe-aking and that this occasion was essentially one for the ordinary delegate to speak his or her mind. Considering the total amount of time available, a surprisingly large number of the latter did so. There was much less rhetoric, and much more hard argument, than I have been accustomed to at other conferences, and the timekeeping was admirable.
If anything, there was too little " platform " management at Brighton. It is a sound rule that if any considerable issue is exer- cising the minds of delegates, provision should deliberately be made to give feeling the opportunity of expression on a suitable resolu- tion. Otherwise the issue is practically certain to be dragged in in the most awkward and undesirable way. This happened last week. The conference was much pre-occupied with Communist activities in Britain. It was troubled about Communist penetration of the trade unions, about the corrosive effect of Communist doctrines on ordinary standards of political morality, about constant Com- munist denigration of everything British, and still more everything American, in favour of anything Russian. But the " platform " had not arranged for debate on a suitable resolution. So the issue was dragged in by way of an attempted rider to a resolution on Empire policy with which it had nothing to do, and spoken on in language that might have come from a member of the B.U.F. Temporarily the " platform " was reduced to confusion by this irruption, which it had not foreseen. It retrieved, the situation the following day by a resolution which enabled the conference to express its detestation of all forms of totalitarianism—of the Left and the Right alike. But the previous day's incident should and could have been avoided. Curiously enough, too, there was no resolution on foreign policy, though after the economic crisis at home the growing international tension probably occupied second place in the minds of delegates.
At Labour conferences, decisions on important issues are taken by the "card vote." Ostensibly democratic, this method of voting is thoroughly undemocratic. Often the votes of a few big unions, deter- mined by a handful of men meeting in private, override the clear sense of the conference as a whole. And the fact that the effective decision has, for practical purposes, been already taken before the conference meets makes debate somewhat unreal. At Brighton there was no card vote. Speeches were directed to influencing, and did influence, the voting. Right or wrong, the decisions taken expressed the sense of the conference. As between men and women, the con- ference appeared to be well balanced. In both sexes, youth was extremely well represented, both in the composition of the dele- gations from the local associations and in the selection of speakers to the resolutions. This is a circumstance which may pro ll of great importance for the future. Who wins youth today will win the country tomorrow.
For some time after the General Election of 1945 the Tories, both within and without the House of Commons, were dismayed and con- fused. Opposition was divided and uncertain. Brighton showed plainly, I thought, that the Tory Party had recovered its unity, its poise and its spirit. The mood of the conference was expectant, confident and even aggressive. No sentiment was more loudly applauded than Mr. Churchill's demand for an early election. Labour would do well to discard any expectations of an automatic or easy walk-over next time. Two years of Opposition have cleared and improved the Tory mind. That mind is now crystallised on domestic policy, and on the Commonwealth and Empire. In domestic affairs it reiterates its old view that efficiency and rising output call for the free exercise of initiative, enterprise and competition. But it qualifiesthis by an explicit assertion that there must be an irreducible minimum standard of life for every citizen of goodwill, man or woman, young or old. The freedom for which Mr. Churchill spoke so strongly was freedom for every man to try to improve, for himself and his family, that irreducible minimum. Mr. Churchill has in fact succeeded in imposing on the party he now leads the social ethics of the party he left.
The Industrial Charter repudiates the anarchy of laisser faire as firmly as it repudiates the drift towards the servile State. Its philosophy might be defined as "freedom for private enterprise, under the guidance of the State, to serve the ends of society." The charter is more a declaration of principles than a detailed programme. It crystallises an attitude and temper of mind rather than a list of legislative proposals. I would not myself criticise it on this ground. Part of the tragedy of the last two years is that the Labour Party has been the prisoner of the detailed proposals it put to the electorate in 1945, and has had to try to implement them in the wholly different conditions of 1946 and 5947; a little elbow-room has its advantages. About the Tory determination that the Empire and Commonwealth should be free to work out its own salvation Brighton left no doubt. There was a passionate repudiation of the idea that to qualify as a pensioner of America this country should forgo its freedom to develop the closest economic and defensive ties with the Dominions and the Colonies. This view is today widely shared by Labour supporters. It could conceivably lead to a common effort, and possibly an agreed programme, which would take Imperial affairs out of the controversy of party politics.
Time is a strange whirligig. When I was a young man the Labour Party was desperately poor and the Tory Party most vulgarly rich. Now the Labour Party can rely on a large and reliable income from the trade unions, while the Tory Party manager has to go round with the hat. It was a large hat ; but Brighton began the process of filling it. It is plain that the Tories are willing to pay for their politics, and that they even feel a measure of pleasure in so doing. The conference was emphatic that it did not want its candidates to be only well-to-do men who could pay for their expenses. That this sentiment was perfectly genuine I have no doubt whatever.
Whatever the mutterings which have occurred privately during the last two years about the leadership of Mr. Churchill, Brighton left no doubt that he is superbly and supremely in charge of the party. There was deep respect and much affection for Mr. Eden. But for Winston there was something very like worship. Eden may be the Snowdon of the Tory Party. Churchill is its Everest. It would be too much to say that I went to Brighton to scoff, or that I remained to pray. It would be true, however, to say that I saw the Conserva- tive conference in a much better light than I have been wont to do from a distance in the past. If its essential Englishness, its solidity, its sense of the continuity of history and of the immense value of the British heritage could be married to the passion for social righteous- ness which characterises the best in the Labour Party, how great could be the contribution of this land to the world.
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