[Militant No. 709, 20th July 1984, p. 6]
By Lynn Walsh
The miners‘ strike has shattered the illusion of Thatcher’s impregnable majority.
Preoccupied with class battle in the coalfields, where they thought they would win a quick and easy victory, the Tories have committed a series of disastrous blunders on other fronts: on Liverpool (forced to capitulate), on the EEC (chicken-feed at Fontainebleau), on the GLC elections (defeated by Lords), on GCHQ (TU ban condemned in the High Court), and on the economy (City blames Lawson’s tardy intervention for the sudden leap in interest rates).
These banana skins have led The Economist (7 July), which once trumpeted praise for Thatcher & Co, to warn that her government is becoming the “most inept since the war.“
This turn of events, only a year after the general election, also refutes the pessimistic idea adopted by the Labour leaders – that Thatcher’s 144-seat landslide made her invincible for the foreseeable future.
Her apparent strength rested on only 42% of the popular vote (1.5% down on 1979) or only 30.8% of those eligible to vote. In his recent book, Francis Pym correctly observes that „a true verdict was never delivered“.
Rather than vindicating the government’s policies, he writes, the landslide „owed far more to General Galtieri and Michael Foot than it did to Milton Friedman“ the prophet of monetarism.
From his own standpoint, Pym confirms Militant’s assessment at the time. Thatcher’s lucky victory in the South Atlantic enabled her to project an impression of strength and to draw on the nationalistic prejudices and nostalgia for past glory dredged up by the Falklands war.
Cracks open
The Labour leaders, some of whom spent most of the campaign attacking Labour’s own manifesto, failed to put forward a credible alternative. The Alliance, especially the SDP, backed by big business and built up by media, served its purpose in splitting the traditional Labour vote. Thus through a presidential-style campaign which deliberately skirted round the real issues, Thatcher was able to secure electoral victory.
Faced with the dock strike-and the possibility of a general strike, a „senior minister“ confessed to The Guardian (16 July) that „last year’s election triumph was at the heart of her present difficulties.“ Victorious only in terms of seats, the Tories „had really suffered defeat in terms of votes. Yet the manner of Mrs Thatcher’s exercise of power, he said, had not reflected this fact.“
The results of the local elections, of six Parliamentary by-elections, and the Euro-elections have revealed a dramatic erosion of support for the Tories. The results particularly show a melting away of support amongst the middle class strata whose support is vital to the Tories.
At a recent conference in Wales, for instance, farmers‘ wives who previously voted Tory pelted Thatcher with eggs – and handed the ammunition out to miners‘ wives as well.
They are mainly switching to the SDP / Liberal Alliance, the capitalists‘ safety net for disaffected Tory votes. At the same time, working class voters who had illusions in Thatcher or abstained because of disillusionment with the last Labour government, are increasingly turning out to support Labour.
The brutal facts of economic decline, aggravated by the Tories‘ harsh attacks on workers‘ conditions, are destroying confused illusions in Thatcherism and this is unmistakably expressed in election results which have been systematically played down by the Tory press.
In the local elections, the Tories not only forfeited control of Birmingham and Southampton, but they lost their majority position even in such true-blue areas as Cheltenham, Eastbourne, Gloucestershire and West Oxfordshire.
In the EEC elections, the Tories lost 15 seats to Labour and there was a particularly big swing to labour in London, where Labour had done badly in the general election. This undoubtedly reflects massive opposition to Tory moves to wind up the GLC and abolish next year’s GLC election.
For a government which supposedly achieved a „landslide“ only last June, the Tories have suffered humiliation in recent Parliamentary by-elections. The Tories vote has dropped in all six.
In Chesterfield, where Tony Benn increased the Labour vote, the Tories came in third place with only half their previous vote. In Cynon Valley, the Tories scraped a mere 2,441 votes and came fourth after Plaid Cymru.
The latest defeat in the Portsmouth South by-election has sent the alarm bells ringing in the Tory Party’s inner councils. This was considered a safe Tory seat, and the by-election campaign coincided with the D-Day celebrations which were expected to revive pro-Tory feelings in relation to the Falklands. Yet the Tory candidate polled only 14,000 votes compared to 25,000 in the general election, losing the seat to the SDP.
Writing in The Times (21 June), Ronald Butt gave a glimpse of the turmoil provoked among Tories: „Conservative anxiety about the future now extends beyond those with a personal or doctrinal grievance against the Prime Minister. Some of them not only believe that it is time for a change of key, but also associate this with a change of leader before the next general election … Portsmouth has sounded a warning signal to the Conservatives, and it is essential that they should start to think about the dangers ahead.“
Since then, there have been „mutterings“, among Tory MPs about replacing Thatcher. Last weekend, Biffen set out to dismiss rumours of palace coups, challenging the malcontents to stand against Thatcher for the leadership in the autumn. It was immediately reported, however, that one group of back-bench Tory MPs was planning to put up a candidate precisely to test the strength of the opposition and to expose the extent to which Thatcher has been undermined.
The Tories and their big business backers in the wings are unlikely to move against Thatcher immediately. That would destroy the credibility of the Tory Party, which has appeared as a band of Thatcherite loyalists, and disastrously undermine their support in coming elections.
Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall. Thatcher, who once upon a time could do no wrong, is now being lined up as the scapegoat. However, her government is coming apart not just because of her personal ineptitude but because of the crisis in the system-and the hammer blows delivered by the miners. If the Labour and trade union leaders were giving a lead, this reactionary government could be swept away now.
Nevertheless, the firm, resolute, apparently unbending leadership of Thatcher will, under the impact of impending events, give way to the fragmentation of the Tory leadership and the shattering of the Tories ‚ electoral basis .
Under the corrosive effects of the class struggle the figure of the Iron Lady will crumble into a heap of rust.·
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