Conservative Conference reveals massive internal divisions
- By Sumantra Maitra
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 12, 2015
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David Cameron delivers his keynote speech on the final day of the annual Conservative Party Conference. |
I arrived in England recently to very pleasant weather for the time of the year and equally unpleasant political atmosphere. The Conservative Party conference of 2015 in Manchester reveals the entire political mood in the motherland of modern democracy is anything but democratic.
Walking down the streets of London and Nottingham, I found opposing groups of protesters abusing and spitting at each other. One was close to me, and shouted that immigrants were taking all the jobs, for which, presumably, he was completely unqualified anyway.
However the biggest draw, for several reasons, was the Conservative Party conference. Firstly, it was the first conference since the Tories gained their biggest parliamentary majority since John Major's government in the early 1990s. It was expected to be an occasion for gloating and nobody would blame them.
It was a time for champagne, which duly appeared. This was also due to the fact Labour had just elected a new leader, the controversial Jeremy Corbyn, against all perceivable odds and political calculations. Mr Corbyn wants to see Britain adopt an old-style centralized economy - although his shadow cabinet is divided on that, and on matters such as foreign policy, nuclear deterrence, meat farming and veganism, and a myriad of issues, habitually being highlighted by media.
However, it is my hypothesis that the Conservatives face massive internal differences now hidden from the world and not much covered in media due to being temporarily papered over by a huge electoral victory.
Conservatives in U.K., just like their counterparts in the U.S. are now divided between the free market and liberal conservatives, and an extreme racist xenophobic and virulent ultra-right jostling for power.
Even with the despicable yobbish crowd spitting at journalists and hurling abuse and eggs and colored balls at female Tory ministers standing outside with, take for example, helpless metropolitan police looking on, the Tories tried to give an appearance of outward calm. Their speeches, however, betrayed a sharp difference.
David Cameron and Phillip Hammond were vicious in their criticism of Syria's Bashar Al Assad and the Russian intervention. They highlighted the need to act, amidst deafening silence from the back benches of their own party, who were fundamental in defeating Britain's planned bombing intervention in Syria in 2013.
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