There are many problems with describing politics in terms of left and right – and one of them is that it encourages us to see the main political parties as mirror images of one another. Of course, symmetries do exist on issues like public expenditure (the left wants more, the right wants less). But beyond these matters of political economy, there’s something profoundly asymmetrical about the red and blue corners of the British political arena.
In particular, the mainstream right is much more tolerant of ideological differences than the mainstream left. British Conservatives are able to hold sharply differing views on hot-button issues like abortion, immigration, climate change, capital punishment or foreign intervention and still co-exist. To an increasing extent the same does not apply on the other side of the aisle. Thoughtful leftwingers can quite easily find themselves beyond the pale if they think (and say) the 'wrong' things.
Dissident lefties like the Blairite Dan Hodges or the liberal interventionist Nick Cohen often find a friendlier reception on the right than the left. The same goes for David Goodhart, the editor of Prospect. His thought-crime was to question the liberal left orthodoxy on immigration. In a confessional piece for Standpoint – the centre-right counterpart to Prospect – he gives an account of himself:
By his own admission, he was for most of his adult life an unthinking subscriber to the standard line:
Though it’s still a touchy subject on the left, the wider debate on immigration has become a great deal more open in recent years. It is now possible to address issues of identity and citizenship without being accused of racism. Yet for many decades, the grip of political corrrectness was stronger on this issue than any other. Goodhart has some interesting ideas as to why this was:
There’s an important lesson here for the right. When conservatives have nothing constructive to contribute on an issue, it gives the doctrinaire left an opportunity to establish an ideological monopoly, one which can take a long-time to break open.
We should therefore take encouragement from the fact that the modern-day British right is a place of diverse opinions and lively debate. Unlike the American right, conformity is not confused with authenticity.
But you may disagree.