Tories Tackle Social Mobility

As the British Tories finally begin to emerge from the wilderness, what can Republicans learn from their British cousins about social justice?

British Conservatives know the electoral wilderness well. For the last twelve years, the Conservatives have suffered setback after setback. Three leaders have come and gone, each failing to bring the party back to government. Yet their time in the wilderness may soon be coming to an end, and David Cameron’s Tories look to be the team to beat in the next British election. What’s next for the GOP’s British cousins, and what can the Republicans do to avoid the Conservatives’ failures? Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has an answer. As the founder for the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), Smith has formulated a notion of "compassionate conservatism" that Cameron looks to use as a springboard to victory. Iain Duncan Smith argues that the largest impediment to electoral success is that voters don’t see Conservatives as "caring." He connects this with the suggestion that New Labour has dominated the British political scene since 1997 because they:

Progressively removed… negative perceptions by jettisoning those elements of their platform which the public did not like: trade unionism, nuclear unilateralism, high taxes and the impression of being soft on crime. They were left with only their positive perception: of the party that cared.

As such, Smith promotes a brand of social justice that purports to make up for Conservative shortcomings. Behind his conception of social justice is the idea that Conservatives must address flagging social mobility. "The idea is that maintaining certain core ideological principles on taxation and free markets doesn’t mean that you can’t follow policies that also have something good for your neighbours," asserts Charlotte Pickles, a Senior Policy Advisor at the CSJ. Without a doubt, social mobility represents one of the UK’s most pressing issues. A recent study by the London School of Economics reports that social mobility for the bottom 20% of society has not improved in the last thirty years. Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph laments the fact that the UK is "one of the worst countries for social mobility," condemning children from poor homes to a lifetime of poverty. So what do proponents of Smith’s compassionate conservatism advocate? The CSJ’s platform isn’t laden with panaceas – instead, the Centre advocates specific, bite-sized policies that chisel away at state dependence and social breakdown, one conservative step at a time. One recent CSJ publication, Breakthrough Britain, laid out 190 such policy suggestions, 67 of which have already been adopted by the Conservative Party. Among these include such proposals as: providing tax benefits to private nurseries, limiting welfare to those who are genuinely seeking employment, increasing the criminalization of marijuana, encouraging community voluntarism, and promoting private sector charitable organizations through the tax code. Undoubtedly, these ideas will have a profound effect on any future Conservative government’s social policies. After all, Smith and David Cameron see eye-to-eye on the view that one can “strengthen society and get rid of dependency by increasing social mobility,” contends Pickles. Indeed, one of the first things that Cameron did upon becoming leader was to commission a report from the CSJ about addressing social breakdown. As the party continues to work its way out of the desert, one can expect to see Smith’s compassionate conservatism as the philosophical basis of the Tory platform. Beyond social policy, Smith’s work contains a final point of relevance for Republicans. In terms that should resound with Republicans today, Smith points out the need for genuine reflection after an electoral loss: “the right response to defeat… is not to fight the same battle again, on the same ground with diminished forces.” The British Conservatives are just starting to emerge from their time in the desert. Now their American cousins face a similar prospect – year upon year in the wilderness. If the GOP wishes to make their stay a sojourn, it will be crucial to reflect upon the British Tory experience, and imperative to consider the Centre for Social Justice’s ideas.