THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SPHERE

When Conservatives Become Revolutionaries 

Politicians, political pundits, and obsessive Westminster watchers, it is often said live in a ‘bubble.’ They exist in a world in which politics exists as great clumsy giant overshadowing everything and everyone, - from the newsagent in the corner shop to the crew of a nuclear submarine out at sea.
 This view is however accurate, or more accurate than the way most people view politics. For most members of the public see the world very differently. For them politics is peripheral. Other concerns dominate their private lives and clever politicians have always recognised this. Indeed, the whole ideology of conservatism has hitherto been built on the assumption that people just wanted to be left alone and have as little to do with politics as possible. Hitherto this has been broadly true, and again clever politicians on the right encouraged the illusion that this was possible.[1]  
Conservative politicians in the English-speaking world have now largely abandoned this idea Conservatives now want to be revolutionaries, they want to overturn and re-arrange, and, in a curious imitation of the left, to impose their ideological templates on society. Why they have followed this course is a matter beyond the scope of this piece. However, follow it they have. Harold McMillan was the last practitioner of the old school, whilst Thatcher was the first of a new breed of politician, a Conservative who abandoned conservatism.

We live with her legacy in the form of the ideologically driven Brexiteers. For leaving the stability and prosperity of EU membership for, what for all the bluster, is the unknown and uncertain territory of life outside of the European Union is a deeply un-conservative act. It is an act which will have implications for every area of British life and for every family. The private sphere cannot provide refuge from its implications, - from rising prices and job losses, to travel restrictions there can be no opting out of Brexit.
Of course, the idea that not only was it possible to ignore politics but also to be unaffected by the actions of politicians was always illusory, still there was a time when the illusion could be maintained without much effort. Most people chose to skip the ‘politics’ in the newspaper. in search of 'real news.' Those days are gone.

People who took thirty minutes out of their day to walk down to the polling station to tick the box marked Leave, and then 'got on with their lives' will soon find that this action has consequences. From rural Cornwall to Grimsby this is slowly dawning on people. To paraphrase Trotsky, they may not be that interested in politics,  but politics will soon become interested in them.


[1] This illusion was always much stronger within the affluent middle class. Working class voters experienced the sharp end of political decisions much more as a presence in daily life. Still, it was still possible for better of Working class voters to relegate politics to the margins of life. 

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