Genuis: Churchill had a good left-wing idea
Posted on July 21st, 2011 by Garnett Genuis in Politics
Largely remembered for his remarkable leadership and oratory as a Conservative Prime Minister during the Second World War, Winston Churchill is often considered to be a traditional right-wing politician because he was at least nominally a Conservative during his premiership. However, Churchill had a nearly 40-year Parliamentary career before 1940; and during that time he carried both the Conservative and Liberal banner at different times, and served in Conservative, Liberal, and coalition cabinets.
Churchill paved the way for modern conservatism, through bipartisanship.
Churchill worked through, and had allies in different parties. He ended his career in the British Conservative Party primarily because the Tories were the only political force in England at that time with the fortitude and the capacity to oppose socialism. But he was willing to borrow good ideas from both sides of the aisle, and over time the combination of conservative and liberal ideas he championed laid the foundation of modern Anglo-North American conservatism.
Churchill believed in a combination of ideas that are now seen as natural and obvious parts of the conservative package, but which were not thought to logically compliment each other in his day. Churchill believed in the value of tradition, and of a decisive, principled, and interventionist foreign policy; the world was a dangerous place and it needed to be confronted with strength, and with British values. Notwithstanding Chamberlain’s appeasement policies and other noteworthy Conservative blunders, Churchill’s principled and militaristic foreign policy outlook was – and is – generally associated with conservatism.
Churchill also believed that the government should concern itself with the position of the poor, and seek to give everyone a “fair shake.” He was instrumental in the initial introduction of the British welfare state before the First World War, which was at the time associated not only with the Liberal Party, but with its left wing. Churchill did not embrace the typical Conservative’s uncompromising commitment to hereditary privilege; rather his belief in equality of opportunity put him at odds with many Conservatives of his time.
When Churchill crossed the floor to the Liberal Party in May of 1904 (he would return to the Conservatives in the 1920s), it was primarily because of his opposition to the protectionist policies of Tory Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and his Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. While new tariffs would potentially benefit farmers and wealth industrialists by driving up the price of bread and other goods, tariffs would exacerbate the plight of the majority (especially the poor) for the same reason. Free trade increases wealth creation, but it also tends to benefit the average “many” at the expense of an established “few.” This latter point is the reason why early-20th century English Liberals supported free trade and (in large part) why Winston Churchill became a Liberal.
Conservative parties in Europe and North America today tend to support free trade because, thankfully, they have tended to follow Churchill and become the parties of equal opportunity, instead of the parties of hereditary privilege. Contemporary left-wing parties, on the other hand, have often tended to oppose free trade, embracing the socialist creed—which both English Liberals and Conservatives opposed—and putting the interests of certain vocal and wealthy industrialists and unions ahead of the majority and the poor. (To the extent that they are a left-wing party, the Canadian Liberal Party post-1993 has thankfully tended to buck this trend.)
The degree to which contemporary conservatives champion free trade and equal opportunity demonstrates the willingness of modern conservatives to draw good ideas from the right and the left, just as Churchill did. A commitment to equal opportunity and freedom—as well as tradition and Western values—are at the heart of most modern conservative political programs. Regardless of party name, this approach to politics would make Britain’s greatest—and most non-partisan—Prime Minister very proud.
Garnett Genuis is an associate fellow at the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. He is also seeking the Wildrose Party nomination in Sherwood Park, Alberta.
Once again, while you say it's like the others not to have done the same, you constantly try peg the blame on the Conservatives, as if they were the only ones doing something and that is the point. Your disclaimers, after the fact when called on it, do nothing to convince others that you're just making a convenient, all inclusive reference, because you're not.
