So David Cameron is a co-operator. He reveres the memory of the Rochdale Pioneers, can invoke the spirit of community collectivism and believes that it all belongs to the modern Conservative party.
The Conservative Co-operative Movement, he tells us, is to be launched in January. It is to be a resource for Conservatives to establish themselves as community activists and set up local co-operatives to challenge social inequality.
This would be welcome news if we knew nothing about his party. Is it not the party of individual, rather than collective action? Doesn’t it stand for private gain, even if that’s at the expense of the wider community?
The Conservative Co-operative Movement already has a chairman (Tory PPC Jesse Norman). Writing in the Sunday Times, Norman claimed that co-operatives are conservative because they are ‘capitalist’. I’m not sure what Milton Friedman, the true father of modern Tory economics, would say about that. In fact, co-operatives are the antithesis of capitalism: they do not exist to accumulate wealth for risk investors but use business to benefit their customers and other stakeholders.
Co-operatives are entrepreneurial, but they are also equitable. They do not exploit labour or consumers – they seek to provide goods and services in a fair manner. This is a crucial difference and what precisely connects co-operatives to the Labour movement rather than the Conservatives. Co-operatives, mutuals, trade unions and ultimately the Labour party, have a shared heritage of striving for improvement without exploitation.
Cameron has been fond of invoking Disraeli and his ‘One Nation Conservatism’. But it was precisely against this paternalist background that the co-operative movement was first established and then grew: it was a response to the growth of capitalism, which had excluded the vast majority of the public from the riches of Victorian Britain. This is what makes the Conservative claims incredible.
In truth, Cameron’s pronouncement is a classic piece of political triangulation. Seek to occupy the ground of your opponents, hope that the electorate can’t see the difference between you and get voters to switch, or at least neutralise their antipathy.
That he picked on the co-op is a bit of a backhanded compliment. The last 10 years has seen a renaissance of all things mutual. The government has been active in supporting and developing the establishment of new mutuals in a range of areas, from social enterprises to football supporter trusts, foundation hospitals, housing community mutuals and co-op schools. In all, there are more than 1 million new members of co-operatives as a result of Labour’s support.
By contrast, the last time the Conservatives were in government they acted consistently and systematically against the interests of the co-operative and mutual sector. Through the 1986 Building Societies Act, they facilitated the massive waves of demutualisation that plundered generations of assets from mutual societies; they effectively ended national support for social enterprise when they closed the Co-operative Development Agency; and for two decades they steadfastly refused pleas to update co-op legislation.
It has been said that Cameron is merely copying New Labour; that he is re-branding the Tories as Tony Blair did to Labour. But this is wrong. Blair significantly changed the Labour party and took real risks in doing it. It was not a political makeover. The difference is that Cameron is attempting to lacquer over the unattractive Tory reality.
To have any credibility in this debate, Cameron must meet a few modest challenges. Why not change the Tory constitution to reflect his pronouncements and see if his party sees the world like this? Why not apologise for past mistakes and the damage they caused to co-operatives? Why not get Tories throughout the country to practice what he now preaches by promoting collective action and social cohesion?
The fact is that Gordon Brown is the first Co-operative party member to occupy No 10, while 10 of his cabinet are also members. Seventy per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party carry the card and the Co-operative Parliamentary Group of 29 MPs and 12 peers is the fourth largest in parliament.
It is clear that Cameron is trying to damage the Labour and co-operative relationship by this stunt. In response, the Co-operative party will always ensure that Labour’s positive contribution is contrasted with the Tories’ hostility.
In his celebrated Diaries, Alan Clark infamously records that his first instinct after Attlee’s victory in 1945 was to smash the windows of the local co-op shop (which he dutifully did). It seems this is one Conservative tradition that is alive and well.