James Starkie: What lesson can be learnt from the Canadian right?

James Starkie is Founding Partner at communications consultancy 5654 & Co. He worked on Vote Leave in 2016 and was a Special Adviser in Government during Theresa May’s and Boris Johnson’s premierships.

Over the past few months more than one person has brought up the story of the Canadian right to me, specifically the rise of a party in the 90’s called Reform and the demise of their more longstanding party of the right, the Progressive Conservative’s.

It has been cited in various conversations, particularly ahead of the last Canadian election when the leader of the party created out of the merger of these two parties, Pierre Poilievre, went into the election as favourite but ended up losing, the election and his seat.

I was therefore interested to understand more about the history of the Canadian right, as well as what are the similarities and differences when it comes to UK politics given the rise of our own Reform Party. As well as speaking to several people who have worked in Canadian politics I found the book  Full Circle: Death and Resurrection In Canadian Conservative Politics by Bob Plamondon incredibly insightful and a very good overview of the Canadian right and would highly recommend this book.

At this point I would also like to caveat this and set out my own view.

One of the differences, as a quick glance at Canadian politics will tell you, is that the history of the Canadian right is one of division and a terminal life in opposition. Whereas the British Conservatives can call themselves the party of Government in our sceptered Isle that role in Canada is occupied by the Liberal Party, which is a party of the centre left and one much more practical than our own Labour Party.

This is an important difference to me.

The Tories here in the UK have weathered many a storm and I personally believe they will endure, furthermore I do not therefore see a merger as inevitable, as some may do. This is not to ignore the challenges they face, nor ignore the reasons why some traditional Conservative voters may be unhappy or angry but rather to believe that trust can be rebuilt.

Division on the right is relatively new in the UK and historically the Tories have had to build out election winning coalitions from this point with little opposition to their right, combining traditional centre right voters with a broader coalition more often than not through hard economic competence and pragmatism.

In Canada meanwhile this has not been the case.

The rise of Reform in Canada arose around the end of a period of government for the Progressive Conservative’s [PC’s] although this was more in response to an anger over economic handling. Specifically the failure, in the eyes of Reform Canada founder, Preston Manning, to tackle the national debt.

Manning, seen as a charismatic populist leader, rode a wave of discontent among parts of the Canadian right hungry for real economic reform at a time when Mulroney’s PC government was failing to replicate  major economic reforms of Reagan and Thatcher in the USA and UK respectively.

This was seen as a real missed opportunity and blew open a division in the PCs among the more economical liberal wing of the party, blue Conservatives, and those with a more social democratic bent, the red Conservatives.

This had been simmering for some time and as with any insurgent political movement, had hit upon the right time. Manning wrote in a thesis that ‘present national party leaders and federal politicians, especially those affiliated with the PC’s, should recognise that if the Canadian political situation continued to degenerate, and if the cause of conservatism continues to suffer and decline, not for the lack of merit or a willingness on the part of the Canadian people to support modern Conservative principles or policies, but rather because of unnecessary dissension among politicians and parties, the idea of establishing a wholly new political party committed to the social conservative positions will find an ever increasing number of advocates and supporters amongst concerned and aroused Canadian public.’

Written before the creation of the party, this is insightful as it lays the argument that Manning didn’t see the creation of a new party of the right desirable but rather necessary because of a lack of one in existence. That is the PC’s had become too much like the existing Liberal Party and therefore leaving a vacancy.

What’s more, and to some degree contradictory, according to the author of Full Circle: Death and Resurrection In Canadian Conservative Politics, Bob Plamadon, Manning though ‘did not accept that Reform was really another Conservative party, because he did not want to debate an inherent and obvious strategic floor flaw: that the Reform party was splitting voters with the Tories and thereby electing Liberals. This was to be a tension and live issue for the next decade.’

The Reform breakthrough came in the 1992 Canadian election, when from nowhere, they won 52 out of 295 seats leaving the Tories, who had been in Government, on just 2 seats. However while they improved on this performance in the subsequent election, gaining 60 seats and becoming the official opposition, the PCs came back winning 18 seats while also nearly matching the Reform vote share [19.3 per cent to 18.8 ]. The 2000 Federal elections saw this division repeat itself and, ultimately, led to the events under which the new Reform party, now called the Alliance, and the PC’s would join under Alliance leader Stephen Harper. Harper is the man who would go on to lead the right back into Government after more than a decade of Liberal power in 2006.

There are clear similarities to me in terms of the split on the right the Canadian’s experienced during this period and that which the UK is seeing now. Reform Canada picked up disaffected traditional Conservative voters, though these were very specifically located geographically in the west of the country. The PC’s struggled to cut through during this period and failed to recover from the 1992 election drubbing. However, even this party of the right that had experienced far more opposition than government historically could not be completely quashed. The ‘thin blue line’ of staunch PC voters refused to desert the party, and it was by no means inevitable that they had to join with Reform.

They also, largely, lacked quality leadership. Kim Campbel, who fought the disastrous 1992 election was ill-suited to leading a national party and almost certainly hastened the collapse in support. Meanwhile one of the last PC leaders was Joe Clark, who had failed at leading the party in the 80’s and likely didn’t demonstrate a party with fresh ideas by turning to a leader from two decades prior. Indeed this is where the admirable Stephen Harper stood out, the man who would eventually lead the right back into power. At heart a true Conservative, a deep thinker and man of principle he alone shows the importance of strong, principled and very clear leadership.

There are clearly reasons why you can compare the two situations however my own view is that there are fundamental differences in the situations. Many of the big issues in Canada differ from our own, the issue of free trade, particularly with the United States, how provinces with very specific identities are treated by the federal government as well as things like gun laws don’t apply here. Indeed geographic differences loom large and are crucial to gaining a majority in Canadian elections. What’s more, the Canadian Conservatives had nothing like the history their British counterparts do, and the Canadian right has been split far more often than it has been divided.

I would though recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about how the next few years of the British right might play out. It is a reminder that events and personalities often dictate what happens – making predictions a fools game.