Ranging far beyond specific policy proposals, the paper argued for a radical reorientation in Conservative thinking. Britain had been in decline since the Second World War, and fundamental change was necessary. The Keynesian state that managed the post-war settlement must be rolled back. Public spending and the money supply had to be reduced, along with taxation, regional subsidies abolished and the power of trade unions curbed. (Boldly, Joseph also floated the possibility of introducing a British Bill of Rights and even decriminalising drugs.) What was needed in this time of national crisis was not the pursuit of consensus, but regime change—a move from one national settlement to another. [...]
Deploying a few simple ideas and policies, Thatcher demolished much of what remained of the post-war settlement. She left the NHS and the welfare state largely intact, and spending on public services increased during her time in office. But by rejecting the belief that government should actively promote full employment, privatising swathes of industry, selling off large parts of the social housing stock and curbing trade unions she altered Britain fundamentally. [...]
In Britain, as elsewhere, the Thatcherite project was self-undermining. While the country Thatcher brought into being was very different from the one she inherited, it was nothing like the country she intended to fashion. Insofar as it ever existed, her Britain was a country of dutiful middle-class families prudently saving for the future. But rather than consolidating and expanding this middle class, she consigned it to the memory hole. More individualist, post-Thatcher Britain is also less bourgeois. [...]
Nearly 30 years after she was toppled from power in November 1990, the insecurities of post-Thatcher Britain have produced Corbynism — a type of Leftism ideally suited to the ambitions and illusions of the penniless bourgeoisie. The idea that Labour has reverted to the far-Left politics of the late Seventies and early Eighties, which has become commonplace on the Right, is at best a half-truth. Like the neo-liberals against whom they constantly rail, Corbynites regard the working class with distaste and disdain as an obstacle to progress. With their retrograde attachment to national identity and borders, the proper role of these remnants of industrial society is to submit to re-education by the party. Otherwise they are useless or dangerous.
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