{"id":203,"date":"2023-06-16T13:56:03","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/tdby\/?p=203"},"modified":"2023-06-16T13:56:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:56:03","slug":"an-unlikely-role-model-for-keir-starmer-a-more-palatable-campbell-bannerman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/tdby\/2023\/06\/16\/an-unlikely-role-model-for-keir-starmer-a-more-palatable-campbell-bannerman\/","title":{"rendered":"An unlikely role model for Keir Starmer – a more palatable Campbell Bannerman"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Campbell Bannerman has been in the news a great deal recently as a cheer leader for Boris Johnson.\u00a0 He is chair of the self-styled Conservative Democratic Organisation, a body loud in its criticism of Rishi Sunak’s premiership and its insistence that Johnson is innocent of all findings of the Commons’ Privileges Committee. Campbell Bannerman’s chequered political career has been built around a deep loathing of Brussels and enthusiastic support for chancers like Farage and Johnson.\u00a0 In the heady days of UKIP he defected from the Conservative Party, only to rejoin post-Brexit.\u00a0 As a parliamentary candidate he\u2019s a serial loser from whom Sir Keir Starmer has nothing to learn when it comes to planning and implementing an electoral strategy.\u00a0 The same, however, can\u2019t be said of an earlier member of the Campbell Bannerman family, as I suggested in a piece which appeared on the New Statesman<\/em> website last autumn and remains topical:<\/p>\n

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman led the Liberals to stunning success in the 1906 general election and a majority of 125 in the Commons: six years after a catastrophic election result the Liberals gained 216 seats, including that of former prime minister Arthur Balfour.\u00a0 It would be nine years before the Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies returned to government and seventeen years before they again ruled alone. Like Clem Attlee in 1945, \u2018C.B.\u2019 was singularly lacking in charisma, and yet he engineered a historic victory for his party.\u00a0 Keir Starmer points to Attlee, and to a lesser extent Wilson and Blair, as his role models.\u00a0 Yet he could learn a lot from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman\u2019s success in reuniting his party, silencing dismissive criticism on both sides of the House, and creating what in due course would prove one of the great reforming administrations.<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s reputation for competence rests on his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions, and within Whitehall Campbell-Bannerman was similarly seen as an instinctive reformer and an able administrator.\u00a0 The four decades preceding the First World War saw the question of Home Rule for Ireland prove every bit as divisive as Brexit.\u00a0 Prior to the 1906 election Campbell-Bannerman neutralised Irish Home Rule in the same way that Starmer steers clear of detailed debate over the UK and Northern Ireland\u2019s future relationship with the EU.\u00a0 The Liberals\u2019 political enemies were starved of ammunition, in the same way that hard line Brexiteers are denied tangible evidence of Labour seeking a rapprochement with Brussels over current trading relations.\u00a0 Although Campbell-Bannerman left Ireland on hold, he recognised the advantage a large parliamentary majority gave him in exploiting a demoralised opposition.\u00a0 The newly elected Liberal Government swiftly seized the initiative, pushing through a raft of welfare and foreign policy reforms.\u00a0 At home, trade union and employment rights were extended, building regulations were strengthened, and the penal system reformed to separate young offenders from adult criminals.\u00a0 While short-sightedly the question of votes for women was still off the agenda, \u2018New Liberal\u2019 plans for old age pensions and national insurance were well advanced when terminal illness forced Campbell-Bannerman to resign in April 1908.\u00a0 Overseas success included formation of the Union of South Africa, d\u00e9tente with Russia and a deepening of the Entente Cordiale.\u00a0 Admittedly, C.B.\u2019s vision of Britain\u2019s future relations with France and the Tsar was very different from that of his Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey \u2013 Campbell-Bannerman was almost certainly kept in the dark about plans for military collaboration, although he more than held his own in talks with Clemenceau, another radical prime minister: a Francophile and a free trader, Sir Henry prioritised Britain\u2019s prominence in European power politics over the extension or consolidation of its already overstretched empire. \u00a0\u00a0A priority for Labour in its honeymoon period \u2013 whether ruling alone or supported by the Liberal Democrats \u2013 must be to restore membership of the single market, or to secure an equivalent status.<\/p>\n

The Liberals\u2019 electoral strategy embraced a progressive alliance with the then Labour Representation Committee.\u00a0 In January 1906 the pact bore fruit, ensuring the future Labour Party a foothold in the House of Commons.\u00a0 Few anticipate Labour candidates standing down for Liberal Democrats, and vice versa, but Sir Keir can learn from Campbell-Bannerman the value of talking to your natural allies.<\/p>\n

Above all, Starmer should embrace Campbell-Bannerman\u2019s systematic exploitation of a demoralised government\u2019s bitter infighting.\u00a0 By 1905 Balfour\u2019s administration was riven by factionalism, his Tory-dominated coalition split over Joseph Chamberlain\u2019s Empire-based vision of protectionism, Tariff Reform.\u00a0 For eighteen months prior to polling day the Liberals ruthlessly publicised their opponents\u2019 divisions, portraying Tariff Reform as a direct threat to the material well-being of families already hard hit by rising prices and deepening inequality.\u00a0 Party strategists identified a select number of salient issues, all seen as illustrative of government incompetence and inertia, and all portrayed as evidence of the need for fundamental change.<\/p>\n

In the 1906 campaign Liberal propaganda was simple, easy to comprehend and devastatingly effective.\u00a0 By then Campbell-Bannerman had one big advantage over Starmer, in that he was already in office.\u00a0 When Balfour\u2019s cabinet imploded in late 1905 the Liberal leader had ignored the reservations of his party\u2019s big beasts and accepted the King\u2019s invitation to form a minority government.\u00a0 Come the new year he went to the country.\u00a0 Campbell-Bannerman had a keen sense of timing, shrewdly managing risk and sensing exactly when to seize an opportunity. \u00a0Keir Starmer needs to hone these qualities and be ready to run with fresh ideas as they become available.\u00a0 The release of Gordon Brown\u2019s constitutional review will be one such moment.\u00a0 As a keen advocate of parliamentary reform Sir Henry would be the first to embrace an ambitious blueprint for reshaping a malfunctioning British state.<\/p>\n

Campbell-Bannerman secured an astonishing reversal of fortune for his party within a single parliament.\u00a0 An Edwardian politician may not be Sir Keir\u2019s default choice for inspiration, and yet Sir Henry\u2019s credentials as a role model remain unexpectedly relevant in an era no less turbulent and polarised than his own.<\/p>\n

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David Campbell Bannerman has been in the news a great deal recently as a cheer leader for Boris Johnson.\u00a0 He is chair of the self-styled Conservative Democratic Organisation, a body loud in its criticism of Rishi Sunak’s premiership and its insistence that Johnson is innocent of all findings of the Commons’ Privileges Committee. Campbell Bannerman’s … <\/p>\n

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