One of the things that has recently struck me is how unconservative(in the British sense)Thatcher was. What does this mean for conservatism in Britain then? Someone earlier mentioned perhaps more "High Toryism" but that kind of politics requires the type of politician that was perhaps dead by the 80's anyway. With that said its hard to imagine the conservative pay being made up of entirely of one nation tories and the europhile economically and socially liberal Ken Clarke/Heseltine types. So with no libertarians/thatcherites could the Conservative party be more socially conservative whilst rejecting economic liberalism(again in the British sense-basically hitchenite)?
The way I see the Tory party has 2 main wings at the moment-a one nation pro(ish) Europe wing and a Thatcherite pro Brexit wing. Of course there are exceptions to this rule and a few smaller groupings that are slowly dying out-in social,traditional,moral conservatives and a few anachronistic high tories left. Also the most socially conservative are almost oxymoronically the most economically libertarian-eh Jacob Rees Mogg or John Redwood.
So with no thatcher a whole wing of the Tory party has been lost-there may still be a libertarian wing that may arise without Thacther,but assuming it doesn't which is far more interesting,what would the factions be in the TTL tory party be and what would be its primary ideology be?
List of Tory factions in my view
- Libertarians-(socially liberal,economically extremely liberal) eg Dan Hannan
- Thatcherites (socially slightly more conservative than libertarians but pretty liberal,economically liberal ) eg John Redwood
-Liberals(pro Europe,economically moderate) eg Ken Clarke
-One nation tories(socially liberal,embrace modernity,slightly more economically liberal than the liberal wing) eg David Cameron.
Minor wings
Social conservatives(speaks for itself,generally more economically left wing too-abandoning the party in droves) eg Peter Hitchens
High Tories(pratically died out-someone like Peter Tapsell could be described as such)
The point is without Thacther the party will have a completely different makeup and other than supporting the union and monarchy will have likely have little in common with the Tory party of OTL.(maybe a bit hyperbolic with hindsight).