From Bob To Boris

When Boris Johnson described his core constituency as the ‘forgotten people’, he was inadvertently evoking Australia’s own epoch-defining political victory. By David Furse-Roberts.

Boris Johnson is an ascendant, centre-right leader who has redefined his party, appealed to the common sense and patriotism of the mainstream and triumphed over a dangerously socialist agenda.

If that sounds familiar, it is because the same could be said of Robert Menzies in the 1949 Australian federal election. There are parallels between the re-election of Britain’s Prime Minister last Friday and the election of Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister on 20 December 1949. 

First, the two prime ministers brought a similar political creed to their respective elections. As leaders of the Anglophone centre-right and fellow devotees of Winston Churchill, Johnson and Menzies each stand as heirs to the Victorian British Liberal/Conservative tradition.

More specifically, Menzies was described as a Gladstonian liberal – a supporter of small, fiscally responsible government. Johnson is a “One nation conservative,” in the tradition of Benjamin Disraeli, because he believes in social mutual obligation. In particular, the wealthy have an obligation to improve the lives of the working classes, through social support and protection. “One nation conservatism” envisages a society where rich and poor are cohesive.

Menzies also believed in a unified Australia transcending sectarian and class divisions. In contrast to the socialist rhetoric of class conflict, Menzies preached class harmony and the co-operation between capital and labour. Like Johnson’s “One nation” philosophy, Menzies stood for the interests of the working classes by defending trade unions and reminding businesses of their obligations to protect the rights of workers. In desiring to improve the lives of all people, Menzies expanded health cover for Australians just as Johnson is pledging to do now by boosting the NHS in Britain.

Both leaders also expressly invoke the notion of a “forgotten people” – a middle-class constituency of ordinary people whose interests are being overlooked. Referring to the vote in 2016 to leave the European Union, which the Conservative Party has vowed to honour, Johnson said: “We heard the voices of millions of the forgotten people”. This is the same demographic Menzies famously referred to in his Forgotten People speech of 1942. Menzies similarly identified a constituency whose values and aspirations were neglected by the ruling elites in the Australia of his day. In both Australia’s 1949 election and Britain’s 2019 election, this constituency assumed a “kingmaker” role in redrawing the electoral map.

While the flamboyant and cosmopolitan former mayor of London may seemingly have little in common with the stately, old-world demeanour of the “boy from Jeparit” who led Australia through the postwar years, both men are English-style liberals adept at exploiting the popular appetite for personal liberty. Like Margaret Thatcher, they appreciate that the true engine room of freedom and prosperity is neither the state nor big business, but an empowered middle class. Venturing beyond the echo chambers of focus groups, the political class and big business, both leaders are instinctively attuned to ordinary citizens desiring greater personal freedom.  

Both men also faced similar oppositions. The Labor Menzies campaigned against proposed to nationalise the banks, one of the definitive socialist policies of the day. During the 1949 campaign, Menzies said, “Are we for the socialist state, with its subordination of the individual to the universal officialdom of government, or are we for the ancient British faith that governments are the servants of the people?”

This year Johnson was up against Jeremy Corbyn’s policies to renationalise the railways, postal service, broadband infrastructure, and the water and power utilities.

In both the Australia of 1949 and the Britain of 2019, this broad middle-class constituency, wearied by big government over-reach, voted en masse to regain freedom and personal control over their daily lives without the feeling of being constantly dictated to by the state.

Just as Menzies’ envisaged a freer and more prosperous postwar Australia unshackled by the dead hand of state socialism, the re-elected Johnson says Britain can “survive and thrive” without the “job-destroying coils of EU bureaucracy”.

The mood Menzies read in Australia in 1949 was becoming apparent to him in Britain 21 years later, in his retirement. Referring to the push from some politicians and big business leaders for Britain to join the then European Economic Community, Menzies observed: “I think that there are deep-seated instincts…to make the Englishman distrust the idea of subordinating his interests and his political rights to any institution established in Europe.”

These “deep-seated instincts” are exactly what drove Boris Johnson – in many ways Menzies’ British successor – to victory in 2019.