In the 1950's, 60's and 70's, the main parties, in developed economies, were coalitions dominated by the ideas of conservative social-democracy. That is they recognised the dominance and determining role of large-scale socialised capital, and pursued policies consistent with its needs and development, but they could not distinguish that from the interests of the shareholders in those companies, whose interests were, in fact, antagonistic to it. The Tories, in Britain, largely retained all of the measures introduced by the 1945 Labour Government, including the welfare state, and most of the nationalised industries. During this period of what has been called Buttskellism, as the party of government alternated, between Labour and Tory, the data shows that 90% of the programme of the outgoing government, was simply adopted by the incoming government. The same was seen in other countries, with only questions of nuance arising from different electoral systems.
Whilst Atlee's Labour government failed, and led to the election of Churchill, in 1951, and Wilson's 1964/6 – 1970 governments failed, leading to the election of Heath, and again, Wilson/Callaghan's 1974 -1979 governments failed, leading to the election of Thatcher, the incoming Tory governments were still in this mould of social-democracy. It could just as easily be said that the Tory governments that replaced them, during these periods, failed. They only failed in their own narrow party political ambitions. What persisted was the underlying social-democratic state and agenda. Even Thatcher's shift of emphasis, in the early 1980's, an adoption of Austrian School economics, as she was guided by Hayek, was really still within that framework, the shift of emphasis being driven by the inability of Keynesianism to deal with the new, changed economic conditions, as the long wave moved from the boom phase to the crisis phase.
Even, then, Thatcher's position was fragile inside the Tory Party. But, she reflected those changed material conditions, and presaged what was to come. She won out, just as Volcker's strategy of high interest rates won out, solely because, in response to the crisis of overproduction of capital, in the 1970's, capital had engaged in a technological revolution, in the form of the development of microchips, which created a large relative surplus population that undermined the position of workers, and gave the upper hand to capital. They used that to boost profits.
But, Thatcher, also, was a proponent of all those same social-democratic measures required to boost the profits and expansion of large-scale socialised capital, at that time. She was the one that championed the European Single Market, for example. Only later, as the social weight of the petty-bourgeoisie increased, and it was able to capture control of the Tory Party, did that change, and, then, not decisively.
By the end of the 1980's, as Thatcher became increasingly the representative of that petty-bourgeois wing of the Tory Party, a petty-bourgeoisie that she came from, herself, as the daughter of a small shopkeeper, did the, still dominant, social-democratic wing of the Tory Party turn on her, and remove her. Major attempted to restore that social-democratic hegemony, but under constant bombardment. The interests of that petty-bourgeoisie are incompatible with the interests of the ruling-class, and of its state. When Major fell, a series of Eurosceptic Tory leaders were installed, but none could move the party forward, leading, again, to the return of the social-democratic wing, in the form of Cameron, who based himself on the model of Blair, who had won the 1997 election by a landslide. Blair's victory was really an indication of the condition of the Tories, and, in every subsequent election, Labour's vote declined.
Blair-Brown failed, and opened the door to Cameron. Cameron, who had based himself on the model of Blair, pursued all of those same social-democratic ideas. Right up until a few months before the 2010 election, Cameron was promising to meet all of Labour's spending programme, for example. Only at the last minute, looking defeat in the eye, and having seen the success of the Tea Party in shoring up the Republican core vote (i.e. the vote of its petty-bourgeois supporters) did he shift tack, opportunistically.
But, that itself, showed a change of conditions. The Tea Party, and its inheritor Trumpism, grew, because the petty-bourgeoisie had grown, and the old conservative social-democratic agenda, which had come to rely on inflating asset prices, and debt, was no longer sustainable, as the long wave cycle shifted from the period of stagnation, to that of prosperity, of rising demand for labour and capital, and consequently a secular upward trend for interest rates, and consequent fall in asset prices.
The Tea Party gave an alternative to that petty-bourgeoisie, in the US, and the consequence of that is that the Republicans have, now, become a petty-bourgeois, Trumpist Party, reactionary, and alien to the interests of the US ruling-class, and its state. The same was happening in Britain, and across Europe as those old conservative, social-democratic policies could no longer work, just as, in the late 1970's, the ideas of Keynesianism were no longer viable. The petty-bourgeois, nationalist, Euro-sceptics had a majority of Tory members, and voters, and outside the party, acting as a whip on it, was UKIP, and the BNP.
Much as a small minority, representing the interests of the ruling class, has control of the Labour Party machine, and its dominant sections such as the PLP, and local councils, despite the overwhelming majority of members being workers, so, too, in the Tory Party, the ruling class exerted control over the machine, selection of candidates and so on, despite the majority of members, being petty-bourgeois. In both parties, the members are allowed only the role of foot soldiers at election time.
Like the façade of bourgeois-democracy itself, the internal “democracy” of the parties amounts to allowing the members to vent their emotions, and feel they have some determining role, whilst the party leaders and machine spout platitudes and soothing words, before going about their business as normal. But, the change in conditions, and growth of the petty-bourgeoisie changed things for the Tories as well as the Republicans, and other similar parties. Cameron attempted to continue as normal, even placating the petty-bourgeois base by pulling out of the European People's Party, and aligning the Tories with the Far Right Parties. But, they continued to lose voters and members to UKIP. He was driven into calling the EU Referendum, clearly believing that Remain would win, and that would undermine the petty-bourgeois opposition.
He was wrong, and all that happened was the petty-bourgeoisie was strengthened further. Normally, the consequence of that would be that the Tories would lose the next election, as the ruling class threw its weight behind the alternate conservative social-democratic party, i.e. Labour. But, Labour had elected Corbyn, who represented not that traditional conservative social-democracy, but a more progressive social-democracy. Indeed, in 2016, during the referendum, whilst Cameron and the Liberals offered only a view of the EU as simply a continuation of that same neo-liberal regime, Corbyn handed control of Labour's campaign to the Blairite, Alan Johnson, who disappeared without trace for the entire period. It was typical of Corbyn's appeasement of the Right, but also signified the weakness of his own pro-Brexitism, and economic nationalism.
But, in 2017, Corbyn's Labour did nearly fulfil that function. Having grown the party massively to around 600,000 members, and having enthused a whole new generation of new voters and activists, Labour's vote increased by the most in any election since 1945.
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