The Same Old Conservatives

by Strawberry Cheesecake

A few weeks ago the police launched an investigation into the Christian owners of a B&B in Berkshire after they refused service to a gay couple requesting a room. It generated a lot of media attention at the time and one might have thought that this close to an election politicians would be keen to condemn this anachronistic discrimination and show off their pro-gay credentials. Yet the Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has been taped arguing that bed & breakfasts should be able to refuse service to gay couples. This would involve overturning  the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, which makes it illegal to refuse someone goods or services on the grounds of their sexuality. Grayling defending this position at the meeting by arguing that, “I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences”.

Granted ‘private conscience’ is important but presumably Grayling would not make that argument in other areas. Would he defend a restaurant denying service to black or Asian people on this basis? How about a pub landlord refusing entry to women? If the argument is to be valid it must be applied consistently and yet it is not. To be fair Grayling draws a distinction between B&Bs and high street chains but if you allow one to discriminate then surely you risk the other doing so as well? As Ben Summerskill plausibly argues:

“The legal position is perfectly clear. If you are going to offer the public a commercial service – and B&Bs are a commercial service – then people cannot be refused that service on the grounds of sexuality. No one is obliged to run a B&B, but people who do so have to obey the law. “I don’t think anyone, including the Tories, wants to go back to the days where there is a sign outside saying: ‘No gays, no blacks, no Irish.”

What are we to make of Tory promises on gay rights more generally? It would be too easy to dismiss the Conservative’s current stance as being entirely fictitious. There is a real change which has taken place in the attitudes of the party elite but crucially it is a relatively superficial change. The tolerance of Cameron and his ilk (the so-called Notting Hill set) is a superficial tolerance, forged at the dinner parties of well-to-do members of the metropolitan elite. It’s real but it lacks depth. It may lead them to be perfectly tolerant of their similarly well-to-do gay friends and acquaintances but it refrains from any substantial intrusion into social policy or any critique of the pervasiveness of homophobia in this country (particularly in such matters as class, race, religion or crime).

There is a enormous question mark hanging over the meaningfulness of David Cameron’s commitment to gay rights. It is easy to make the symbolic commitment, particularly when you’re being advised by a former advertising executive imploring you to ‘detoxify’ the brand, however it’s much more difficult to put that into practice. Particularly if you seemingly neither care nor know much about gay rights.

As well as this the grip which Cameron and his allies have over the party is, in many ways, a tenuous one. There are enormous schisms in the Tory party which temporarily remain beneath the surface because of the promise of electoral success which Cameron holds out after 13 years without office. Much as the old Labour were willing to sacrifice their principles before the electoral juggernaut  of New Labour, the old Tories are still there but remaining quiet while victory in the next election is within their grasp. The new Tories are a small clique of ‘modernisers’ assembled around Cameron and they have caused great ire within the party through their imposition of what is seen as a metropolitan agenda contrary to traditional conservative principles. This scepticism finds its most public expression in the writings of influential Tory opinion formers such as the Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer and Daily Mail journalist Peter Hitchens. However it only takes a cursory look round Tory websites and the occasional chat with Tory supporters to realise that Cameron’s hold on the party is far less strong than Blair’s was on Labour. So while a vote for Blair basically guaranteed New Labour, a vote for Cameron implies nothing more than a willingness to put the Conservatives back into power. If you have any interest at all in gay rights can this really be worth the risk? The pro-gay politics of Cameron and his supporters are painfully shallow and behind them lurk the same old section-28 supporting homophobic blue-rinse brigade.