Putting public interest before party interest, Sir Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel - Possibly Britain's greatest Prime Minister

In 1841, Sir Robert Peel assumed the position of prime minister for the second and final time. Sir Peel had decided to do something many modern politicians claim to do but rarely truly do, put national interest above party interest.

Sir Peel found himself at odds with his conservative government over what would become the famous “Corn Laws”. A harsh winter and recession had made it a bad time to be working class and English, even worse if you were Irish where famine tragically became common place.

Sir Peel had a choice to make, he could either lower import tariffs on key crops or he could keep the protectionist policies in place. The status quo sat well with the conservative party, land owners benefited from high crop prices and were in no mood to allow cheaper imports into the country. Yet it was becoming ever more obvious that the case for protectionism was looking increasingly thin, this was especially true for Sir Peel, a convert to the Ricardian theories of free trade which would become the cornerstone of British economic policy. The problem was that repealing the Corn Laws would potentially be political suicide.

And so it proved to be. Sir Robert Peel managed to repeal the Corn Laws to the dismay of his own party and supporters by winning support from the Whigs and radical liberals of the day[1]. Soon after this triumph Sir Peel was forced to resign and would never again be involved with high politics[2]. He had repealed a law which his party detested and those who would benefit from such a law, the poor, couldn’t even vote; hardly a sensible strategy for political longevity.

There are many lessons Mr Clegg can learn from Sir Robert Peel, as he has faced similar choices to the great man. Choosing between forming a coalition and leaving the Tories to govern with a minority, Clegg choose a strong government. Yet he leads a party composed of an eclectic mix of liberals and socialist, a problem Sir Peel would have sympathised with as he led an assortment of traditional protectionist and liberal conservatives. Mr Clegg’s typical supporters feel he has stabbed them in the back by supporting, “tory cuts” yet one wonders what would happen had this government not been formed[3].  

Though history may favour him for cajoling his disparate party into establishing a strong government in times of uncertainty; his party and the electorate may not see recent political events in quite the same manner.

 Sir Peel lost the support of his colleagues as the party splintered under those who believed in free trade and those who didn’t. It would take the transformed conservatives 28 years to recover. Mr Clegg and the liberal democrats could well face something similar as those infamous tory cuts begin to bite.

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[1] The vote passed 292 in favour against 210 against.

[2] Indeed, he died 5 years later

[3] An interesting proposition put forward by some labour supporters was the hilarious, “rainbow coalition” a hodgepodge of nationalists, socialists and goodness knows what governing together. One wonders how the debt markets would have rated that hypothetical government’s ability to control the deficit.