SE Academic Review 2023

34 ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

Referendum Party One of the less-remembered aspects of the 1997 election that arose from the troubles within the Conservatives and played a minor role in their defeat was the Referendum Party. The party was founded in 1994, with the sole aim of forcing a referendum on British membership of Europe, by businessman Sir James Goldsmith who was discontent with Major’s seemingly Europhilic positions. Candidates stood in most seats and outspent both the Conservatives and Labour in political advertising. The party gained much press coverage in the run up to the election and there was speculation that this Sex and sleaze The final factor that contributed to Labour’s Landslide was the countless scandals faced by the Conservative Party in the run-up to the 1997 election. After the embarrassments of Black Friday and the Maastricht rebellion John Major attempted to reboot his premiership in the 1993 Conservative Party conference. On the 8th October John Major delivered the infamous ‘Back to Basics’ speech. Whilst the speech was never intended by Major to be interpreted as a moral crusade (MacLeod, 1994), the media soon picked up on the term to display the hypocrisy of Major’s government and party every time a member of the party was involved in scandal, which occurred frequently.

Eurosceptic party would split the Conservative vote and aid in the unseating of Conservative MPs. However, despite all the hype built up around the party and Goldsmith’s large budget, psephologists believe that the effect of the Referendum Party was negligible and only cost the Conservatives around three seats (Butler & Kavanagh, 1997, p. 249). The Referendum Party did not play a major role in the defeat of John Major and a near-negligible role in New Labour’s landslide. Instead the Referendum Party was a symptom of the greater issue for John Major - the fractured Conservative Party. The various scandals that plagued the Conservative Party during the premiership of Major clearly played a significant role in leading to the Conservatives’ defeat. The countless cases of corruption increased the public’s distrust of many Conservative politicians and added to the public’s exhaustion with the Conservative status quo. These effects were exacerbated as, at the same time, the Labour Party led by Blair was gaining the trust of the British people and promising to change politics (Gould, 2011, p. 218). The scandals faced by the Conservative Party could account for contributing to their defeat, however, they cannot solely be the cause of Labour’s landslide. Whilst the Conservatives were unpopular many of their policies were not. The Conservative fall from grace allowed New Labour to fill the gap as a morally-guided and responsible party of government, but this was only achieved through the modernisation of Labour.

New Labour’s Centralist policies When discussing elections, it is clearly necessary to examine the effect of policies. Despite what many believe, a party’s manifesto can have a significant impact on the chances of an electoral victory. New Labour is often credited as being a centrist entity or as Blair often stated a party of the ‘third way’. This

fusion between more right-wing economic ideas with stronger more liberal ideals on social justice has arguably been the dominant ideology in the UK for decades after Blair first won in 1997 and has often been held as a primary reason why New Labour was so successful.