They’re letting laissez-faire be. As anger over growing inequality in the U.K. begins to move voters, a struggling Conservative Party appears to be shedding the small-government, free-market ethos popularized during the Margaret Thatcher era. With its confusing “neoliberal” label, the philosophy that helped privatize British railroads and other government services now seems a liability.
Even before socialist Jeremy Corbyn snapped away Tory support in the June 8 elections, Theresa May’s party had already declared it had rejected “untrammeled free markets” and “selfish individualism” — signifying a kinder, gentler breed of conservative.
