The British right's definition problem

Over on X, I’m having multiple debates about what comes after this iteration of the Tory party. I do not believe the disparate stands of the right can or will unite. For this, I stand accused of being unduly negative and pessimistic. But I’m just a realist.

Regular readers will be familiar with my working assumptions but I’ll repeat them here for the purpose of this article.

For there to be unity on the right there has to be an obvious frontrunner campaign organisation that can build and sustain a movement. When one comes along, the rest will evaporate. But none of the contenders have worked out how to build one.

For that you need an intellectual foundation, a vision, and detailed, credible policies derived from your intellectual foundation to implement that vision. You then need a working grassroots organisational structure and intelligent, credible leadership that can nurture talent. Oh, and a truckload of money.

Of the players on the board, we have one-man-band nonentity quasi-fascist parties, crank parties obsessed with vaccines, Laurence Fox's very online ego vessel, the incompetent populism of Reform, a defunct Ukip party, PopCons trying to rehabilitate the ever ridiculous Liz Truss, and a movement that thinks its only salvation is the politically spent Nigel Farage. And to top that off there's a strain of antisemitism creeping in.

We have no serious policy thinkers to speak of, nobody thinking in terms of long term strategy, and nobody with the money to break a new venture out of the Twitter bubble. You have to build these things from the ground up with local campaigning, but you also need some kind of sponsorship/patronage from within the politico-media sphere to get any kind of recognition and momentum. The most we can ever dredge up is ex-MEPs and disgraced Tories to appear on GB News. The only outfit even close to having a clue how to do it is the SDP, who aren't even right wing, and will remain electorally insignificant for the next decade at least.

With Reform circling the drain, polling at nine per cent, there's nothing left to do but wait to see what, if anything, can be salvaged from the wreckage of the Tory party. It's plausible that a National Conservative party could be the successor to the Tories, but probably ends up being a liferaft for Tory flunkies who achieved nothing when they held ministerial posts, and it goes on to lose the 2029 election.

I'm not trying to piss on anyone’s chips here, but the starting point has to be a realistic assessment of the materials we have to work with. We're not going to get anywhere without addressing the causes of the right's dysfunction.

In any case, the premise is faulty. Uniting the disparate organisations does absolutely nothing, because they're all splinter groups of the same tiny cohort of autistic crackpots, halfwits and blaggers. (Seriously, who have we got who's actually impressive?)

You could unite them all under one banner but you'd still be losing deposits forever under FPTP, and will be completely disregarded by the media as not even significant enough to attack. They learned their lesson form the Ukip experience.

Earlier on X, I postulated that we're going to have to build a movement from scratch that outperforms the existing dross. But if it doesn't get the fundamental intellectual foundation and pitch right, it will be yet another colossal waste of time, energy and resources. On reflection, though, I’m not sure that a new movement could succeed in the current climate. We are better off popularising an idea of Britain that will find its own vehicle. We must develop it.

The intellectual foundation of any movement would have to be sufficiently specific in its aims, but broad enough to absorb disagreement. I’ve given some thought to what that would look like, and have settled upon a secularised (and plagiarised) version of American National Conservatism, based on a limited number of core principles as follows.

1. National Independence. We wish to see a world of independent nations. Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course in accordance with its own particular constitutional, linguistic, and religious inheritance. Each has a right to maintain its own borders and conduct policies that will benefit its own people.

2. Internationalism not supranationalism. We support free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes.

3. National Government. The nation-state is instituted to establish a more perfect union among communities, parties, and regions of a given nation, to provide for their common defense and justice among them, and to secure the general welfare and liberty for this time and for future generations. We believe in a strong but limited state, subject to constitutional restraints and a division of powers. We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation’s interests and values. 

We recommend the localism principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.

We believe that government must be by consent, and that all decisions or policies resulting in fines, forfeitures or taxes are subject to a popular vote. We believe everyone has the right to freedom of speech provided they are not inciting violence or crime, or directly threatening another person.

4. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation without exception. The law must be enforced without fear or favour.

5. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of liberty that are central to the British political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state.

But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalised markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil Britain and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life.

A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-making by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed.

6. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.

7. Immigration. Today’s penchant for uncontrolled and unassimilated immigration has become a source of weakness and instability, not strength and dynamism, threatening internal dissension and ultimately dissolution of the political community. We call for a long term moratorium on immigration and aggressive policies to promote assimilation. We demand that those with no right to be here, or no means to support themselves, are removed, and unassimilated immigrants are encouraged to leave.

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This is a heavily pruned version, but the idea is to arrive at the essence of what the modern British right believes in. Categorically, it is nationalist, without acknowledging the distinction between civic nationalism and ethno-nationalism. Such distinctions are for later.

With a functioning definition such as this, all subsequent policies suggest themselves. Parties without such a root command can only ever produce disorganised and cluttered manifestos.

Rather than attempting to unite the right, it would be more achievable to convene the key actors to negotiate a finalised version as a charter, similar to our Harrogate Agenda for democratic reform. A new party or umbrella group is unlikely to succeed. A common charter to be adopted by other campaign groups is the best way to lodge these principles in the minds of the broader movement. Let there then be competition between them, and may the best one win.