What is Conservativism?

As the Conservative leadership election reaches its climax, the paucity of any genuine conservative values or principles becomes more glaring by the day. But it is not just the candidates that are at fault. The terms of the debate set by the mainstream conservative media and its pundits have been little more than a Thatcherite caricature of what conservatism ought to be about. ‘Britain must rediscover its enterprise culture’ was the call to arms in Friday’s Telegraph editorial. And yes, of course, we all want lower taxes, better public services, reduced welfare dependency, enterprise, and growth, even if we have no idea how to achieve any of these things. But the crucial ingredient that distinguishes conservatism from nineteenth-century laissez-faire classical liberalism, from that vacuous liberal individualism which makes a fetish of freedom of choice but is devoid of the values and cultural ballast that would inform that choice – in other words, from Thatcherism – was conspicuous by its absence.

To find out what conservatism really is, we must turn to the Observer and a remarkably perceptive analysis by Kenan Malik entitled ‘Can liberal conservatism survive the remaking of the right?’ whose copious and sympathetic references to Roger Scruton make one wonder whether Malik is not a closet Scrutonian in the making. Malik traces the longstanding tension at the heart of conservatism between the Burkean emphasis on community and tradition, on the social fabric of the nation, and Thatcherite free market individualism, which inevitably undermines the former when given free rein. Malik cites Edward Luttwak, who once observed that the ‘standard Republican/Tory after-dinner speech’ usually consisted of two parts: the first ‘celebrates the virtues of unimpeded competition’, while the second ‘mourns the decline of the family and community’, the very values eroded by the former. Malik warns that Burkean conservatism can easily degenerate into ethno-nationalism and reactionary calls for ‘a more obedient, hierarchical and intolerant society’. The line between Burkean and Völkisch visions of nationhood ‘can be thin’. But modern-day liberal conservatives also miss the point, which is that traditional Burkean conservatives are neither liberal individualists nor free marketeers.

It had seemed that Kemi Badenoch would break the mould. Though a Thatcherite on economic matters, she has fought a brave and principled campaign against woke, and she has dared use the ‘C’ word in relation to immigration. In a recent article in the Telegraph, she argued that the problem with mass immigration is primarily cultural – a subject that has long been taboo, notably among her fellow Conservatives. Of course, if she were white, she would immediately be declared a racist, a white supremacist, and cancelled. It had to be a politician ‘of colour’ to speak out on this issue. Nevertheless, all credit to her, for the preservation and transmission of a national culture, of our common culture, a repository of shared values, customs, habits, traditions, loyalties and memories, is central to the conservative vision.

But then Badenoch went and put her foot in it by arguing that maternity pay is excessive and places too much of a burden on business, despite us having, according to the Telegraph, one of the lowest levels of statutory maternity pay in the Western world. Well, of course maternity pay is a burden on business – as are pregnant women, especially those who suffer from ‘morning sickness’, families with young children who cannot afford childcare, parents who take time off to care for sick children, mothers who want to spend more time with their infants, and so forth. In truth, the economy would be better off without them. The point is that conservatives ought to be supporting families wherever they can, for stable family life is the bedrock of our society. And without a functioning civil society, there can be no economy.

The problem is that Badenoch is wedded to the Thatcherite neoliberal dogma that we are merely an assortment of individuals whose interests are best served, whose consumer utility is maximised, by our being subjected to the discipline market forces. As for society, community, family, reciprocal obligations and responsibilities, custom, precedent, habit, tradition, and the transmission of values that transcend the appetitive desires we express in the marketplace, these might as well not exist. Badenoch has raised the culture question, but what she has in mind, I fear, is the culture of individualism – a necessary antidote, no doubt, to the culture of tribalism that she will have experienced in Nigeria, but a hopelessly thin conception of the term.

The ethos of Thatcherite liberal individualism is fine so far as it goes, but it neglects that we are more than a business, a balance sheet, a profit and loss account: we are a nation, a home, a pattern of settled communities, with customs and traditions, local loyalties and affections, reciprocal obligations and responsibilities, and shared memories. And the land we live on is more than a business park, a piece of prime real estate, a vacant plot ripe for development: it is an ancient landscape charged with meaning and symbolism.

Conservatives of old understood this. They were custodians whose privileges were bound up with a sense of obligation. Their instinctive opposition to development, renewal, and reform, if these could be avoided, arose from a deep-seated desire to preserve the fabric of society and the precious inheritance of the past – Burke’s wisdom of the ages. And as such they opposed Cobden’s Manchester School liberals, for whom free trade and laissez-faire were an article of faith, both a means to economic prosperity and a moral imperative, because they would make of warring nations a single global market.

Of course, conservatives recognise the value of markets and free enterprise, just as they do private property, the vital buttress of our liberties. But the market is not the be-all-and-end-all. Profits and growth are not ends in themselves to be maximised at any cost. There is more to the quality of life than endless consumption and production. Which is why the state has a vital role to play in tempering market forces in the national interest, and why local communities have the right to temper market forces in the interest of preserving local communities and traditional patterns of life. That is why conservatives are not classical nineteenth-century liberals.

Progress cannot be halted, nor should it be halted. For one thing, reform and improvement are always possible, so long as they are undertaken with the utmost care so that we can judge the effects, many of which will be unforeseen: ‘We compensate, we reconcile, we balance … to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and contending principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men’. So wrote Burke. And this is why the rationalist Blair’s root-and-branch constitutional reforms were so disastrous. For another, we are in competition with other nations, and other civilisations, some of whom would see us destroyed or enslaved. Nevertheless, conservatives should support local communities wherever they reasonably can in opposing all forms of development that do not serve their interests. If that means fighting new housing developments, or opposing hotels being turned into hostels for migrants, or preventing chain stores from opening branches in local high streets, then so be it.

Milan Kundera once remarked that the future is ‘an apathetic void of no interest to anyone’. That, in essence, is why conservatives must preserve our moral, social, and cultural inheritance whenever, and wherever, they can.