One People...

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There is a tendency amongst the usual suspects in the Conservative Party which is coalescing around a new political philosophy imported from the US called National Conservatism. The name is unfortunate, to say the least – my first reaction was that it sounds like it might be an attempt to place themselves to the right of National Socialism. My second reaction after reading a little more was that my first reaction may not be entirely unfair. The organisation is holding a conference in London shortly, to be graced by the presence of a whole host of prominent Tories, including Lord Frost, Jake Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove and Suella Braverman.

At the heart of their philosophy (outlined here by the Edmund Burke Foundation) is the idea that the nation-state is the best and natural unit of organisation for human societies. In an article penned jointly by Jake and Frosty for the Telegraph, the pair describe the ideology as a “belief in the nation state and the principle of national independence”. It’s hard for an independentista to disagree with that as a principle. Indeed, at first sight, it would seem obvious that anyone holding that view would necessarily be a firm supporter of independence for Wales and Scotland. That isn’t, of course, what they believe; in fact they are both in favour of winding back devolution rather than turning it into independence. It all hinges on the definition of a ‘nation’. Some would see nation-states as being created by nations, but for national conservatives, it's actually the reverse: nations are created by states. From that perspective, the existence of the UK state in itself determines that the people living within it form a single nation. It’s axiomatic and inarguable, by definition. In another reminder of the past, Ein Reich necessarily translates as Ein Volk.

It follows, for them, that a single nation has to be based on a single ideology and set of values, and the Foundation happily spells them out. They include the idea that “public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision”, and demand that the norm should be “the traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman”. They also want “the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing”. It is a recipe for enforcing their own view of what a nation, and particularly the ‘British’ nation is, and for rolling back the diversity and freedoms to which we have become accustomed, whether directly through law or indirectly by establishing expected norms. It is about imposing a set of values and behaviours on all of us.

We are currently seeing an outbreak of red, white and blue (to say nothing of the expectation that we will all joyously swear our allegiance to the latest unelected head of state), associated with next weekend’s clowning of the king; but that will be as nothing compared to the agenda of these people. And they are increasingly the mainstream of the governing party of these nations, which holds that position based on the votes of only one of those nations and then reserves to itself the right to determine, or terminate, the rights and wishes of the others. Anyone who doesn’t want to become fully assimilated into the ‘one people’ needs to understand that the only way of preventing it is to opt out of the ‘one realm’ first. And sooner rather than later.