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by Lucas McLennan

In 2022, the National Conservatism project’s Statement of Principles generated a lot of debate in conservative circles in Europe and North America.

At their best, the principles envisaged a conservatism disentangled from a classic liberal understanding of the state, culture, freedom, and markets. The principles put the nation-state and its preservation at the centre of its thinking.

The focus on nation created some pushback among conservatives. I will explore one of those critiques after examining the most recent National Conservatism conference in London.

Figures on the left, to the extent that they have responded to the concept of National Conservatism at all, have largely viewed it as populist and quasi-fascist.

Shortly after the coronation of King Charles III in May, a National Conservative conference was held in London. The conference brought together an eclectic range of speakers who highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of National Conservatism.

While the conference held promise for those who wish to chart a new consensus for conservatism, the vast array of speakers suggests that National Conservatism may become something of a blank canvas onto which anyone can paint their visions.

Three speakers in particular highlighted the problem. Those are first-term Conservative MP Miriam Cates, former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and post-liberal philosopher Sebastian Milbank.

Miriam Cates centred her argument on the need for Western nations to make it easier to form families and thus increase the birthrate. Cates stated: “If you want to be a national conservative, you need a nation to conserve.”

An obvious trope to follow such a statement would be to say that there needed to be more childcare provisions or better-paid paternity schemes. However, Cates was alert to the reality that such generous policies in Western nations do not seem to contribute to improvement in birthrates.

Correctly, Cates conceived of the birthrate crisis as one with spiritual and cultural roots. Finland, Cates pointed out, has extremely generous childcare and maternity support schemes but has a birthrate of only 1.3 children per woman.

Having children is a sign that a couple has confidence in the social, economic, and cultural future of their nation. Those who intentionally decline to start families (minus exceptions such as singleness and infertility) demonstrate that they have no sense of Burke’s idea of the nation as an intergenerational compact between the dead, living, and yet to be born.

National Conservatism needs to be anchored to the family and developing the conditions for it to flourish. If that is so, then conservatives need to critique aspects of the post-1980s consensus on free trade, globalisation, and de-industrialisation in the West.

One strength of National Conservative principles is that they do use the lens of the family and nations to place limits on the operation of free enterprise (one principle reads: “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 America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally”).

Sebastian Milbank (son of noted Anglican theologian John Milbank) spoke on the specifics of applying the broad principles of National Conservatism to one country (in this case Britain). Even the Tory Government in Britain has fallen into the trap of defining the country in amorphous ways.

Milbank said that the way British elites conceive of the country is as “a nation without a story” that is instead held together by a commitment to values like tolerance, freedom, and democracy. In opposition to the amorphous view, Milbank argued that the modern British state retained a deeply Christian source that had been reiterated strongly in the ceremony of the coronation in May.

Additionally, Britain could not simply be conceived as an ethno-state and therefore the country was in many ways at odds with the more conventional understandings of nationalism that are associated with National Conservatism.

The British Nation “involves complex and overlapping ideals”. The nation was made up of at least four distinct ethnic nations (England, Scotland, Wales, and parts of Ireland) but there was also a common British identity, remnants of an imperial identity, and finally (and controversially, given the support for Brexit of most National Conservatives), the nation was firmly located in connection to a broader European civilisation. Those wishing to build a conservative vision in Britain would have to create it from these divergent features (“the matter of Britain”).

Milbank’s ideas spoke to one of the weaknesses of the principles of National Conservatism. The writers of the Statement of Principles conceived of a world made up of discrete nation-states, but such a view of the world is quite a modern innovation and at odds with much of Western/European history. The West has always been informed by universalistic thinking, whether that be in Enlightenment or Christian-based forms.

Drawing on Milbank’s ideas, we can say that the preservation of the nation is very important for conservatives, but it cannot be the sole basis for thinking about world affairs and identity. Australia itself is a good example. A narrow nationalism cannot work here, given the national-imperial dynamic that features throughout our post-1788 history.

Additionally, a movement infused with the Christian ideal may be attached to the concept of the nation due to the principle of subsidiarity but can never see national identity as the sole basis of solidarity between people.

Finally, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s feature address to the conference demonstrated that many who have attached themselves to the National Conservative label have done little to distinguish their ideals from the Thatcherism of the 1980s.

Rees-Mogg spoke of the importance of culture, religion, and national independence in limiting immigration. However, unlike many involved in the National Conservatism “movement”, he does not think it necessary for conservatives to rethink their approach to free trade and industry. Rees-Mogg’s vision of Brexit would see Britain turned into a free-trade global powerhouse. He envisages what has been called the “Singapore-on-the-Thames” model.

At its best, the National Conservative movement has sought to reinstate an understanding of solidarity among people to the heart of conservatism. In doing so, the movement draws on the Disraeli One Nation tradition and the Catholic Social Teaching-inspired Christian democracy of the Continent.

Rees-Mogg’s speech illustrates one of the common criticisms of National Conservatism. That critique is that it is simply a rebadging for the post-Trump/Brexit era of 1980s Anglo-American conservatism. There is some truth in this criticism and many speakers have started latching on to the annual National Conservatism conferences to promote their ideas under its banner without clearly explaining how their attitudes have changed. A primary example of that was the presence of neo-conservative figure John Bolton at an earlier National Conservatism conference.

In summary, the three selected speakers highlight the potential and flaws of National Conservatism. Cates’ agenda is focused on putting in place both the economic and cultural features to enable mothers and fathers to grow their families. This necessarily entails a critique of our current economic structure that is built upon a double income.

Milbank’s vision sought to use the embers of Christian Britain to provide a cultural foundation for a conservatism for the future. He also cautioned against an excessive focus on nationalism at the expense of the universalist tendencies of the Christian tradition. The local, national, and international can all be held in healthy tension with each other. Millbank’s contribution was an important corrective.

Rees-Mogg made helpful contributions to national independence and immigration, but his economic points demonstrate that he does not fully see any difference between the concept of national conservatism and the 1980s politics of Margaret Thatcher.

Several conservative thinkers have pointed to flaws in the principles of National Conservatism. One public letter was signed by figures such as theologian John Milbank and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The letter pointed out the attachment to the nation-state in the principles as excessive.

The letter welcomed that national conservatives were objecting to the destructive aspect of globalisation on national and local cultures but Milbank and co argued that they could not join in the rejection of “Universalist ideologies” as such ideologies were a distinct feature of the Western tradition.

Western civilisation has been underpinned by universalist ideologies, that of Christianity and the Enlightenment. It is impossible to speak of upholding Western civilisation without referencing “a universalist ethical, spiritual and, yes, political vision”.

By making the nation-state so central to their thinking, promoters of National Conservatism elevate what began as a revolutionary concept against the traditional European order as their main organising principle. Instead, apart from the period between the French Revolution and the end of World War II, Europe and the West have been defined by a sense of having a shared common good among nations and communities.

The letter says:

“The absolute sovereignty of the nation-state presented in the Statement of Principles is a modern myth, which traditional conservatives such as Edmund Burke questioned because, as with the French Revolution, it can lead to terror and tyranny. Burke’s alternative was a ‘cultural commonwealth’ of peoples and nations covenanting with each other in the interests of mutual benefit and flourishing.”

As a result, conservatives need not be instinctively hostile to institutions like the European Union and other organs of international law. They must interrogate them for their agendas and outcomes, but the idea that the highest authority on earth is that of the modern state is alien to traditional conservative thinking.

Conservative critics of National Conservatism principles do, however, recognise that the nation and its traditions must play an important role in conservative politics.

Reflecting on a year since the release of the National Conservative Statement of Principles, we can see via the London conference in May 2023 that several of the themes and speakers show that the principles have promise in assisting conservatives to articulate a more fruitful modern agenda beyond the failed fusion of social conservatism and economic liberalism.

However, critiques of the movement’s elevation of the nation-state as being ahistorical and out of keeping with the Western tradition are important. At their best, the principles can help us to think about our challenges, but we need to avoid falling into narrow ethnic nationalisms and tribalism.