Conservatism must liberate itself from liberalism

We are witnessing the collapse of an ideology, and the sooner we can plot a new path forward the less painful the crises will be

It is impossible to deny the sense of gloom and pessimism in Britain today. The economy is stagnant, and our society is divided. The opinion polls convey what many of us know: that the public do not trust the mainstream parties to steer us away from our predicament. The conversation around many family dinner tables is dark: parents worried that their children will miss the opportunities they enjoyed, and young people contemplating emigration. Even the spectre of civil war is being discussed – not just in private but online and in the media.

It is easy to list the individual things that are going wrong. But to really understand what is happening and why – and what we must do to save our country – we have to go a little deeper. For what we are experiencing is not only a set of overlapping and interconnected crises, but the complete failure of an ideology – the collapse of a paradigm accepted unthinkingly by those who have governed us and have run big business and the media for decades.

We have grown used to believing the world in which we live – the world of globalisation, international governance, mass immigration, multiculturalism, radical diversity, racialised politics, net zero, managed decline, two-tier justice, and the rule of judges, lawyers and technocrats – is just the way things are.

But there is nothing inevitable about any of it. Our world – and the problems it produces, like a weaker West, lost economic opportunity, rising crime, a diminished public realm, squandered social trust and growing collective anxiety – is a construct of ideology. That ideology is not as extreme as the systems of belief our leaders find easy to reject, such as communism or fascism, but it is an ideology nonetheless. And like all ideologies, as its contradictions and failures mount, liberalism is retreating into delusion and denial, growing illiberal and intolerant towards dissenters, and bestowing privilege and prizes upon its favourites.

Our liberal leaders

For some years now, I have argued that conservatives need to reject liberalism and rediscover true, philosophical conservatism. We need to develop a new conservativism that respects personal freedom but demands solidarity, understands the importance of individual agency but requires responsibility, reforms capitalism and founds a new national economic model, and rebuilds community and our shared national identity.

It is important that conservatives do not become reactionaries, and true conservatism can never be illiberal. Conservatives must be careful to defend the essential liberalism that stands for pluralism and our democratic way of life. Essential liberalism is what makes liberal democracy function. It requires not only elections to determine who governs us, but protections to prevent the the tyranny of the majority. It demands good behavioural norms, including a willingness to accept the outcome of election results.

And it requires support for free markets. Essential liberalism does not seek to turn every aspect of life into a market, but it knows that economic freedom is closely related not only to personal freedom but other values, including dignity, justice, security and recognition and respect from our fellow citizens.

The power of essential liberalism is that it does not pretend to provide a general theory of rights or justice or an ideological framework that leads towards the harmonisation of human interests and values or a single philosophical truth. It respects political diversity and allows for all manner of policy choices, from criminal justice to the tax system.

And it understands that human values and interests are often in conflict. My right to privacy might undermine your right to security. A transsexual’s right to be recognised as a woman might undermine the safety of women born as women. We need institutions, laws, and a limited number of legal rights to handle those conflicts. We need customs and traditions to maintain our shared identities and build up trust. Keeping the fragile balance between conflicting values and interests is a delicate and difficult job. As liberalism has grown more ideological, its failure to maintain this balance has become more dangerous.