By Roger Scruton
During 13 years of opposition the Tory Party had the opportunity to think. Issues that were of ever increasing prominence in the minds and the feelings of the electorate were ignored or fudged by the Party hierarchy. There was a need to re-examine the core beliefs and assumptions of Tory politics, and to reconnect with the instincts and values on which the Tories had in the past depended for their support. But the Party entered into coalition government with virtually no intellectual contribution of its own, and with a rooted desire to avoid the places where thought was needed. It was as though the entire period out of office had been spent sipping cocktails in the Bahamas, watching the antics of the Labour Government on television with quiet murmurs of dismay. Issues where the Party should be taking the lead – the environment, marriage and the family, the place of religion in the public square, press freedom, policing, the armed forces – have all been addressed as though the Labour Party were still in office, and as though there were no need to change one iota of the left-liberal agenda. True, in the matter of Europe the Party has made moves to protect national sovereignty, though largely because UKIP has forced the Tories to recognise that, by not doing so, they have jeopardised their core support. Perhaps it is only in the fields of education and welfare that we see the evidence of serious thinking, with Michael Gove and Iain Duncan-Smith making a courageous attempt to unravel fifty years of egalitarian claptrap.
There is a certain kind of Tory who will say that this is altogether inevitable and right. Conservatism, such a person will say, is not about ideas but about instincts, and the main business of conservative government is not to rock the boat but to keep it afloat in troubled waters. Ideas are not the solution but the problem, and if only we could dispense with them we could return to the kind of politics that the British people prefer, and which leaves them to get on with life according to their own peaceful ambitions. It seems to me that there is no longer room for that complacent attitude. Our country has undergone radical changes that must be discussed and addressed if politics is again to make sense to the people, and not to seem like the pastime of a self-perpetuating political class.Here are some of the matters where thought is needed:
- National sovereignty, what it is and why it matters. The debate over Europe has been conducted entirely in terms of economic cost and benefit, with no attempt to define the deeper issue of the nation, its identity, its culture, its borders and its enduring sense of pre-political loyalty.
- The secular law and the loyalty of Muslims. Have we yet had the debate that is needed about the Koran, about ‘Asharite orthodoxy, and the consequences for us, in a secular and territorial jurisdiction, of a rival law that purports to over-ride all man-made legislation?
- The environment, and the nonsense of building unconfirmed scientific theories into a political program. All the thinking on this issue has been conducted according to the narrow agenda of people with trans-national ambitions and a deep disregard for home, settlement and the nation state. Yet, as I argue in Green Philosophy, it is the conservative tradition that has the more persuasive arguments.
- The law, and in particular the need to protect our common law heritage from the edicts of unaccountable bureaucrats, and to re-establish the judicial equilibrium that the Labour Party set out to overthrow.
- Marriage and the family – why should we Tories accept legislation of a radical kind, which appeals to the left-liberal establishment but challenges deep feelings in ordinary child-rearing people, when there was neither an election manifesto that announced it nor a cogent argument presented in its favour?
- Internet pornography and the fate of our children. True, there is now a fumbling attempt to open the debate. But it has been live among psychologists for two decades without making any impact on the political process. What are conservatives for, if they cannot take the lead in issues like this?
There are many more issues that will occur to the reader, of course: foreign policy, military readiness, the Union and the North-South divide. My point is simply to remind the reader that, without thinking we shall not know what we stand for, and we will go into an election with an indistinct agenda and no readiness to fight for it. But there is hope. Young people in the Windsor Conservative Association have begun a movement for Conservative Renewal, with the intention of assembling thinkers and opinion formers who will concentrate the minds of ordinary voters, and influence the Party not only to define its position on the issues of the day but also to look for the arguments that would persuade others to agree with it.
Conservative Renewal is organising their second day-long conference, which will be held in Windsor on Saturday the 14th of September. Book now for a place, and join in the conversation.
