Our philosophy is more of an anti-religion, if anything. The origins of English conservatism lie in the conflict of the 17th century and in opposition to “enthusiasm”, or the politics of Puritanism. The Godly, as the Puritans called themselves, wished to overturn the social order by basing status not on land or ancestry, but on religious fervour, and their moralising made them hugely unpopular.
Later, most famously with Edmund Burke, the Tory worldview was articulated into a coherent philosophy about the wisdom of preserving institutions, even those – especially those – which in theory didn’t make sense.
The Conservative Party then evolved into opposition against the Whig and Liberal Party merchant interests, and in defence of crown and altar, before becoming a coalition of liberals and conservatives opposed to socialism. Thatcherism was part of that struggle, but with the Great Realignment, we’re now back to where we started, with the Tories there to oppose moralising fanatics who are creating an atmosphere where dissenting opinions feel threatened.
Family history has a nice cyclical air, and a generation on, I vote for a Conservative government I dislike mainly because the Opposition are sanctimonious fanatics. Except the difference is that there are far more progressives today, and Rick from The Young Ones is no longer an aberration but the norm. And in the medium term, let alone the distant future, they are going to win.
One of the curiosities of the modern world is that everyone thinks they’re losing, and the Tory Party is certainly good at elections – in my lifetime they’ve come top in 8 out of 11. It’s better than the alternative, as Woody Allen said of old age, but they’ve hardly spent the past decade in power reshaping the country in their image.
Under their rule we’ve had anti-natalist child tax credit cuts, the introduction of no-fault divorce, restrictions on stop and search, Theresa May’s equality report Burning Injustices and the publishing of gender pay ratios. Very little has been done to make family formation more affordable, which more than anything would make the country more Tory-leaning.
Cuts to police spending have seen crime levels rise once again under the Conservatives; this year my 12-year-old daughter has seen one knife fight and the aftermath of a second, and in-between those exciting days out a teenager was murdered about 100 yards from my son’s primary school. The Tory Government was way ahead of Black Lives Matter when it came to defunding the police.
David Cameron made promises about immigration, but the economy had already become too reliant on it; high immigration satisfied the financial needs of Telegraph readers and the moral needs of Guardian readers, and the Government didn’t want to upset either. So we got Brexit, which helped speed up the realignment, giving the Conservatives a solid majority. And for as long as Labour is captured by a relatively extreme minority and spends its time debating the dictionary definition of woman, the Tories are able to cruise along with their winning mixture of centrist policies and reactionary vibes.
But time is not on their side, for the least Tory social categories are now the most demographically ascendant – the young, the single, ethnic minorities and renters. The youth problem might be alleviated by housing reform, but it also reflects a significant generational shift in values.
The cohorts born after about 1975 and especially after 1990 tend to hold a range of views that will make it hard for the Tory Party to win their support, without abandoning their values to the point of meaninglessness. On most of the key identity issues, such as racial diversity, immigration, sexuality and gender, and (increasingly) our treatment of animals, there is a generational shift that dwarfs anything seen before.
The causes are varied; the globalised digital economy and the rise of English has weakened nation-states; the decline of religion has made utilitarian arguments about bodily autonomy impossible to resist; increased urbanisation makes people more liberal; progressivism financially suits the ruling class in a way it never did previously, and because politics is much to do with status, others imitate them.
Such a generational shift has only happened twice before in European history; during the Reformation, and in the period when Christianity itself replaced polytheism. Just as with progressives in our own time, in the fourth century Christians had started off as a small, cranky minority, but had come to dominate the education system; they won because they were popular among the young, and especially young women, and were concentrated in cities where they could control institutions.
Their numbers grew until, at some point, in the words of one Christian apologist, the pagans would have to “wake up” to the fact that they were now a minority. Soon the temples were left to rot not, most likely, because of Christian persecution, but because no one believed anymore. It would seem absurd, and embarrassing, to profess a belief in Jupiter. Julian the Apostate had tried to turn back the clock, but it was impossible to fight Roman institutions which were now controlled by Christians.
Just as in Rome, conservatives today face professions that are dominated by their opponents, the most profound example again being the education system. Like Julian, Boris Johnson has recently made attempts to ensure that cultural institutions are not entirely controlled by the new religion, but he is fighting a losing battle.
The problem is not just with institutional control; the most important comparison with the last days of Rome is in the control of taboos. Whoever owns society’s taboos comes to win, and Christians just believed with greater force that to blaspheme their God was an offence against public morals, while the polytheists had stopped caring to defend theirs. And the ancient world impiety was often viewed as a worse crime than murder.
Today it is progressives who own taboos, and those who offend the sacred ideas of race and sexual identity face the terror of being charged with impiety (or “cancelled”, to use the secular term). And if you don’t control society’s taboos, it doesn’t really matter how many elections you win — you won’t shape the future.
And so, there you have it, it all went wrong in the fourth century. Even my dad would be impressed by such a reactionary view.
Small Men on the Wrong Side of History is published by Constable
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