Thursday 22 January 2009

"Red Tory"? If You Like, But...

My friend Phillip Blond’s Red Tory project at Demos is launched today by David Cameron, Frank Field, Jon Cruddas et al. And good luck to him, because he is going to need it.

Call it what you will, but this country needs pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war movement of economically social democratic, morally and socially conservative British and Commonwealth patriots.

In the tradition of the trade unionists and Labour activists who in the early twentieth century peremptorily dismissed an attempt to make the Labour Party anti-monarchist, and resisted schemes to abort, contracept and sterilise the working class out of existence.

In the tradition of the Attlee Government’s refusal to join the European Coal and Steel Community on the grounds that it was “the blueprint for a federal state”, and of Gaitskell’s rejection of European federalism as “the end of a thousand years of history” and liable to destroy the Commonwealth.

In the tradition of Bevan’s ridicule of the first parliamentary Welsh Day on the grounds that “Welsh coal is the same as English coal and Welsh sheep are the same as English sheep”, of those Labour MPs who in the 1970s successfully opposed Scottish and Welsh devolution not least because of its ruinous effects on the North of England, and of those Labour activists in the Scottish Highlands, Islands and Borders, and in North, Mid and West Wales, who accurately predicted that their areas would be balefully neglected under devolution.

In the tradition of the Parliamentary Labour Party that voted against the partition of the United Kingdom, of the Attlee Government’s first ever acceptance of the principle of consent with regard to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, of the Wilson Government’s deployment of British troops to protect Northern Ireland’s grateful Catholics precisely as British subjects, and of the Callaghan Government’s administration of Northern Ireland exactly as if it were any other part of the United Kingdom.

In the tradition of the Catholic and other Labour MPs who fought tooth and nail against abortion and easier divorce, of the Methodist and other Labour MPs who fought tooth and nail against deregulated drinking and gambling, and of those who successfully organised against Thatcher’s and Major’s attempts to destroy the special character of Sunday and of Christmas Day.

In the tradition of Attlee’s successful dissuasion of Truman from dropping an atom bomb on Korea, of Wilson’s refusal to send British forces to Vietnam, of Wilson’s use of military force to safeguard the right of the people of Anguilla to be British, and of Callaghan’s successful prevention of an Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.

And in the tradition that helped to provide the backbone of the Police, the Armed Forces and the Prison Service in much better days for all of them, and to call millions onto the streets to celebrate such events as the Coronation in 1953 and the Silver Jubilee in 1977.

It must conserve or, where necessary, restore national self-government (the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts), local variation, historical consciousness, family life (founded on the marital union of one man and one woman), and the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West. Agriculture, manufacturing, and small business. Close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, and all forms of art. Mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death. The constitutional and other ties among the Realms and Territories having the British monarch as Head of State, the status of the English language and the rights of its speakers both throughout the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and the rights of British-descended communities throughout the world.

It must counteract the corrosion to nought of everything set out above by the “free” market, both directly and because it drives its despairing victims by the million into the arms of Jacobinism, Marxism, anarchism and Fascism, all of which feed into neoconservatism.

It must defend and promote the universal and comprehensive Welfare State, and the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former paid for by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment, and all these good thing delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. That includes by giving a political voice to trade unions, co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies.

It must resist both the decadent social libertinism of the 1960s and the decadent economic libertinism of the 1980s. Both the European Union’s erosion of our self-government and culture, and that erosion by global capital and by American hegemony, And both the unrestricted movement of people and that of goods, services and capital.

It must uphold the concept of society on the grounds that if “there is no such thing as society”, then there can be no such thing as the society that is the family, or the society that is the nation, and to oppose the “free” market on the grounds that there cannot be a “free” market generally but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution or pornography.

It must maintain and further liberty (the freedom to be virtuous, and to do anything not specifically proscribed), equality (the means to liberty, and never to be confused with mechanical uniformity) and fraternity (the means to equality) as inseparable from nationhood (a space in which to be unselfish), family (the nation in miniature, where unselfishness is first learnt) and property (each family’s safeguard both against over-mighty commercial interests and against an over-mighty State, therefore requiring to be as widely diffused as possible, and thus the guarantor of liberty as here defined).

It must protect the family, private property and the State on the basis of their common origin and their interdependence, such that the diminishment or withering away of any one or two of them can only be the diminishment and withering away of all three of them.

It must realise as the basis of the State and of all public policy the doctrinal and moral principles (including the cultural patrimony) of classical, historic, mainstream Christianity, including the duty of assistance and protection towards all those throughout the world who profess those principles, and including by giving a political voice to the churches and agencies that so profess.

It must expose, halt and reverse the erosion of our sovereignty, liberty, democracy and identity by a heavy reliance on imported goods, rather than on a domestic manufacturing base By a heavy dependence on imported food instead of the maintenance of a thriving agricultural sector, characteristically a bastion of strong family ties, and therefore also of strong community spirit. And by the ownership or control of much of our agriculture, industry and commerce by persons who are either not our citizens or not resident within our borders for tax purposes.

It must expose, halt and reverse the deliberate importation of a new working class whose members understand no English except commands, know nothing about workers’ rights in this country, can be deported if they step out of line, and (since they have no affinity with any particular part of this country) can be moved around at will. The enforced bilingualism or multilingualism that transfers economic, social, cultural and political power to a bilingual or multilingual elite, so that those who are or will be excluded are or will be the English-speaking working class, black and white. And the process whereby, far from our having grown richer since 1979, we have in fact grown vastly poorer in real terms.

It must resist hysteria over climate change, campaigning in favour of high-wage, high-skilled and high-status jobs for the working class, and campaigning against any attempt to use climate change as an excuse, either to retard or reverse economic development in the poorer parts of the world, or to restrict travel to the rich.

It must give a voice to working-class opinion in rural areas, and in London and the South East. To the agricultural and fisheries sectors, which are being driven out of existence by European federalism, globalisation and the “free” market. To the North of England, the Midlands, the West Country and East Anglia. To the Highlands, Islands and Borders of Scotland. To North, Mid and West Wales. And to Northern Ireland specifically as part of a political movement embracing the United Kingdom as a whole.

It must give a voice to those who wish this country’s dealings with the wider world to reflect white working-class and other family ties to the Commonwealth Realms of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, and Afro-Caribbean and other family ties to the Commonwealth Realms in the West Indies and elsewhere To those who desire partnership with Russia, who reject out of hand both the Union of the Mediterranean and any treatment of Turkey as a Western country, who resist without compromise any Islamic secession from Christian countries, and who are concerned to protect the Christian communities in the Middle East. To the heirs of Sobieski and Solidarnosc.

To those who are equally unyielding, both in their determination to preserve the existing true, non-Eurofederalist unions of Latin and Teutonic peoples, and in their determination to preserve and develop those unions’ respective social democracies as expressions of Christian principles, including the safeguarding of that union, of that social democracy and of those principles by the Crown in one case, and in another case by another monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. To those who are equally unyielding, both in their demand for freedom and democracy throughout Latin America, and in their insistence on the sovereignty of each Latin American state and on its duty to pursue social justice as a sovereign state. And to those who are equally unyielding, both in their demand for freedom and democracy throughout China, and in their insistence on the indivisibility of China, from Taiwan to Tibet.

To those who refuse to allow globalisation and its multiculturalism to relegate them to Untouchable or lower-caste status. To those who refuse to define their Jewishness in terms of uncritical support for the Likud State (with its Sharia courts for certain ethnic minorities), including those who reject as a blasphemous presumption the creation of a Jewish State by human initiative, prior to the divine initiative of the sending of the Messiah. To those who reject alliance with the brutally repressive Gulf monarchies. And to those who would encourage and celebrate the high culture and emerging democracy in Iran.

It must promote friendship and co-operation between the people of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish descent, and the people of West African slave descent, on the basis of their common heritage, including Christianity, the Crown, the Common Law tradition, the English language, and the two peoples’ very extensive blood ties.

It must promote friendship and co-operation with the American people on the basis of common interests such as family values, the protection of workers and consumers, strictly limited and strictly legal immigration, fair trade and fair tax, constitutional checks and balances, universal health care, national security, Social Security, energy independence, environmental responsibility, Second Amendment rights and responsibilities, Civil Rights, America as an English-speaking country, and foreign policy realism: the Obama Coalition of economically populist (i.e., economically patriotic), morally and socially conservative foreign policy realists.

It must stand in and with the Australian tradition of B A Santamria and his five primacies: the integrity of human life, support for the family unit, decentralism, patriotism (including economic patriotism), and Judeo-Christian values, in equal and vehement opposition both to Marxism and to capitalism.

It must stand in and with the French tradition of good conservative dirigisme in opposition to the capitalist corrosion of everything that conservatives exist in order to conserve. And, inseparably therefrom, of an independent foreign policy drawing on the glorious battles against all four of German occupation, Soviet infiltration, American domination, and the unbalancing of the nascent EU by British accession.

And it must cultivate Russia’s sense of herself as an integral part of the Biblical and Classical civilisation that is the West, and as that civilisation’s bridge both to the world as defined by Islam, and to the world of the Far East, while acting as the West’s gatekeeper against subjugation to Islam or to anything Far Eastern, sharing that historic role with all the Slavs.

You know what you have to do.

29 comments:

  1. Phillip Blond is the only member of Facebook's David Lindsay Appreciation Society to be also a personal friend of David Cameron's.

    And he would make a great People's Peer, though not as great as you.

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  2. On, the first point, I'll take your word for it. We are certainly nothing if not an eclectic bunch.

    On the second, I assume that he's looking for a Tory seat in the Commons. His mentor John Milbank is one to watch where a potential peerage might be concerned. And you are very kind.

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  3. Radical Orthodoxy is now at the heart of the next government.

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  4. If only that were true on any meaningful level.

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  5. Yes, or even meaningful on any true level.

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  6. You don't know what Radical Orthodoxy is, do you, Terry?

    If the likes of the National Secular Society did and they got wind of Phillip's new role, then it would make their reaction to things like the Tony Blair/Peter Vardy and Ruth Kelly/Opus Dei connections look very tame indeed.

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  7. I only know what it is very loosely, admittedly (I'm not a theologian, and unlike others I admit when I'm on an area of no great expertise). But I'm not convinced that a 1000 word article on an obscure blog about what a very out of favour think tank is proposing to do adds up to a coherent critique of govt policy nor an established intellectual direction for reform.

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  8. "Phillip Blond is the only member of Facebook's David Lindsay Appreciation Society to be also a personal friend of David Cameron's."

    Not true - you're forgetting George Osborne.

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  9. I have checked, and George Osborne is not a member. My fresher tutee who runs it must have turned him down.

    Phillip edited the original volume 'Post-Secular Philosophy', contributed to 'Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology', remains at the very heart of RO, and can clearly nowget Cameron (who, even if wrongly, assumes himself to be the next Prime Minister) to come and speak at his conference, much to the chagrin of the Thatcherite flame-keepers in parts of the blogosphere.

    If the Dawkinsites understood any of this, then there would be bedlam. RO is far more anti-secular than, say, the Vardy Foundation, or Opus Dei.

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  10. "All the Slavs"?

    I presume you are including Muslim Slavs such as the Bosniaks, Bulgarian Pomaks, Macedonian Torbesh and Serb Gorani in this?

    And yes they are Slavs. They look no different from their Christian bretheran and have ic at the end of their names.

    Arabs after all can be Muslim and Christian. Why not Slavs?

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  11. They are both nineteenth-century constructs, certainly beginning with the speaking of particular languages, but just as certainly not ending there.

    The Arab idea was largely constructed by Christians, and has always included them. Whereas the Slav idea was constructed specifically by reference to, among other things, historic and ongoing gatekeeping against Islam.

    Arab Christianity is very, and very forcefully, Arab, a living riposte to Wahhabism and the like. But Slavic-speaking Islam is increasingly Wahhabi or similar in character, even recently banning the Serbo-Croat Santa from the schools of Sarajevo. Expect a lot more of that sort of thing.

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  12. David, I wouldn't accuse you of deliberate racism. But you are prone to the most breathtaking racial generalisations.

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  13. Are the Red Tories the new Jacobites?

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  14. At root, yes.

    The Red Tory tradition is that of those who were never completely convinced of the legitimacy of the state created in 1688, or, therefore, of its Empire or of that Empire's capitalist ideology.

    Mediated by, in, through and as Catholicism, High Churchmanship (subsequently including Methodism and then also Anglo-Catholicism), Congregationalism, the Baptist movement, Quakerism and other things, all of them hotbeds of Jacobite sentiment, it long outlasted the death of the Stuart cause as such with Cardinal York in 1807.

    And it went on to produce, among much else, the (Tory-led) opposition to the slave trade, the demands for (largely Tory-delivered) extensions of the franchise and other political reforms, the Labour Movement's amelioration of economic and social injustices precisely in order to prevent a Marxist revolution, and the opposition to the Boer and First World Wars.

    Radical Orthodoxy (of which I am not uncritical, I might add) at the heart of what thinks that is going to be the next government. Who'd have thought it? And just as well that the Thatcherite flame-keepers are among all the other inherent, inescapable atheists who have never heard of it. Ayn Rand or Leo Strauss it certainly isn't. Thank God.

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  15. It is not Wahabi. They are Hanafi.

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  16. Come to think of it, the Maldives are Hanafi as well. They are of course members of the Commonwealth but you can jailed for being possession of a bible or even a crucifix there.

    Are you saying the Queen supports Wahabism in her Commonwealth! The world should be told!

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  17. I think we all know who has been paying the piper and calling the tune both in Bosnia and in Kosovo for a very long time now. They are increasingly doing the same thing among the Polish Tartars, for example.

    The Queen is not the Head of State of the Maldives. There might very well come to be two Commonwealths, both headed by the same person and with all his or her Realms and Territories as the core members, but one still comprised of those accidentally (and sometimes quite tangentially) related to the British Empire, the other of countries having no dispute with any of the monarch's Realms or Territories and desiring to take a (basically Christian) stand against globalisation, American military-industrial hegemony, European federalism, Islam, and the rise of China, all of which are closely related.

    Now, THERE is a "Red Tory" idea.

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  18. You are deliberately posting the Radical Orthodox connection on Tory blogs in order to alert the "Dawkinsites".

    How about this nexus, David Cameron-Red Toryism-Phillip Blond-Radical Orthodoxy-David Lindsay-British People's Alliance?

    Or this one, David Cameron-Red Toryism-Phillip Blond-Radical Orthodoxy-David Lindsay-Catholic League of the United Kingdom-Communion and Liberation-Pope Benedict?

    You want the Red Tories for yourself, not the Conservative Party. You are not above using the "Dawkinsites" to get them.

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  19. In the heartlands of the old party of working-class patriots and social conscience toffs, of temperance Methodists and traditional Catholics, turnout last time was in some cases as low as one in three.

    If, as is quite clear from the discussion of this on the likes of Conservative Home, the Tories do not want those votes, then their owners need not imagine that they have nowhere else to go.

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  20. Also David Cameron-Red Toryism-Phillip Blond-Radical Orthodoxy-Nottingham Centre of Theology and Philosophy-Communion and Liberation-Catholic League of the United Kingdom-David Lindsay-British People's Alliance.

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  21. CL haven't even said yes to sponsoring (if that is the word) the CLUK yet. Get a grip.

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  22. Bob Santamaria, eh? And your blogroll includes RJ Stove...

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  23. "...", indeed, Waltzing Matilda.

    "...", indeed.

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  24. Just as a matter of interest, where do you get your information on such matters as John Milbank potentially getting a peerage from? Also, you've mentioned a few times on this site that radical orthodoxy is being taken seriously by some high-ranking politicans but who are these people? And will it make any difference?

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  25. Stangely both the Saudis and the Iranians (rival ideologies) are funding mosques in Bosnia.

    However there is still a distinct lack of beards in the place. For a bunch of screaming jihadis, the place seems to be full of women (in Muslim Sarajevo) with their heads uncovered.

    Hardly an oppressive society.

    Why do you class the Maldivans as not screaming jihadis when they ban the bible etc but Bosnia is full of them when the bible is definately not outlawed?

    Interesting.

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  26. I just said that John getting a peerage was more likely than Phillip getting one. In fact, eventually, it is pretty much inevitable. He that distinguised an academic, and he's still a long way off retiring.

    RO is manifestly being taken seriously by Cameron, since he addressed this conference. It is the only thing for which Phillip is known, or would wish to be known. And it clearly got him this Demos job (what else did?), so this project is clearly an outworking of it. Even if it might not necessarily have been, it certainly is now that it is being run by him.

    Give it time, The Aberdonian. Give it time.

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  27. Awww! Is this the Harry Met Sally (or David Met David) moment for Lindsay and Cameron?

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