All aboard the good ship ARC

When the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference began, Baroness Stroud invited us to board the good ship ARC. As delegates trotted aboard two by two, they may have been somewhat alarmed to discover that at present the vessel of salvation — the ExCel conference centre — looked an awful lot like an airport terminal, complete with beady-eyed security guards and metal detectors. Yesterday, we were tossed upon the stormy seas of free market capitalism, which a series of wide-eyed naïfs attempted to persuade us was a gentle, beneficent shower. These “miserable comforters” wanted to reassure us that just as soon as we repented of the stubborn sins of progressivism and environmentalism, a world of infinite capitalist energy and abundance awaited. 

Fortunately we didn’t have to wait 40 days and nights, and by the second day, the waters had subsided, the sun shone forth and Nigel Farage — proclaiming himself an “old school environmentalist” — flew us towards dry land, an olive branch clutched in his beak. 

The conference was starting to get properly entertaining. A heartening digestif on the previous evening had been an excellent talk on the dangers of smartphones by actress and minor royal Sophie Winkleman. Yes, none other than Big Suze off Peep Show, radiating effortless poise and glamour as she spoke passionately about the plight of young people and the overuse of tech in the classroom. Whisper it, but could this be a political conference that is also, just occasionally, fun?

Whatever you think of him (and he, more than any other figure in British politics, provokes strong thoughts and words), Farage certainly makes politics entertaining. So it was perhaps a pity that we had to have his words mediated to us through Jordan Peterson. The Right’s favourite Jungian analyst was clearly delighted to get Nige on his couch. And right away, dark and murky psychological depths were being plumbed.

Hannan and Abbott appeared dogmatic and out of touch, speaking in abstractions

The first surprise was a bizarre schizophrenic episode, in which Nigel was a thoughtful leader of a party of government, and Kemi the bomb chucking demagogue. Whilst the Tory leader thundered about the crisis of Western civilisation, Farage worried about Welsh steel workers. But stranger things were still to come. Asked about family values, the leader of Reform revealed that he was not a “heterosexual monogamist”. Were we about to learn something truly startling about Nigel’s sexuality? Disappointingly, he only meant his two divorces, but this was already shaping up to be a more enjoyable day.

If yesterday had been given over to Mammon, Tuesday was solidly in the God camp. Further startling reversals featuring Badenoch followed. Whilst Kemi had held forth on the creeping menace of Islamic prayer in secular British schools, Ayaan Hirsi Ali gave a powerful talk on the centrality of Christianity to British culture and the dangers of unthinking secularism. Pious words flew thick and fast, not least from Bishop Barron, who explained that freedom existed for the purpose of pursuing the good, not for its own sake.

Nor was it just Christian sentiments that got a hearing — Christian social and political thought finally made an appearance, and we got speakers who seemed to realise capitalism was in crisis, not happily churning out global prosperity if only we let it alone. David Brooks had harsh but necessary words for the populist Right, arguing that increasingly they are just “anti-left” not conservative, and lack a positive vision. His frontal assault on Trump brought boos, but also applause. Things were getting lively. His excoriating attack on elites who tear up the social, moral and institutional fabric through inequality, individualism and economic and political disruption was one of the most substantial interventions of the conference. Looking at both MAGA and the social justice movement, he identified in them the start of an epochal shift away from individualism and towards a more communitarian spirit.

An equally lively and thoughtful panel followed, with Rod Dreher calling for a more mystical, less worldly Christianity and Amy Orr-Ewing identifying a growing spiritual thirst amongst the young. This, far more than corporate lectures about progress, seemed to connect with and energise the audience.

One of the best events of the day was a debate involving Daniel Hannan and former Australian PM Tony Abbott, making the case for free trade, with Michael Gove and Oren Cass arguing for protectionism. Cass is the chief economist of American Compass, and the author of The Once and Future Worker. Cass, perhaps more than any other figure in American conservative politics, has been challenging Reaganite economic orthodoxy, questioning shibboleths around free trade and free markets, and locating the worker, not the capitalist, at the cause of American prosperity. 

Hannan and Abbott appeared dogmatic and out of touch, speaking in abstractions, compared to Gove and Cass, who pointed to the threat of China, and the devastation wrought on post-industrial communities, and made a pragmatic, measured case for strategic protectionism. This was an embodiment of the rift I identified yesterday between two different generations of conservatism, one stuck in the 80s, the other dissident, intellectually engaged, and determined to shake up the establishment. Indeed, the political ground was moving beneath Hannan and Abbott’s feet at that very moment. Before the event started, a large majority of the audience voted in favour of free trade — by the end, a majority favoured protectionism. 

The ARC was buzzing cheerfully, and the animals were mingling freely by this point. But were the floodwaters rising again? Aboard the ARC, it was an unsettled question, at least when it came to literal sea levels. Jordan Peterson had questioned whether climate change was harmful at all that morning. And now the captain — Paul Marshall himself, who is presumably helping foot the bill for this mighty conservative vessel — was striding onto the deck to warn us of the dangers of Net Zero.

I find myself in two minds on the conversation on green policy at the conference. On the one hand I had little to disagree with when it came to Marshall’s argument that Net Zero has been catastrophically thought out, and risks further deindustrialising Britain. I’ve made that argument myself in these pages. But the deafening consensus on the issue, and the handwaving about technological progress saving the day felt an inadequate response to the scale of the problem. Speakers were right to point out that there are more environmental issues than just carbon, and that economic suicide won’t solve ecological challenges. But where were the talks about those challenges? Birth rates and civilisational self hatred are existential issues, but so is the rape and destruction of our natural inheritance. What is the point of economic growth and nationalism if they see the English countryside concreted over, if our soil and air are poisoned, and if we lose — forever — precious and beautiful species? 

Paul Kingsnorth criticised ARC harshly on his blog, for all that he is in sympathy with many aspects of what the conference is setting out to do in other areas. Why not invite him to speak? Why not, as with the energetic and entertaining debate on free trade, platform both sides of the argument? 

I left the ARC a far happier animal than on the previous day, but confirmed in my feeling that such events are at their best when they represent the full range and depth of conservative thought and opinion. There is also a basic moral imperative, when lofty political figures and vast resources are mobilised for a conference, not to dodge questions like poverty, inequality and ecology. When these matters were openly wrestled with on stage, ARC became a vital, fascinating place to be. With new ideas so desperately needed, conservatives, populists and dissident leftists alike can benefit from sharpening their thoughts and words in real time — and who knows what happy blazes the ensuing sparks may ignite?