Right-wingers must rediscover their principles

The abolition of hereditary peers is yet another blow to Toryism. Still, what is most revealing about the state of conservatism is not so much the abolition itself, but the reaction of the right. Right-wingers of all stripes have expressed regret and sympathy for the outgoing peers, yet most refused to say why aristocrats should actually stay. The best we got is the typical appeals to “tradition” and “experience”.

However, the absence of a positive case for hereditary peers is not due to the Right’s collective inability to articulate its position, but rather to a rabid fear of voicing its core beliefs and underlying logic.

Now, of course no one can blame the Conservatives for this act of institutional vandalism — after all they did not pull the trigger. Nor did they ban fox hunting or abolish the Law Lords in favour of the modern Supreme Court. Yet even when successive Conservative administrations have managed to resist the pressure to erode parts of the British state that upset liberal sensibilities, the form that this resistance took was tantamount to surrender in the long run.

Conservatives consistently refuse to say the quiet part out loud on a variety of issues. Sometimes, this problem can be circumvented by resorting to the logic of the market. Consider private schools as an example. Most on the right would argue against their abolition, not because they are a cornerstone of British society that inculcates a particular set of sensibilities and virtues into their pupils, but because individuals should be free to choose how to educate their offspring. 

Everyone may select their own favoured scapegoat for the origins of this problem. Be it the Enlightenment, the continuation of Blairism under the Coalition Government, or the adoption of neoliberalism under Thatcher in place of the long-standing principle of noblesse oblige, the outcome is the same. The right is consciously or subconsciously restricted by liberal discourse and assumptions. 

This sleight of hand works to a point simply because right-liberals and traditionalists often agree on most issues, despite having fundamentally diverging worldviews. The shared enemy in “woke” also helps to obfuscate the differences by continually providing a reason for unity in the culture wars.

Yet the abolition of hereditary peers is one issue that inevitably brings these differences to the surface. There is a limited set of reasons for why one could oppose it and none of them rely on capitalist logic or any other liberal assumption. 

The existence of hereditary peers can only be justified either by appeal to tradition or to naked elitism. The former can take a legalistic form or a post-modern form which seeks to adhere to irrational rituals for their own sake. The latter simply reaffirms the ancient Tory principle that those who are better schooled, cultivated, and prepared deserve to rule. Inevitably, those with the most privilege end up receiving the best preparation for public service by virtue of not being constrained by mundane pecuniary pressures and having privileged access to elite institutions.

Both of these explanations are problematic for the modern right: the former because it is ineffectual, and the latter because it would signify political suicide in a society that prizes equality above all else and despises privilege quite as much.

None of this is new: the lack of a positive vision on the traditionalist Right has been lamented long before our time. Disraeli’s novel Coningsby is one such example from nearly two centuries ago. In it, the protagonist, born into a typical Tory patrician family, comes to deplore the state of the party under Sir Robert Peel, precisely because, according to him, conservatism no longer stood for anything beyond a desperate attempt to roll back the inevitable march of egalitarianism.

Arguing against a long-established set of values will never be easy

It must be admitted that there is one flaw in this line of reasoning, namely that the honesty I have called for would be electorally disadvantageous, to put it mildly. The only response I can offer is that there is no other choice. 

There must come a time when the Right will have to put forward a positive programme to the public rather than letting the left set the rules of engagement. Arguing against a long-established set of values will never be easy. Yet unless one is prepared to do so, one should not be surprised when, inevitably, the logic of liberalism facilitates the destruction of every institution, practice, and ritual that they hold dear.