Badenoch, a new Conservative beginning or more of the same?

The Conservative Party recently elected a new leader, Kemi Badenoch on 2^nd November 2024.  There has been a lot of media speculation about what this means for the U.K. political landscape.  As part of her election campaign, she co-authored a lengthy analysis called Conservatism in Crisis¹.  The document is reasonably interesting, but stops well short of a programme that would arrest and reverse the decline in the U.K.  To some extent, the document asks readers to accept a number of negative developments and warns that attempts to reverse this decline could be seen as a “reactionary trap”.

The document correctly identifies the weakening of individual responsibility and market solutions in favour of state imposed diktat.  It also identifies the rise of a “bureaucratic class” that is; expanding its powers, enforcing woke ideology and extracting rents from the economy. 

Interestingly, recent analysis shows that Labour achieved its highest vote share (40%) in the 2024 general election in the highest household income category (£ 70,000 and over).  Counter-intuitively the Conservative party achieved its highest vote share (26%) in the second lowest income band so it appears that traditional class voting has been inverted². 

The main claim of Conservatism in Crisis is that the growth of this Leftist “bureaucratic class” is imposing a major cost on the economy.  The class creates a large administrative burden as it requires people to comply with its woke ideology on diversity, equity and inclusion. 

The basic theme of the document could probably be summarised by this quote from Joseph Sobran “socialism always attacks three basic social institutions; Religion, the family and private property.”

The document doesn’t go far enough for my money and suggests that social changes should be taken as read and any attempt to reverse would be a mistake “There is no point in trying to reverse the problems of the modern world by trying to get back to the past”.  It goes on to list a number of social conditions which should be considered settled including; childlessness, cohabitation outside marriage and cannabis usage. 

In reality, each one of these apparently settled issues actually leads to further problems.  Specifically, the decline in female fertility (childlessness) creates the technocratic excuse for mass immigration which is “required” in order to stabilise the ratio of economically active population to retired population.  If you take yet another step back, you can see that the decline in many of these social metrics has exactly coincided with the decline in Christianity (I plan to produce some charts showing this soon).  One striking example is the staggering increase in births outside marriage, which recently exceeded 50% after decades of stability from 1900 up to the late 1970s.

Conservatism in Crisis links to a study of attitudes to non-traditional family behaviours to determine what is settled³.  The fact that the level of disapproval of some family arrangements is relatively low and has declined in the recent past does not necessarily mean that these arrangements are good.  For example, it should be possible for the state to encourage marriage by re-introducing generous married couples tax allowances.  Recreating a positive tax incentive could not be described as a “reactionary trap”?

Regular readers will know that I often refer to Sir John Glubb’s generic explanation of a nation’s growth and decline in the Fate of Empires (1976).  He describes the declining stage of an empire as The Age of Decadence which is characterised by “an influx of foreigners, the welfare state and a weakening of religion”, this would be a good description of the U.K. in 2024.  His forecast for national revival is “after, perhaps, several generations (or even centuries) of suffering, the impoverished nation has been purged of its selfishness and its love of money, religion regains its sway and a new era sets in.”

As a libertarian, you could argue that areas like religion should be left to the individual.  That is true, but it is important to recognise that the idea of a secular state is largely a fiction.  The state is happy to actively promote religion, so long as it is not Christianity.

I’ve argued in the past that many progressive political agendas are actually akin to religions, or substitutes for religion.  For example climate alarmism has many characteristics of a religious movement, rather than a genuine search for proportionate solutions to a bona fide problem.  Even statism can be seen as a religion, Dr Joe Boot warned about the “disturbing totalitarian drift of a complacent society…..ready to run to the state for salvation, safety and provision.” (see article, yes they are cults⁴).  

Say one thing, do another

In addition to looking at the campaign promises, it is also necessary to take a view on the extent to which the new Conservative leadership will actually implement the stated aims.  Both Jenrick and Badenoch promise personal liberty, but both voted for the repulsive policy of coerced vaccination for care home workers⁵ in July 2021.  In an early shadow cabinet appointment, Badenoch named Neil O’Brien as shadow Minister for Education.  Dissidents will likely remember Neil O’Brien as being a particularly dishonest lockdown proponent who both manipulated statistics and smeared lockdown sceptics.  He smeared Great Barrington co-author Professor Gupta by falsely claiming that she predicted there would be no second wave of COVID, whereas she said the exact opposite and that “in the winter it will probably come back”⁶.       

Conclusion

Conservatism in Crisis is interesting in many ways but seems to place the question of the U.K.’s social decline out of bounds and suggests that this should be accepted as a given.  My guess is that the analysis downplays the strength of the forces intent on destroying Christianity, the nuclear family and the nation state in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion. In any event, many people seem to sense that we are in a cultural revolution and that to defeat that revolution will require more ambition than that set out in Conservatism in Crisis.

I found the Heritage Party’s manifesto to be far more inspiring than this Conservative document, in addition the party’s leader actually stood up for individual liberty against state coercion 2020 to 2022. 

Let me have your thoughts below and please don’t forget to circulate our material and support our work.

Alex Kriel is by training a physicist and was one of the first people to highlight the flawed nature of the Imperial COVID model⁷, he is a founder of the Thinking Coalition which comprises a group of citizens who are concerned about Government overreach (www.thinkingcoalition.com)

1. https://conservativehome.com/2024/09/30/kemi-badenoch-conservatism-is-in-crisis-and-we-need-to-be-serious-about-getting-it-back-on-track/

2. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election

3. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/26176/1/bsa37_family-life.pdf

4.

5. https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons/Division/1078

6. https://x.com/ThinkingSlow1/status/1346951886193250305

7. https://twitter.com/ThinkingSlow1/status/1257578069797339137?s=20