Who are the ‘National Conservatives’ and what do they stand for?

It is little more than crude populism and could fragment the Tory party, says Sean O’Grady

A heckler is dragged away after interrupting Jacob Rees-Mogg at the National Conservatism conference in London on Monday (Getty)

As the National Conservative Conference meets in London, already a couple of keynote speeches by Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg have provided some controversy. For many in the Conservative Party, the National Conservative movement, which began in the United States, is another unwelcome faction in a divided party, with alarmingly fascistic overtones. To its supporters, it represents a rebirth of traditional conservative values after flirtations in recent decades with social liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity, equality and globalisation. Suffice to say it seems well-funded and, like the Conservative Democratic Organisation grouping within the Conservative Party, enjoys some popularity among the grassroots and rightist elements in the media.

What is National Conservatism?

In Britain it seems to be a kind of mash-up of Hard Brexit shibboleths, populism, nationalism, anti-globalisation, anti-immigrant prejudice, social conservatism and “anti-woke” beliefs, with a side-order of climate denialism, anti-vax crankery, Islamophobia, Sinophobia, transphobia, plus some optional mild racism and homophobia. They tend to like Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Viktor Orban. As the Tory backbench MP Miriam Cates sees it, the UK arm of the movement grew out of the 2016 EU referendum and Boris Johnson’s 2019 election victory – “an instruction from the public that they expect us to govern with their interests, their values in mind. Not the values of the intelligentsia – the globalised elite whose loyalties are to everyone and no one”.

According to the NatCon website: “We see national conservatism as the best path forward for a democratic world confronted by a rising China abroad and a powerful new Marxism at home. We see the rich tradition of national conservative thought as an intellectually serious alternative to the excesses of purist libertarianism, and in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race. The United Kingdom is forging its own independent path outside the European Union. National Conservatism offers a guide which honours Britain’s history, seizes the opportunities of the moment and fits us for the future.”

Broadly, they also stand for the primacy of Christianity, dislike multiculturalism, and, in stark contrast to the right-wing orthodoxy that has held since the end of the Cold War, the system of rules-based international bodies that have promoted free trade and globalisation. They seem markedly more relaxed about Russian than Chinese expansionism.

While silent on LGBT+ rights, they stress family values and abhor the “unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual licence”.

Who is attending?

The biggest fish is Michael Gove, who features on the National Conservative Conference website as a confirmed speaker. Otherwise, it’s a not-very mixed bag of NatCon/Maga types from America, plus some right-wing British ministers and MPs and more or less familiar media and allied outriders. So the two days of echo chamber activity also features Lord (David) Frost, Lee Anderson, Darren Grimes, Douglas Murray, Toby Young, David Starkey, Katharine Birbalsingh, Frank Furedi and Matthew Goodwin: everyone from those who want a hard Brexit to anti-vaxxers, the full spectrum from eccentric to fruitcake.

Any notable absentees?

Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Nigel Farage would have given the proceedings a bit more oomph, but for their own reasons, they’ve obviously decided to give it a swerve. They have reputations to consider, after all.

Who is funding it?

The Edmund Burke Foundation – a Washington-based based lobby group with charitable status chaired by Yoram Hazony, an American and author of The Virtue of Nationalism. He’s also in London for the conference.

What do they want?

In a UK context, they’d favour scrapping the present EU-UK trade treaty and going for Hard Brexit; protectionism towards the likes of China but, confusingly, tempered by some free trade deals with like-minded nationalistic protectionist nations; severe restrictions on all inward migration, legal or otherwise; unwinding laws and the culture of equality, diversity and multiculturalism (presumably by purging public and even private bodies); selective and traditionalist education; and the usual small state, low tax economy with a minimal safety net welfare state and NHS. It’s an evolutionary step backwards from Thatcherism, for example, because it views big business and free trade with so much suspicion. It’s really not much more than crude populism, and, despite the intellectual pretensions of its protagonists, has no coherent philosophical core.

Is Boris Johnson their figurehead?

He’s certainly their inspiration, minus the net zero stuff. As we saw at the similar Conservative Democratic Organisation gathering at the weekend, the Tory right is split on whether a leadership challenge to Sunak would be useful now; but they certainly don’t rate him. Winning elections matters, but not as much as ideological purity – a sure sign of the kind of fissiparous political cultism that used to be the preserve of the left. Their ideal leader would be someone like the electorally-challenging Suella Braverman, David Frost or (before her recent apostasy on retained EU law), Kemi Badenoch. Penny Mordaunt is probably disqualified, not least because she once told the Commons that “a trans woman is a woman”.

Didn’t there used to be a National Conservative Party?

Yes, in the 1930s a National Government was formed under Ramsay MacDonald with Conservative and minority Labour and Liberal components. When they fought elections on behalf of the National Government they all used the prefix “National”.

Where will it all end?

With a split in the Conservative Party, principally over Europe but with many other economic and cultural issues at play. The very name National Conservative, aside from an unfortunate historical echo, smacks of a nascent party one could just about envisage its adherents breaking away in opposition, and joining forces with the Farageist Reform UK and other various cranky micro-parties on the hard right such as Reclaim. The obvious problem there is that the devotees of these various parties hold to some widely differing ideas and practical policies, such as whether there’s a shadowy conspiracy running “the great reset” and whether to support President Zelensky in his struggle for freedom. Addicted to plotting and factionalism in the name of principle, they’re as likely to fragment further as to unite.

The rump Conservative Party, taking most of its MPs, peers and a minority of activists, would be left to find a future with a more pro-European, socially and economically liberal, one-nation agenda, actually closer in outlook to the Liberal Democrats and Starmerite Labour than the new National Conservatives. Either way, the right divided against itself would be in opposition for a long time. Their conferences would be lively affairs, but would leave the British electorate bemused.