National conservatism has won its first great victory
President Trump’s decisive victory this week will change many things (though the disdain of the liberal establishment towards the views of ordinary voters doesn’t appear to be one of them). It will take time to sink in. Presumptions about the way the world works are going to have to adjust.
This is going to be particularly difficult for Labour: their worldview is already so disconnected from the way the world actually works that reality can only with difficulty impinge upon it. Happily, their ideas are being overtaken fast by the new conservative movement emerging across the West – one that will be galvanised by Trump’s victory.
It’s undeniable that across Western countries a different kind of conservatism is emerging. The direction of policy in the post-Cold War period – towards globalisation, international institutions, and free movement of goods, services, and people – has largely exhausted itself.
Like it or not, the most vibrant, growing, and intellectually active movements on the Right derive their strength from a different form of conservatism, “national conservatism” if you will: one based on promoting nationhood, national identity, culture, borders, history, a degree of social conservatism, the prosperity of people who actually live in the country, and a realist not messianic view of foreign policy and defence commitments.
The form varies across the West. In Hungary, in Poland, to a large extent in Italy, and now in the United States this movement has simply taken over the main Right-wing parties. Elsewhere, in France, Germany, Austria, Spain, or Sweden, there are challenger parties on the Right, of varying degrees of acceptability, still competing with a weakening mainstream.
Britain sits between the two. The Brexit vote and the temporary realignment under Boris Johnson were driven by similar forces, but it turned out that the 2019-24 Conservative Party couldn’t wholly bring itself to represent them. It is now resurfacing amidst ever-stronger concerns about immigration and social cohesion, both in the Conservatives and in Reform.
So far, national conservatism has been fragmented, in some places tainted by the origins of the parties that represent it, and often fragile electorally. In Europe, the EU is deliberately constructed to keep such forces at the margin. But President Trump’s victory is now going to change things. This form of conservatism has won a decisive mandate in the leading country of the West. And if Trump delivers in the way he has promised, we will have a visible example of what it can achieve.
Trump has big advantages over others. He won’t have Ursula von der Leyen and the European Courts fussing every time he tries to change immigration rules. His mandate is strong enough to weaken opposition in domestic courts and the US deep state. He has now-repentant Democrats like Elon Musk and Tulsi Gabbard, visible symbols of the political realignment, as leading members of his team. As long as Trump sticks to his strategy, explains his ideas (and JD Vance will be vital here), and moves quickly, then he should be able to get things done.
Conservatives across the West have got to start accommodating themselves to this reality and stop being sniffy about it. After all, it’s not new. National identity, history, and culture were core components of conservative parties’ policies until the 1990s and the so-called “end of history”. They were also core elements of the Reagan and Thatcher appeal, forgotten though they may be now. Such ideas are what conservatism is about at its heart.
British conservatives in particular need to get real about this. In many ways we in Britain drove this trend with Brexit. It’s frankly ridiculous for some supposed Tories – I saw one such MP on the BBC on Wednesday – to oppose Trump and talk up Kamala Harris, seemingly because she seems somewhat closer to the pre-2016 version of conservative politics. That version of conservatism is dying. What British conservatives must now do is tap into this new movement while stopping it drifting too far into protectionism and social democrat style welfare economics. The politics of “Right on culture, Left on economics” is not sensible, because Left on economics always leads to wealth destruction and decline.
It’s an open question whether Trump 47 will avoid this, but the signs are cautiously positive. I don’t like his tariff policy in general, but before we get too precious about it let’s remember that we and the EU have average external tariffs of 5 per cent now, and around twice that on agriculture. Let’s also remember the Musk plan for huge reductions in federal bureaucracy, likely reduced regulation, and the very welcome attack on Net Zero policies which will make US energy even cheaper and its industry even more productive.
British conservatism has to keep its eye on this big picture or it risks being squeezed. The voter base for the policies of the last 30 years is disappearing. The choice is between Leftist, statist, post-modernist madness; or the nation, borders, growth, and a return to the traditions and strengths of Western civilisation. Let’s get properly on the right side of that argument. It’s from there that we can win.