Should we be worried by the rise of the national conservatives?

An international movement of nationalists might struggle to find cohesion but the hard right is still a potent electoral threat, says Sean O’Grady

Nigel Farage, honorary president of Reform UK and former MEP, at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels on Tuesday (AP)

Order has been restored to the National Conservatism conference in Brussels, just in time for the politicians, sympathetic journalists, academics and others of the hard right to welcome their poster boy Viktor Orban. Their most successful elected representative, unless you take the view Donald Trump won in 2020 and is still president of the United States.

Their cheeky idea of meeting in the epicentre of the Euro-federalism they despise went a bit wrong when the mayor of Brussels, Emir Kir, decreed the event a public order risk. “Among these personalities there are several, particularly from the right-conservative, religious right and European extreme right,” he said. “The far right is not welcome.”

Playing somewhat into the martyr mentality of the hard right, Mr Kir sent in the police and let loose pandemonium, with leading Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman at risk of being locked into the venue (thus, on this occasion, being unable to Leave). Interventions by an independent Belgian court and the country’s liberal prime minister Alexander De Croo reversed the liberal mayor’s somewhat illiberal move; police left the scene, and so the ideological mayhem was resumed. They made speeches, annoyed liberals and begged many questions about who they are and where they’re going.

What is National Conservatism?

Some say it’s a nice name for neo-fascism, others argue that all the characteristic authoritarianism and intolerance are just mainstream right-wing views held by many “secret conservatives” who are either too shy or too unenlightened to admit their true identity.

They often complain the mainstream media doesn’t offer their point of view, so here is what the National Conservatism website states:  “National Conservatism is a movement of public figures, journalists, scholars, and students who understand that the past and future of conservatism are inextricably tied to the idea of the nation, to the principle of national independence, and to the revival of the unique national traditions that alone have the power to bind a people together and bring about their flourishing.”

How is it different to Conservatism, conservatism, liberal conservatism, libertarianism and various other sides of blue?

Books have been written about this. As Boris Johnson, a man who skilfully occupies the ideological borderlands between right and hard right, said the other day, this sort of politics is not what Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would recognise as conservatism.

Older conservatives tended to be in favour of: free markets; free trade; the international order set out after the Second World War (UN, human rights conventions, Nato, IMF and so on); the EU (with reservations); resistance to Russian aggression but also detente with them and China in the right atmosphere; economic and social liberalism, including people living their lives as they wish without judgement about sexual mores.

While Western conservatives in the 1990s and 2000s were keen on China and India joining the world economy, and the globalisation of supply chains and international finance, their populist NatCon successors use “globalist” and “globalism” as terms of abuse, and view financial markets and big businesses (especially those with programmes for diversity and inclusiveness) with suspicion. Conservatives in the era of Reagan and Thatcher were less willing to trash their national constitutions, courts, and journalists.

As for foreign policy, conservatives were supportive of “regime change” in the pursuit of spreading their vision of freedom and democracy. Their Trumpian successors are tired of foreign wars and wary of intervention, harking back to a pre-1940s era of isolationism in the US, and appeasement in Britain and France.

Is it a cohesive ideology?

Not entirely. The notion of an international movement of nationalists is oxymoronic; for example, the nationalists of Poland are rather hostile to the nationalists of Russia. Marine Le Pen and Mr Farage might agree to dislike refugees but clash over the proposal to send as many as possible back to Calais.

Mr Orban and Mr Farage are prepared to allow Vladimir Putin to keep much of Ukraine in order to achieve peace; Liz Truss and Italian premier Georgia Meloni want to fight him to the last.  Some say they are in favour of free trade, but only if it suits their country – one reason why Mr Farage and Mr Trump probably couldn’t make a US-UK free-trade agreement work.

In some countries, the NatCons unashamedly adopt religious and moral stances on issues such as trans rights and abortion; others hold out against making them party political, mindful of the bitter divisions in the US over Roe v Wade and so on. Women’s rights more generally seem ripe to be the next battleground both for and within the national conservative “movement”.

Do they agree on anything?

For sure. More or less explicit Islamophobia (they dislike the very word) is a striking and universal theme, and it seems motivated by chauvinism and racism. In some cases, the extreme anti-Muslim hatred seems to have resulted in a fanatical devotion to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and its ruthless war in Gaza. The new rightist enthusiasm for Christianity and Western “Christian values” (again, as exclusively defined by them) is also noticeable, even among people who have spent more time in police cells than a place of worship. They pretty much all favour arbitrary justice, denial of human rights for alleged criminals and capital punishment.

At the more outlandish end of the scale, national conservatism is increasingly infected with anti-science: anti-vaccination, climate change scepticism or even denial, the “chemtrails” people, distrust of the media and near automatic belief in a tick list of conspiracy theories: Roswell, JFK, Diana, Covid as a “hoax”, the World Economic Forum as a secret global government (the latter shading uncomfortably into antisemitism). Further common ground is resistance to “woke” progressive values, defined as they see fit. “Free speech” is not applied to views they find abhorrent.

More than anything, national conservatives are populists and prefer to blame their respective countries’ problems on migrants, minorities, liberals and foreigners. For all the intellectual pretensions, national conservatism is a base religion.

Who was at the NatCon conference in Brussels?

Anyone who is anyone in cranky rightist circles simply had to be there, including representatives of the distinctly atavistic Edmund Burke Foundation (of which the Nat C movement is basically an offshoot), allied Trumpites, Nigel Farage, Suella Braverman, Eric Zemmour (who makes Marine Le Pen sound like Yvette Cooper), the misleadingly-named David Engels, ex-revolutionary communist Frank Furedi, Melanie Phillips, authoritarian Polish ex-PM Mateusz Morawiecki… plus Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a German noblewoman, Catholic activist, socialite and unlikely populist rabble-rouser.

Mr Trump obviously had to send his apologies, having urgent legal issues to attend to. In easier times, Mr Putin might have been a half-welcome ally and visitor. It is interesting to note that these tribunes of the people and their backers can be extremely wealthy.

What is Farage up to?

Watching Mr Farage fulminate against the EU while standing close to the European parliament makes it seem as if he’s almost nostalgic for his well-paid days in the place. Brexit means that he can’t do that anymore, but his obsession with the EU has always carried the ambition that it be ultimately broken up, not just stripped of British involvement. These conferences are also an excellent way to keep his profile up so he can keep teasing the Tories about destroying (or joining) them before the next general election.

Why is Suella Braverman there?

For even more blatantly careerist reasons. The hand-to-hand fighting for the rubble that will be left after the general election will be like the battle for Stalingrad in 1942, and Ms Braverman knows that she and formidable rivals are ready to try and outflank her on the right: Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Liz Truss (unbelievably), Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt (comparatively sane but still pretty hard right), Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. In the 2016 and 2019 contests, contenders tried to outdo each other by promising the hardest Brexit. Next time, it will be pledges on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, small boats, and tax cuts. Ms Truss’s promises to abolish the Supreme Court and the United Nations will be hard to beat.

Do the National Conservatives matter?

Yes. Aside from taking over the Conservative Party and the Republicans, they are in power in Italy and Hungary, and influential in Sweden, Slovakia and Finland. They are viable contenders for the French presidency in 2027 and maybe even a share in power in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain by the end of the decade. More immediately, they are bound to make major gains in the European parliament in June, adding to their presence and momentum.

The rise of the new right – admittedly, not entirely encompassed and defined by national conservatism – is also pushing more mainstream parties in their direction in the fight for votes. In Britain, the success of Reform UK will merely reinforce the strong swing to Labour, with disillusionment about Brexit, the defining case of UK national conservatives, accounting for much of the coming Tory disaster. If their policies don’t add up, the national conservatives won’t hang on to power for long.