“National Conservatism”

Does the same hold true when discussing Labour post-2019? Because a common refrain was that Labour had to accept that a true left-wing offering was always doomed to electoral defeat and they had to accept that Britain was a (small c)onservative country.

Those of us who believe that it important and correct to offer effective opposition and a meaningful alternative (and to argue the case for progressive solutions) have been repeatedly told that this is 'student politics', that we'd see Labour rendered a 'protest movement' and that 'principles are nothing without power'.

I could swap round many of your sentences above - "Labour becoming the Conservatives in order to be elected rather defeats the purpose" - but we are always told that this is how it must be.

Fundamentally post-war British conservatism has been about letting people gain and conserve their individual property - homes, businesses, capital, wealth. The reason why upcoming generations aren't buying it is because over the past few decades the Conservatives have forgotten the first part of that, and become dominated by interests for the second part - they've got their stuff and it's in their interests for its value and returns to stay high, which means stopping newcomers to the market getting any. So anyone born post-1985 or thereabouts (who came of age on or after the credit crunch) and who doesn't have access to existing sources of capital has found the Conservatives entirely hostile to them. They have nothing to conserve, so why should they be Conservative?

The Tories need to remember that and reshape conservatism to attract the 'wants' rather than the 'haves'. The problem being that the entire party - as an institution and a voter base - is dominated by 'haves' and the current sort of conservatism that rules the party has no motive or means to loosen its grip and allow others to gain at its expense.

Ha sorry, I’m reading Homage To Catalonia again, Spanish civil war on the brain.

With regards to the magna carta and democracy, landowners getting concessions from a monarch isn’t democracy. As others have pointed out, Britain wasn’t democratic until much later

Which is why it was a mistake to try and have a serious debate about the future of British Conservatism at an event being organised by some American right wingers. Few believe in that stuff here including the COE.

It’s straight out of the republican playbook “christian country” means straight, white and family oriented.

Anything outside of that is deviancy.

That’s irrelevant to my point, when these people talk about a Christian country they’re imagining their very own Gilead.

There's more to democracy than universal suffrage.

Magna carta has quite a lot to with democracy. You have some reading to do. Start here

https://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/so-what-was-magna-c...

Of course. Most under 50's are agnostic or atheist, those of that age group who do follow any religion are not likely to follow Christianity IMO.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect”

Frank Wilhoit

‘Society is indeed a contract.…[But, a]s the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born….Changing the state as often as there are floating fancies,…no one generation could link with the other. Men would be little better than the flies of a summer.’

Edmund Burke

Whether you like it or not it’s pretty much the bedrock of conservatism. The social contract.

It's a flawed social contract when the masses have to accept that the few will hoard all the wealth and bargain for as low a tax as it gets whilst privatising and defunding anything that might look after them in the process.

The evils of taxation, not looking after the poor, needy or infirm, small government intervention so that the rich can get away with everything to make a quick buck, being beholden to corporations and donors to provide any form of progress, reliant on donations and philanthropy to cover the needs of everyone as they don't wish to contribute towards society/pay for it themselves, maximum profit for the individual at all costs. Demonising everyone that isn't the lucky few. Keep the status quo. I've got mine, fk everyone else.

The anti-social contract. Conservatism.