Conservatives and Maoism

Author: Paul Flenley

Bio:

Dr Paul Flenley, Visiting Research Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University of Portsmouth, UK. former doctoral supervisor for South Coast DTP.

Introduction
Identifying a strain of Maoist radicalism within conservatism would seem to be a contradiction in terms. Conservatism as a political tradition is associated with promoting order, stability, tradition and continuity. It rejects radical change and favours slow incremental adjustments to the status quo. In the UK historically it has been associated with the establishment. The Conservative Party has been seen as the ‘natural party of government.’ However, some current tendencies within conservatism variously named National Conservatism or Popular Conservatism seem far removed from this idea of continuity as they seek to challenge the status quo. They see themselves as rising up against the establishment and, in doing so, attack many vital institutions such as the BBC, and the universities. Liz Truss on the publication of her new book championed this ‘revolutionary’ tendency (Liz Truss – Ten Years to Save the West, Biteback Publishing, 2024). In her work, she expressed her desire to abolish the UK Supreme Court and remove the Governor of the Bank of England. She sees her failed premiership as being cut short by a conspiracy of the ‘deep state.’ Such ‘radical’ conservatives are concerned not only with challenging institutions but also with the need to change the culture. The UK is dominated by so-called wokeism. Whether it is on questions of gender, human rights, national identity or in Truss’ view the economic thinking in the Treasury, the UK is dominated by an elitist ideology. They are, therefore, engaged in a kind of Maoist-type conservative cultural revolution. With the losses of the Conservatives in the recent UK national elections, such ideas are likely to become even more prominent as the battle for the future of the Party intensifies.

The Conservative Consensus
The above agenda seems different from the one-nation, ‘middle way’ conservatism of people like MacMillan. Even former Thatcherites such as Ken Clarke, revolutionary as they appeared in the 1980s, are different from this tendency. Margaret Thatcher railed against the EU but did not wish to leave it. How then are these National or Popular Conservatives still conservative? Their argument generally boils down to the idea that the UK state and society are dominated by a form of ‘liberal elitism.’ This is a consensus that goes beyond mainstream political Liberalism and dominates the major political parties, including the Conservative Party itself. It permeates all state institutions including the civil service (see Matthew Goodwin – Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, Penguin 2023). It is the consensus of an elite that denies a voice to traditional conservative ideas and values on national identity, gender and family. According to the tendency, these latter views are held by the majority of the British people. Typically excluded by the two party-system from expressing their opinions at the usual national elections, the majority were finally able to express their rebellion against the elite at the EU referendum in 2016 and voted for Brexit. This was not just an anti-EU vote but a vote of revenge against the liberal elite establishment which had long ignored them (Harold Clark, Matthew Goodwin, Paul Whiteley – Brexit: Why Britain voted to leave the European Union, Cambridge University Press, 2017). Even then the elite has done all that it can to subvert Brexit and deny the popular will. This confirms for the National Conservatives that the new elite’s stranglehold across institutions is so firm that reasserting such traditional conservatism needs nothing short of a revolution. This means abolishing or withdrawing from those institutions and conventions which have reinforced the dominant liberal ideology. There are critical standard bearers of the ideology which come under attack such as the ECHR, the BBC and recently even the National Trust. In this way, there is the apparent paradox that a form of real radicalism is being championed in the name of the authentic traditional one-nation conservatism – the ‘one-nation’ that has been ruled over and excluded by the elite.

The ‘True’ Conservatism
Like most revolutionaries, these conservatives see persecution and conspiracies everywhere. Evidence of the National Trust’s takeover was not only its practice of acknowledging the colonial history of its holdings but also the apparent decision only to supply vegan scones! The 16th April attempt to close down the National Conservative Conference in Brussels was seen as, once again, the EU Brussels elite attempting to close down opposing views. (In fact, it had nothing to do with the EU, but was the decision of a local mayor – The Guardian 17/4/24, p. 1 – ‘PM attacks rightwing conference shutdown’). The National Conservatives also share the revolutionaries’ common perspective that their ideas are correct and that their failure is merely an indication that the ideas were not put into practice properly or indeed that they were deliberately sabotaged. Like true Communism, Brexit has failed because it has not been fully implemented and was undermined by resentful ‘remainers’ and the new elite-dominated civil service. In the case of Liz Truss’ mini-budget and her resignation after 49 days as Prime Minister, she argues that she was the victim of a grand conspiracy by the economic elite, including the Bank of England. The ideas themselves were sound and just what the UK needs. Here and elsewhere ‘the deep state’ or unelected establishment was at fault.

A Global Conservatism?
As shown by the National Conservative Conference in Brussels in April and the Conservative Political Action Conference in February in Washington at which Liz Truss spoke this trend in Conservatism is international. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) achieved success in the first round of the French parliamentary elections. Victor Orban Prime Minister of Hungary sees himself as a national conservative critic inside the EU, opposing its dominant liberalism. Within the United States, this tendency toward conservatism now dominates the Republican Party, as championed by Donald Trump. It is no coincidence that Liz Truss supports Trump’s bid to be re-elected US president. The revolutionary nature of this tendency in the United States was epitomised by the insurrection in Washington on 6th January 2021 protesting the results of the US election of Joe Biden. The recent charges against Trump and court appearances are seen by him and his supporters as part of the type of establishment conspiracy mentioned above to crush true conservatism. Rather more ominously Vladimir Putin since 2012 has positioned himself and Russia as a focus for traditional conservative values as opposed to the decadent liberalism of the West (‘Liberalism’ is dead: Putin’s drive to unite the world’s conservatives. – TRT World Research Centre, 17/6/19). With the support of the Russian Orthodox Church leadership, the war in Ukraine has been presented by him as a moral crusade. The question of support for Ukraine, however, is something that generally divides European from US conservatism – at least so far.

National Conservatism Vs Wokeism
Where will this trend in conservatism lead? In the UK in the face of the major defeat and loss of seats by the Conservative Party in the recent election, it could come to dominate that party in opposition. It can also strengthen Reform as the alternative to the Conservative Party, and establish a major split on the right for the first time in UK politics. As an ideological tendency within conservatism, like populism in general, it is mainly an expression of anger by those who feel ‘left out’ in some way rather than providing a set of coherent policies. The libertarian low-tax, anti-state, privatisation agenda advocated by Liz Truss is nothing new. Arguably, it is the results of these neo-liberal policies – lack of financial regulation, the banking crisis, austerity, privatisation and their social consequences which led to the spiral of anger and Brexit. The policy emphasis on reducing immigration has not been achieved as yet by Brexit and, in any case, seems an unlikely answer to the staff shortages, problems with housing or the current crisis in public services – other than providing a convenient diversion of blame. Appeals to empire, national identity and ‘traditional’ views on gender, family and attacking wokeism are mainly attractive, if at all, to a nostalgic, ageing constituency. As an international agenda, like most right-wing movements the narrow nationalism at the core of National Conservatism tends to contradict the idea of international solidarity. At best it promotes isolationism and the promotion of ‘the US or UK first’ at the expense of others. At worst, it can lead to failure to stand up to the ambitions of conservative, expansionist nationalists such as Putin, as is the case with the current Republican Party’s reluctance to agree more aid to Ukraine.
The critical danger of the National Conservative tendency is -perhaps like the Chinese Cultural Revolution itself in miniature – its desire for destruction. In its largely negative agenda of attacking current democratic, legal, political and human rights institutions, it will leave our politics much weaker and less resilient to meet the key challenges we face whether it be climate change, increasing poverty and inequality, crises in the health service, transport and water service or external threats coming from China or Russia. It took China many years to recover from the experiment of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Liz Truss was only in power for 49 days and people in the UK through their mortgages etc. are still suffering the cost of that short experiment in ‘true conservatism’.

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