Liberal democracy is not the default setting for forms of government. Autocracy, or dictatorships, are. Liberal democracies, and the open and liberal societies on which they rest, have to be constructed through political struggle and persuasion, and defended once established through similarly vigorous activity.
We can all now see how direct and determined current attacks on liberalism are: well-funded, by a cross-national coalition of hard-right parties actively supported by the Trump Administration in the USA. This week they gathered in London for the second conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, jointly funded by Paul Marshall (majority owner of GB News, who has long since drifted away from his SDP candidacy and Liberal Democrat support to the dark side of right-wing politics) and Christopher Chandler, a multi-millionaire based in Dubai. Kemi Badenoch gave a ‘keynote’ speech at the conference. Nigel Farage was interviewed, embarrassed as a double divorcee at being asked about his support for family values. Hungarian, Australian, Italian and other ‘alt-right’ figures thronged the conference, although the themes predominantly followed American culture wars and Christian nationalism. What we have seen show how far the British right, including the Conservative Party as well as Reform, have been colonised by American right-wing think-tanks and foundations. GB News is fully on board; the Mail and the Telegraph seem unsure of how far to support this Americanization of British politics.
What unites this diverse coalition is their shared hatred for liberalism and ‘the woke virus’. For the most articulate, this extends to a rejection of the modern state and the principles of social democracy, reasserting male supremacy, traditional roles for women and repression of ‘deviations’ like homosexuality. The ‘dark enlightenment’, a concept that Peter Thiel has espoused and whose most articulate proponent was a guest of honour at Trump’s second inauguration, holds that freedom is incompatible with democracy and that society should return to the pre-rational hierarchy of the 18th century. Others believe that strong men shape history, society and economy– citing Nietsche, Ayn Rand and Thomas Carlyle.
There’s an underlying rejection of reason beneath their rhetoric, expressed in anti-intellectual calls to rely on ‘common sense’ rather than evidence. Under this umbrella most also see ‘climate change’ as a myth, a plot to justify extending the tentacles of bureaucratic power. J. D. Vance has converted to ‘Catholic integralism’, a reactionary version of Roman Catholicism which rejects ‘modernity’ in favour of benevolent authoritarian rule (and which doubts the Catholicism of the current Pope). ‘Christian nationalism’ has grown out of the Pentecostal churches of the White American south but has echoes in Orban’s reshaping of Hungarian politics – and of the blend of religion and nationalism that marks the Russian Orthodox Church’s partnership with Putin. Trump officials have asked the Romanian government to return Andrew Tate’s passport: male dominance (and misogyny) are a part of this toxic mix.
We’ve seen echoes of all this seeping into British politics. Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates propound ‘traditional family values’. Kemi Badenoch in her speech to the ARC conference attacked ‘the poisoning of minds through higher education’ as she warned that ‘western civilization is in crisis.’ ‘Western Civilization’, she may not know, was a Cold War concept that united Western Europe with North America in contrast to barbaric Soviet Communism: ‘From Plato to NATO’, as we used to call it when I taught in an American University half a century ago.
Time for us to spell out why liberalism must be defended. Freedom should mean liberty for all citizens, not free markets for the most ruthless and determined. Freedom of worship (belief) and freedom of speech – two of the four principles of the Atlantic Charter, the declaration which shaped America and Britain’s war aims in fighting World War Two and building the postwar international order – require toleration of different views and diverse social behaviours. All power corrupts, and democratic institutions and the rule of law have been established to limit the corruption of power and wealth. Freedom for every citizen means ‘freedom from want ‘ and ‘freedom from fear (the other two Charter principles): support for those in need, protection for those threatened by crime, disease, disorder or war. The state that Elon Musk is trying to dismantle is the necessary structure to maintain an open society, to limit gross inequality and to regulate our common life, local, national and international.
Britain has happily become a far more liberal society in my lifetime. Most of our citizens now take what has been achieved for granted. We need to warn them, with what is happening in America as vivid evidence, that it is under threat. There’s a lot of money, of rich and powerful men with privileged access to media and political influence, attempting to reverse what has been achieved.
* William Wallace is LibDem peer, a former vice-chair of the Federal Policy Committee and convenor of the party's 1997 manifesto team.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
What should the Liberal Democrats stand for?
Ben Wood
Ed Sanderson
Jack
Matt (Bristol)
John Grout
10 Comments
They say that Mahatma Gandhi, on being asked, “What do you think of Western civilization?,” was reported to have answered, “I think it would be a good idea”.
Too much of the world see Western values as being hypocritical. Principles that can be easily bought off with favourable trade deals and the like.
Keir Starmer is visiting Washington next week. What position will the PM take to advance the British national interest. Will it be urging the US administration to maintain its support of Ukraine and back-up President Zelensky against Putin; to join with the International community in urging Israel to work towards a two state solution or will such issues be sidelined in pursuing more favourable trade terms? Can the PM do both?
If preservation of the rule of law and the International order becomes subservient to commercial interests; it should come as no surprise when the global south charge Western governments with putting self-interest before Liberal principles and see in the hard-right an admission of the naked capriciouness that they believe was always there in Western liberal societies anyway.
The decline of trust in societal institutions was exacerbated by the Iraq war, the banking crisis of 2008 and Brexit among others.
The defence of Liberalism starts in our communities. In how we relate to and converse with colleagues, family, friends and neighbours. It is from these communities that our elected representatives are drawn and how our liberal values are represented in government.
The Dark Enlightenment, also called the neo-reactionary movement (sometimes abbreviated to NRx), is an anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian,[1] and reactionary philosophical and political movement.[2] The term “Dark Enlightenment” is a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment and an apologia for the popular conception of the Dark Ages.
Andy Beckett stated that “NRx” supporters “believe in the replacement of modern nation-states, democracy and government bureaucracies by authoritarian city states, which on neoreaction blogs sound as much like idealised medieval kingdoms as they do modern enclaves such as Singapore.” This is from Wikipedia; it’s the sort of thing that Silicon Valley bloggers (and Steve Bannon, and J.D. Vance, and Peter Thiel) see as their preferred alternative to modern democratic states and societies.
To me this article is good in some respects but undermines itself by confusing authoritarianism with right-wing values. Trump for example undermines liberal democracy by constantly lying, trying to subvert election results, cosying up to dictators, and appointing people to law-enforcement roles who seem unlikely to do their jobs impartially. The fact that he opposes ‘woke’ and wants to drill for oil etc. might be stuff most liberals disagree with, but those policies are not in themselves attacks on liberal democracy.
And then @William you mix it up with Miriam Cates supporting traditional family values. I mean – for goodness sake, I support traditional family values! (although I probably understand the term a bit more inclusively than some on the right). That doesn’t stop me being a liberal who is inspired by people like John Stewart Mill and is appalled by Trump and Orban and much of the direction of today’s Tory party. This constant demonizing amongst progressives of people with more traditionalist ethical values and equating it with the far right is really not worthy of liberalism and is also a big part of what’s causing people like Farage and Trump to get so much support. I’d really urge a lot more care in what viewpoints you condemn as anti-democratic.
Possible slogan for Liberals? Tough on Trump, tough on the causes for Trump.
Simon R: the meaning of ‘traditional family values’ on the Right includes women accepting their subordinate roles to men (thus Andrew Tate etc.), and staying at home and having children. That turns the clock back on women’s rights by several generations. And you DON’T think that Trump (and Musk) are trying to dismantle liberal democracy? I hold firm to the ethical values of Protestant (and liberal Catholic) Christianity and of the rational Enlightenment, against the return to strongman authoritarianism and irrational assertion. Climate change denial is a classic example of irrationalism.
Adam Gopnik attempts an answer to this question in his ‘A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism’ (2019). Basically he says that those who do the politics of reason need to understand those who do the politics of identity.
@William: Perhaps I was unclear. Trump and the people around him are undermining/attacking liberal democracy when they do things that threaten free elections, oversight of their actions or impartial rule of law etc, and I cited examples of that; So I’m not doubting that they are attacking liberal democracy. But you included as alleged attacks on democracy other things (notably, being anti-Woke and anti-Green) that are simply, following policies that many liberals would disagree with and which a future Democrat administration is likely to reverse. Those particular things are not attacks on liberal democracy.
Likewise family values. Advocating that people follow particular lifestyles is not attacking liberal democracy (obviously, as long as you’re simply trying to persuade, not to force people). Rather, different people advocating different beliefs and different personal ethical values is part of liberal democracy (Just like, for example, Greens advocating that we use our cars less and walk more). You might disagree with some of the values being advocated, but that doesn’t make them attacks on liberal democracy.
You are right that there is a growing problem with some groups seeking to undermine some of the pillars of our liberal democracy. My point is, you shouldn’t confuse that with groups simply advocating views, policies or values that we disagree with.
@Simon R – I suggest the problem with espousing “traditional family values” is that there is no such thing. It’s a concept as nebulous as “the good old days”.
I don’t doubt you know what you mean by the term, but it will mean something else to others. Some of it’s more vocal advocates on the right do hold highly illiberal views.
Apologies: with major right-wing conferences going on both in London and Washington I’m not sure which conference our hojme-grown alt-right leaders have been at; I don’t think Farage can have made CFPAC in Washington as well as ARC in London. But my criticism still stands: what is the point at which right-ing British populists disassociate themselves from Trump, or carry on following him wherever he takes them? If the French hard right thinks Trump and his associates have gone too far, is Nigel (and Liz, and Boris) still on board?
I think the reason why there is so much political energy around this is that the right believe that they can win over the working class on these issues. And lets be more precise, the non-graduate working class.
I think the problem we see with “woke” is from the election results from the USA, where the main beneficeries of woke; women and ethnic minorities, have started voting in larger numbers for the opponents of woke, notably for Donald Trump. How do you keep on when that happens?
So what is the problem here? It is NOT the civil rights movement. It is the recent phenonema of being over-zealous on identity issues. The social media influencer and Marxist Ash Sarker has written a book about it; Minority Rule: Adventures in the Culture War. Given that not long ago she was considered to be woke herself I think the left are realising that they need to change on this.
I should add that those who are “anti-woke” on the right are often much more authoritarian and vengeful than the people they complain about.