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~I couldn't be less interested in the UK's current Tory leadership "contest", but the mini-pickle Robert Jenrick finds himself in happened to catch my eye. Mr Jenrick is apparently the favourite to succeed wossname, Rishi Rich - don't ask me why - and so he penned a piece for The Daily Mail on how "our metropolitan establishment" have "put the very idea of England at risk":
While the metropolitan establishment have denigrated and mocked expressions of English identity, they seem happier celebrating other cultures, instead.
I can't stomach such lofty arrogance, as most of the country can't either. We don't want a new identity, we want our existing identity to be championed again with passion.
So some fellow at Sky News books him on the show, and it doesn't really go terribly well:
It's set up as a "Gotcha!" interview, and the guy's a bit of a snot, but I have to admit this is a good question:
If you can't describe what English identity is, how is anybody coming here meant to understand that?
In response, the supposed saviour of British Conservatism blathers on insipidly about "our values". If this is the best a "conservative" can muster, the country is doomed.
This is where the sophistry and self-delusion of the last half-century has brought us. This Jenrick bloke is twisting himself into a pretzel because he cannot state the obvious: for good or ill, a thing called England exists because it is the land where the English live, as Sweden is the land where the Swedes live and Croatia the land where the Croats live. And, once there are insufficient English, it will be something other.
If it's any consolation, back when there surely were sufficient Englishmen, "the very idea of England" was spread to every corner of the earth and possibly on some post-imperial pinprick 'neath palm or pine it will survive. But possibly not, not if said pinprick signs up to the Belt & Road Initiative.
In fact, if we're being honest (as Jenrick is not), we already know the "something other" England will be: "Britain is projected to have a Muslim majority before this century ends" - and, even if the name is retained, it will be no more than a real-estate designation. Tosspotting on about "values" is a way to avoid acknowledging that reality.
Twelve years ago, I wrote about a dispute between two of Mr Jenrick's fellow Tories, Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell:
[Mr Powell] was a diligent attender of the Conservative Philosophy Group. On one occasion, just before the Argentines invaded the Falklands, Mrs Thatcher spoke about the Christian concept of the just war and Western values.
'We do not fight for values,' said Powell. 'I would fight for this country even if it had a Communist government.'
'Nonsense, Enoch,' snapped Maggie. 'If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.'
Powell stuck to his guns. 'No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.'
John Casey, co-founder of the group, asserted that Mrs. Thatcher had just been confronted with the difference between British Toryism and American Republicanism.
That's true. America was founded by British subjects who wished to take English notions of liberty rather further than the imperial metropolis was willing to go. So, because of that central truth of its founding, it chose not to define itself as a conventional ethnostate like everywhere else (France, China, Russia) but as a "proposition nation" - ie, values. Simply by setting foot on American soil and inhaling the values of the Constitution, anyone could become American. It worked with Germans and Italians; it's proving a tougher sell to Haitians and Somalis.
Unfortunately, over the last half-century, the rest of the west has imbibed the higher bollocks. We are all "proposition nations" now. In the UK context - Powell vs Thatcher - I think Enoch has the better of it:
I would hazard that was also his objection to 'values' — that too often they're something we invent to blind ourselves to reality. Likewise 'Europe' as a political construct, and 'multiculturalism' as a civilizational virtue. To oppose them is to embrace nationalism, or nativism, or racism, or something else polite society disdains to put in its portfolio of 'values.' Powell thought it impossible to 'foresee how a country can be peaceably governed in which the composition of the population is progressively going to change.' That's to say, rapid one-way biculturalism is inherently transformative. That would seem to be stating the obvious, but stating the obvious became more difficult in an age of 'values,' and arguing against values and virtue and moral preening was tougher than arguing against monetary policy.
And thus the UK Conservative Party - from Powell to Thatcher to Jenrick.
Does the next Tory leader think these guys are going to be boning up on "English identity"?
Where are the Women and Children, Any Ideas? pic.twitter.com/PQRpbeDxsw
— Benonwine (@benonwine) September 23, 2024
Reckon they're coming this way for all the great "values"?
In 1993 the then prime minister, a man called John Major, said:
Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county [cricket] grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and—as George Orwell said—old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.
Sir John's distillation of English identity is pithier than Mr Jenrick managed. Yet a mere thirty years on - two decades ahead of Major's schedule - no Tory leader could deliver it with a straight face. The pubs and churches are closing (see our most recent Tale for Our Time), and the changing "composition of the population" has mysteriously coincided with a rise in cruelty to dogs. Fortunately, Muslims - at least in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan - like cricket, so there are still long shadows on county grounds. But bicycling through the morning mist is a little more perilous what with all the stabbings...
Teenage boy stabbed to death in Woolwich said 'I'm 15, don't let me die' as he bled, witness reveals
...and all the rapes:
Hyusein Hyusein, 31, of Grand Bay, Broadfield Barton, Crawley, was arrested and has now been charged with three counts of rape. He has been remanded in custody and is set to appear at Crawley Magistrates' Court later today.
Sorry to end with yet more ancient self-quoting, but me even further back, fifteen years ago:
In The Times of London, Oliver Kamm deplored the results of Switzerland's referendum, consigned it to the garbage can of right-wing populism, and for good measure dismissed my analysis of Euro-demographics ('This is nonsense,' he pronounced magisterially). Instead, Mr Kamm called for a 'secularist and liberal defense of the principles of a pluralist society.'
That's not the solution to the problem, but one of the causes.
Enoch is right. "Values" aren't going to save you - and, if you mean "values" like freedom of expression, in the end, when push comes to demographic shove, a craven political class won't defend those anyway.
If you're English or Swedish or French and you want to save your country from a long Eurabian night, you need to speak the truth, not the bollocks of Jenrick.
~We thank you for all your kind comments these last grisly months - and especially all those new members of The Mark Steyn Club, and those old members who've signed up a chum for a SteynOnline Gift Certificate or a Steyn Club Gift Membership. Steyn Clubbers span the globe, from London, Ontario to London, England to London, Kiribati. We hope to welcome many more new members in the years ahead.
