Are Conservative Politicians conservative and do they have conservative values?

We often hear or read comments about the Conservative Party and current government not being conservative, with the inference or suggestion that if they were to be conservative once again, all of the problems that they are having would evaporate and that the result of the General Election that we are all expecting in 2024, would see them with a majority and returned.

As a former Conservative Party Member who was elected as a Borough Councillor twice and either fought or campaigned in a range of different elections besides, I simply don’t believe that to be the case. The Conservative Party and their politicians have no idea who they politically are.

Whilst it may now be obvious to anyone looking on that the Party in power today isn’t in any way ‘conservative’, my own experience – and a key reason I walked away from frontline politics myself – is that whatever disparate philosophy it is that drives the top of the Conservative Party today – the mixture of philosophies and self-interests is a million miles from being anything near ‘conservative’.

The situation isn’t something new, and hidden from view, it’s probably been decades since the Conservative Party functioned in any other way.

The Conservative Party ‘value set’, today

It’s important to understand that the Conservative Party that we recognise nationally and locally today, does not function with anything recognisable as being a conservative philosophy at its core.

If it were possible to pin down what the philosophy driving the Conservative Party – at least in Government, really is, then it would be an economic based philosophy called Neoliberalism.

The giveaway or tell of just how ingrained and important this economic and selfish ideology has become to ‘Conservatives’ is demonstrated by the obsession with growth, and the idea that growth is the only thing that can solve any of the UKs problems.

It is very important to note that you will hear just as many Labour Politicians chuntering on about growth. Because since the Blair era and the arrival of New Labour in 1997, the Labour Party has fully embraced and been driven by Neoliberal ideas and practices too.

The problem is that growth, or rather the kind of growth that politicians are using as a way to measure economic success, simply keeps on filling the coffers of the same people who are already very rich, whilst everyone else gets poorer and poorer, with increasing numbers at the bottom now unable to pay for enough food to eat.

Despite the many protestations and words of very credible people, ‘Free Markets’ and ‘Deregulation’ does not lead to a situation where everyone can thrive and where industry takes care of public need.

Neoliberals only take care of themselves. They do so at the expense of everyone else.

Neoliberalism has lead to every problem that normal people are experiencing now – and without an alternative to all of the political parties we currently choose from at election time, things can only get progressively worse!

In fact, the deregulation and market freedom they talk about is the removal of the regulations that protect normal people and small businesses from exploitation, whilst the market freedom is the freedom for big companies and those with money to pay for the best lawyers to create their own system of rules or the threat of court actions that amount to the same thing, that mean money runs everything, rather than what is in the best interests of the general public and our communities – as it always should be.

This might all now be ringing some bells and striking a few chords regarding the behaviour and decision making that we now continuously see from so-called ‘Conservative’ politicians – who not unlike any of the others with elected seats in parliament and in councils up and down the land, are basically there, in public office, for no other reason than themselves.

To be clear, there is NOTHING conservative about Neoliberalism. Just as every good Neoliberal Socialist also knows.

What is Conservatism or to be Conservative in the genuine sense?

Free enterprise is not the same thing as free markets – no matter what anyone says and private ownership is not the same thing as ‘let’s accumulate as much of everything as possible – no matter the cost’. And as far as socially traditional values are concerned, taking a traditional approach or rather one that respects our cultural values is at the polar opposite of what the conservative government is helping cultural idealists to impose.

The real meaning of being a conservative

My interpretation of what it is to be a conservative in the genuine sense is to be a traditionalist, respectful of history and the journey(s) that brought us here, proud to maintain our core values and not afraid to stand up to or reject any form of thinking that would bring our identity or that of our community into question or to deal in compromise that will result in the same.

Conservatism should be all about encouraging free enterprise in the sense that any one who is enterprising (or entrepreneurial) can achieve whatever they aim to do so, as long as they are not exploiting others in any way or at any level, whether they are conscious of doing so or not.

In genuine conservatism, ownership does not confer entitlement as it does now. And whilst the money-centric nature of the paradigm or system we are currently experiencing tells us the complete opposite, conservative leadership is to lead against temporary tides, not to surrender to tides and to be led in a way that makes their impact permanent, bearing no relationship with what has been good for us all, before.

Genuine conservatism has people, community and values at its heart.

I neither see nor recognise any form of people-centric values in the selfish and self-serving forms of government that we seem so powerless to remove.

A return to or a renaissance of genuine conservatism in the UK could result in politics and our experience of life being very different to what it is today.