It’s been 40 years since the war that marked a turning point in the relationship between Argentina and the United Kingdom. For the British, a distant dispute in time that year after year seems to lose its relevance. For us Argentines, an open wound yet to fully heal.

Since the end of the conflict, the different administrations of the Argentine government decided to maintain the claim for the lost territories as a State policy; relying on a provision of the National Constitution that establishes that “the Argentine Nation ratifies its legitimate and imprescriptible sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia, and South Sandwich”. Nevertheless, it appears that rather than achieving its target, this policy has worked as an anchor that prevents us from having more fruitful relations not only with the United Kingdom but with other countries as well. After years of isolationism with the Kelpers, who would have thought they would overwhelmingly vote to remain British in the 2013 referendum?

Maintaining a hostile relationship towards the United Kingdom has been a resounding failure, considering that from 1983 to the present day we have not had any major successes except for those in the period 2015-2019, when flights between Argentina and Port Stanley were reestablished (which led a public prosecutor to accuse President Mauricio Macri of “treason against Argentina”), and later with the identification of unknown Argentine soldiers’ bodies, after the exemplary joint work between the Argentine government, British Ambassador Mark Kent, and the Red Cross.

As part of the G7 summit taking place in Germany, Argentina was the only Latin American country to be invited. Given the recent rise in the price of wheat and gas as a result of the war in Ukraine, our presence represented a historic opportunity to position ourselves as suppliers of agricultural products and energy. Yet, rather than ride the wave of rising commodity prices with policies that encourage production and exports, when President Alberto Fernandez was asked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson about importing Argentine products, he rejected trade in any shape or form until Mr. Johnson agreed to resume talks to resolve the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) sovereignty dispute.

It all comes down to chance, and all it took was just one moment of ill-judgment for our economic opportunities to go down the drain. Diplomacy is about offering to the international system those values ​​that your country can give, and others cannot. What we can offer today are our exports, and because of a war that occurred 40 years ago, we are not doing so. What can we expect when we ask for the foreign investments and capital we desperately need? In other words, we need the world’s help because we lack sufficient domestic savings capacity, but the world won’t ever help us if we turned our backs on it when we were able to do so. As Wall Street Journal editor Mary O’Grady said, “these policies harm the Argentine people and hurt the world’s poor because they diminish global food supplies.”

Argentina is hostage to a State Policy that has failed and far from bringing us closer to the islands, it has alienated us from its people to the detriment of our domestic and international interests. We entered the 20th century being one of the richest countries in the world, in 2020 we entered the pandemic in 70th place and we are going through one of the worst economic crises in our history. We are in no position to question the islanders’ decision to self-determination, which is why denying a trade agreement is not only a political mistake but an economic catastrophe for our nation. I cannot think of a better way to honor our soldiers than by revaluing a relationship we lost and improving the standard of living of millions of Argentines enduring times that are arguably harder than ever before. That is why it is time to move on.

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The Trojan horse has made its way inside the Conservative Party with an egalitarian agenda it will stop at nothing to implement, including rooting out any trace of actual right-wing policy. However, the enemy within has only been given power by the fact that the Conservatives themselves have no clue what they stand, giving space for leftist ideology to creep in through these infiltrators.

The Conservatives’ abandonment of conservative principles in favour of identity-driven equality can be exemplified through the Equalities Minister speaking at an LGBT event of “Celebrating 50 Years of Pride” with the new, even more hideous pride flag behind him. For one, there should be no such thing as a “Minister of Equalities” (as there also shouldn’t be a “Minister for Women and Equality”). These positions are divisive and identity driven. Secondly, a Conservative MP should not be proudly endorsing a flag that represents gender ideology which encourages children to go through harmful surgery in order to “change gender” and for women to have their toilets and changing rooms infringed upon by perverted males who are into autogynephilia.

Then there are the Conservative Members who are more concerned about Laurence Fox posting an edgy tweet making fun of gender ideologues than the actual gender ideologues themselves. They seem to be silent when the left captures our institutions and calls for destructive and disturbing policies. However, when a Conservative decides to stand up for conservativism in the slightest, they go ballistic. While they claim to be “economically conservative”, they spend all their time arguing with right wingers about social issues, lecturing them that there’s “bigger fish to fry” (while they themselves barely even discuss or talk about these “bigger fish”). Who’s going to tell them that they are participating in the culture war they claim to hate by trying to silence any conservative who stands up for our culture? It would be better if these crypto leftists left the party and joined the Liberal Democrats or the Labour Party.

Conservatives should be against equality, both in the economic and social terms. This doesn’t mean you should be cruel to people. You can argue for better treatment of groups without having to advocate for equality. I don’t treat people nicely based on whether they’re equal to me. I don’t treat people of different races or sexualities the same because we’re equal, I treat them the same because I believe it’s nonsensical to base my treatment of someone on irrelevant characteristics. Furthermore, we shouldn’t treat people equally. A ten-year-old should treat an adult stranger different to the new kid in the playground. A teacher shouldn’t give equal attention to the kid who doesn’t need help and the kid who does. These are both forms of discrimination. We discriminate every day.

However, leftism has convinced the public that “discrimination” is represented by its worse examples and “equality” on its best examples. However, doing things for the sake of equality is stupid. We should embrace that everyone is unique with both skills and weaknesses. We should promote people’s unique skills through the free market. Capitalism is a system that that discourages people discriminating for reasons that do not impact people’s skills (for example, the economist Thomas Sowell has done incredible work to show how racism is unprofitable for businesses). Yet capitalist systems tend to be the most unequal in terms of wealth and income. You can favour social progress and be against unfair treatment without favouring equality.

Eammon Butler states in his book Economic Equality:

The universal case for equality is that, in all important respects, human beings are alike. They have a similar identity, which implies that they are essentially equal and should be treated equally. There are problems with this suggestion. For a start, we cannot infer equality from identity. The numbers 3 and 5 share the identity that they are both integers. But they are not equal; and nor can we make them so. Though people speak glibly of humans being “born equal”, the plain reality is that they are not. They differ naturally in many ways – physically, intellectually and morally.

If the Conservatives want to win, they need to show conviction and know what they believe in. Equality is antithetical towards right wing ideology, and we should not be ashamed of this fact. We shouldn’t have a party where MPs can easily switch between “the left wing” and “the right wing” parties. To the people in the party who are more concerned with the right than they are the left, we should politely guide them to the door. No Blairites please!

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In recent months, a phenomenon has swept through social and mainstream media, presenting itself as a paragon of masculinity, success, and wisdom against those that would seek to stultify and control the masses. This phenomenon was known as Andrew Tate, and his reach is something that a Westminster MP could only dream of and envy. At the time of writing this, he has 3.7 million followers on Twitter, and has appeared on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV show, GB News, and Fox News in America. But his reach has gone far beyond the chatter of tweets and the flaccid questioning of Mr Morgan, he has a growing following among teenage boys and those who would identify themselves politically on the right. It would seem to be somewhat innocuous that a figure of influence is ostensibly presenting a message encouraging males to embrace their masculinity and to develop their resilience, but is there more to Tate than meets the eye?

Let’s go back to the beginning. For the purposes of brevity and conciseness, I’m going to avoid a detailed biography of the former kickboxer, that’s what search engines are for. After a rather successful career in kickboxing, at one point ranking second best light-heavyweight kickboxer in the world. Tate first entered the media sphere in 2016, as a guest on the reality show Big Brother, during which time he was scrutinised for his comments on Twitter. Later, he created a website offering training on wealth accumulation and male-female interactions. His most well-known venture involved his brother, Tristan, in which they worked together to operate a webcam studio using his girlfriends to manipulate male callers. A venture which, by his own admission, was a “total scam”.

Again, conciseness would prevent me from going through every controversial post or tweet from Tate. But his recent takes on issues from Covid to Meghan Markle have garnered significant attention and support, resulting in those who agree with his positions to view him in a much more favourable light, in spite of previous controversies; seeing his announced conversion to Islam as a kind of Pauline, Damascene transformation that aligns him to those of us who yearn for a preservation of traditions that have previously maximised the wellbeing of men, women and the raising of children.

Christ warned, in the gospels, of wolves in sheep’s clothing- people who will appear righteous in their sayings and public actions but have their own motives beneath the surface (he intended this as a warning to Christians about those who would enter the body of the church with ulterior motives). Too often, the right has easily clung to different individuals who mimic soundbites or present-day talking points. Interestingly, the most recent social media exchange involving Tate and Climate Changes’ equivalent to the medieval ‘Mad Child Saint’ Greta Thunberg, was actually a clash between two idols; one deified predominantly by the left, and one by the right. Battle lines were drawn and electronic foot soldiers on both sides levelled accusations of being uncritical and blindly following  fallible figures; an inexperienced, and scientifically incompetent teenager, and an arrogant, belligerent, and dishonest opportunist.

The truth is that the right is as unaware of its blind spots as the ideological leftists it (rightly) opposes. Our discourse has shifted in such a way that anyone who agrees on talking points of current issues (e.g. race, biological sex, sexuality, etc.), the right’s guard seems to drop and uncritical praise, almost to the point of fawning, is showered on the speaker/writer- for clarity, I’m not precluding the ability to find common ground on these issues, and the right itself is not a monolith. For those of us who are wedded to the philosophy of conservatism, the concept of the ‘Civic Gospel’, and a return to the traditions which were most conducive to social cohesion and unified us under a common, transcendent ideal, there could not be a worse mascot than Tate. His own brand of arrogance, combined with geysers of self-promotion, referring to a nebulous conception of ‘The Matrix’, and a tone that seems as belligerent to those loyal to him, as it is to his so-called ‘haters’- is this really a voice that people think should ‘lead the forces’? This is not to say one should not be sceptical and mindful of actual moves against conservatives, but it has become something of a social-media trope to behave as though we’re aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, jacking in to judo-throw the hyper-liberals, and leap across rooftops evading the political and social gatekeeping agents.

We tend to favour the figure of the ‘strong man’- the individual who will courageously stand by their principles and ideals, fights for and defends that which is good in our world and beats back the foe. Often, people confuse this with the individual that has ‘based tweets’ or will be unafraid of cancellation. If conservatives are to truly win the battle of ideas, it cannot be with shallow social media presences, soundbites, or rallying behind unsavoury characters that cherry-pick conservatism. The blind defence of Tate by certain right-wingers, after his arrest on 29^th December, claiming him to merely be a victim of ‘The Matrix’ or some other equally tenuous and incoherent cabal indicates the battle conservatives still have ahead of them- I refer to the battle within.

There are a lot of different ideas and personalities masquerading as conservatism. Some reduce it to merely the contra position to progressivism- to do this is to misunderstand the fact that conservatism isn’t anti-progress, it is merely mindful of progress, to invoke Burke, in the context of the “primeval contract” between the living, the dead, and those yet to be born. I would doubtless be preaching to the converted about the difference between the two positions. Another blind spot on the right is the often-insatiable desire to ‘own the left’. It is in this desire that I think we can find our biggest blind spot. Whether it’s personalities on mainstream/social media, or some other entity, the right has, in recent years often lost sight of its own philosophy in order to score cheap points on liberals/the left; one of the most notable examples being in the struggle against identity politics- I refer you to the appointment of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, and the point-scoring with the Tories having the second non-white Prime Minister. It seemed some had forgotten our own history by ignoring the premiership of one Benjamin Disraeli. Granted, there is some catharsis to be had in these moments, but they come at the cost of presenting a mature philosophy that seeks to preserve the best of our society and culture.

To return to the focus of this article, Tate certainly does not represent conservatism in any meaningful way (I’m not arguing for philosophical/ideological purity per se), but he has served a purpose in exposing a ubiquitous blind spot. The Bible refers to the practice of “giving glory to the creature rather than the creator”, the modern obsession with facades, personalities and appearances over thoughts and ideas, I believe, enables this practice. It is clear that if the conservative seeks a ‘model’, it must be someone who transcends the ebb and flow of modern society, or social media soundbites. Even the institutions we venerate can no longer be trusted to be guarantors of the common good, since they themselves are captured by this wave of style and personality over substance. This is why Christian conservatives place Jesus front and centre- a man who stood apart from selfish motives, petty conflicts, but upheld ideals that touched all, while staying true to his boundaries. Whether or not one accepts the metaphysical statements he made, his life and acts, and the culture they inspired should be our gold standard, not the jewellery on Andrew Tate’s wrist.

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