The leadership election has brought about a wave of Conservatives flexing about how diverse and inclusive the Conservative Party is compared to Labour. Among the first days of the elections, there were endless tweets about how the party has the most diverse leadership election in history.
Andrew Bowie, Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine tweeted that the reasons why he’s proud to be a Conservative MP include “first trans MP” and “the most diverse cabinet in history.”
The online publication Spiked, released an article on how “The Tory leadership race is the most diverse in history. And this has sent the left into meltdown.”
The founder of Tories for Equality tweeted: “I feel proud that British children today, whatever their race, can look at the talented & diverse slate of conservative leadership candidates & think “I could do that”. I didn’t have that growing up under the U.K. Labour government. Proud of my country & proud of my party.”
This is a new attempt to call the left the real racists while celebrating how greatly diverse the Conservatives are. It appears that too many Conservative party members truly believe that to defeat the libs you must become one. Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
This is not to say that a candidates’ ethnicity and gender may be a key aspect of their campaign. After all, there’s merit to having a story of being an outsider or overcoming a struggle related to their identity. However, these MPs have been completely tokenised by those on the right. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done to these identity obsessed Conservatives, as long as their identity is good optics. And despite the attempted revision of history, this is not new for the Conservative Party.
The Conservatives have ridiculed the Labour Party’s anti meritocratic all female shortlists. However, it appears that the Conservatives are also guilty of identity politics hiring…
Under Cameron’s government, there was an active attempt to make the government less pale, male and stale. From David Cameron’s own account in a recent article, he wrote for The Times:
“I immediately froze the selection of Conservative candidates. I said that from our broader candidates’ list we would draw up a priority list, of which half would be female and a large proportion would be from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Associations in winnable seats would have to choose from this “A-list”, and they would be encouraged to select candidates through “open primaries” that were open to non-party members.”
Cameron admits that the call for positive discrimination was because “this wasn’t happening naturally”. Despite denying this was an act of positive discrimination, and instead dubbing it as “positive action”, Cameron states that “We headhunted great candidates from ethnic minorities and pushed them forwards.”
Despite Cameron’s doublethink to frame choosing candidates for the sake of their ethnicity as meritocracy exemplifies how the party has been poisoned by Blairism. How can the Conservative Party differentiate themselves away from Labour’s positive discrimination when it can be seen they acting in a similar nature?
Of course, this isn’t to state that the party leadership candidates aren’t deserving. The strongest, popular candidates are those from minority ethnic identities and/or women. It would be doing them an injustice to only celebrate them for their identity rather than what they believe. While the Westminster bunch pander to identity politics, it is clear that the party membership is focused on what a candidate wants advocates for more than the colour of their skin or what is between their legs.
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The Conservative Cope
According to recent polling by YouGov, a measly 1% of 18- to 24-year-olds plan to vote Conservative at the next general election. Having won roughly 20% of this demographic in the 2019, the Conservative Party has lost 95% of its support amongst Britain’s youngest voters in less than four years.
In reaction to this collapse in support, journalists and commentators have taken to rehashing the same talking-points regarding Tory ineptitude and how to resolve it – build more houses, be more liberal, have younger parliamentarians, and so on.
I don’t intend to add this ever-growing pile of such opinion pieces. Instead, I want to put Tory ineptitude into perspective, in hopes of undermining the entrenched and parochial coping of Britain’s right leaning politicians and commentariat.
Even though Churchill didn’t coin the phrase, right-leaning talking-heads maintain that “if you’re not a liberal at 20 you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at 40 you have no brain”, even if not articulated as such; the progressive and liberal tendencies of the young are annoying, but natural and inevitable.
Of course, this is simply not true. Thatcher won the most support from 18- to 24-year-olds in 1979 and 1983, something which left-wing and right-wing critics are more than happy to point out, yet such doubters of the Iron Law of Liberal Youth have managed to reinvent the law, albeit without the caveat of an inevitable turn to the right in later life.
Socialists and capitalists don’t agree on many things, but they are united by the belief that Britain’s youth is a bastion of progressive leftism, marching in lock-step with other first-time voters around the world. In the former, this inspires great confidence; in the latter, this inspires a sense of foreboding.
Other commentators have blamed Brexit, which is also wrong. Despite the widely-cited age-gap between the average Remainer and Leaver, the UK’s relationship with the EU is pretty far down the average young person’s list of political priorities, hence why almost every avid post-Brexit remainer is a terminally online geriatric. Ironically, The Data from the British Election Study predicted a gradual increase in support for the Conservatives amongst Britain’s younger voters between 2015 and 2019.
Any person that has met the new cohort of young conservatives will attest their nationalistic and socially conservative modus operandi. Having its failures on crime and immigration reduction broadcast across the nation, its unsurprising that such people would lose faith in the Conservative Party’s ability to govern as a conservative party.
Indeed, given the Conservative Party’s eagerness to hold onto the Cameronite ‘glory days’ of tinkering managerialism, interspersed with tokenistic right-wing talking-points (i.e., the things which actually matter to the conservative base) its little wonder that the Tories have failed to win the young.
The Conservative Party Conference has a less than palatable reputation, but when the bulk of events revolve around uninformed conversations about tech, financial quackery, achieving Net Zero and lukewarm criticisms of The Trans Business, it is unsurprising so many Tory activists choose to preoccupy themselves with cocaine and sodomy.
Contrast this with the European continent, where right-wing populist parties are doing remarkably well with a demographic the Tories have all but officially dismissed. In the second round of France’s 2022 presidential election, incumbent president Emmanuel Macron, a centrist liberal europhile, was re-elected for a second term, with more than 58% of the vote. Although Macron obtained the majority of 18 to 24 years old who voted, it was over 60s which provided the backbone of his re-election, acquiring roughly 70% of their votes.
Moreover, whilst she was most popular with older voters (50- to 59-year-olds), the right-wing Marine Le Pen secured a sizeable portion of voters across all age brackets, especially those aged between 25- and 59- years old, filling the chasm left-behind by Macron’s near monopolisation of France’s oldest citizens.
These patterns were generally replicated in the first round of voting, although the far-left Melenchon garnered the most support from France’s youngest voters. At first glance, most right-leaning commentators would flippantly dismiss the wholesale liberal indoctrination of the youth, overlooking the astonishing fact that roughly 25% of France’s youngest voters support right-wing nationalism, whether that be Marine Le Pen or Eric Zemmour.
Due to growing suspicion of the two main parties in Germany, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU, otherwise known as Union) and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), third parties have gained support from the disaffected young, such the centre-left Greens, the centre-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Whilst it’s not doing as well as the Greens with first-time voters on the national stage, the AfD is making strides at the federal level and is doing noticeably well with Germans in their 30s, which isn’t insignificant in a country with a median age of 45. Compare this to Britain’s Conservatives, who start to faulter with anyone below the age of 40!
Moreover, the AfD is effectively usurping the CDU as the main right-leaning political force in many parts of Germany. For example, the AfD was the most popular party with voters under 30 in the CDU stronghold of Saxony-Anhalt during the last state election, a forebodingly bittersweet centrist victory.
Similarly, Meloni’s centre-right coalition, dominated by the nationalist Brothers of Italy party, didn’t lead amongst the nation’s youngest voters (18 to 34 years old), but they came extremely close, gaining 30% of their votes compared to the centre-left coalition’s 33% – and won every other age bracket in the last general election. Again, not bad for a country with a median age just shy of 50.
Moreover, these trends transcend Western Europe, showing considerable signs of life in the East. Jobbik, the right-leaning opposition to Viktor Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party, is highly popular party with university students, and despite losing the recent election, Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party obtained roughly a third of first-time votes in the election four years prior.
Roughly a quarter of first-time voters in Slovakia opted for the People’s Party-Our Slovakia, a far-right party with neo-Nazi roots, and roughly 35% of Bulgarian voters between 18- and 30-years-old voted for the right at the last parliamentary election, centre-right and far-right included.
Evidently, the success of right-wing nationalism amongst young voters across Europe, isn’t confined to republics. In addition to its republics, European constitutional monarchies, such as Sweden, Norway, and Spain, have materialised into right-wing electoral success.
The Moderate Party, Sweden’s main centre-right political force, won the largest share of voters aged by 18- and 21-years-of-age, with the insurgent right-wing Sweden Democrats placing second amongst the same demographic, coming only a few points behind their centre-right recipients of confidence-and-supply in government.
Further broken down by sex, the Sweden Democrats were distinctly popular with young Swedish men, and tied with the Social Democrats as the most popular party with Swedish men overall. Every age-bracket below 65-year-old was a close race between the Social Democrats and the Moderates or the Sweden Democrats, whilst those aged 65 and over overwhelmingly voted for the Social Democrats.
Similar to the Netherlands, whilst the Labour Party and Socialist Left Party were popular among young voters at the last Norwegian general election, support for centre-right Conservative Party and right-wing Progress Party didn’t trail far behind, with support for centre-left and centre-right parties noticeably increasing with age.
Whilst their recent showing wasn’t the major upset pollsters had anticipated, Spain’s right-wing Vox remains a significant political force, as a national party and amongst the Spanish youth, being the third most popular party with voters aged 18- to 24-year-olds.
Erstwhile, the centre-right Peoples Party (PP) is the most popular party with voters between 18- and 34-year-old with the centre-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) drawing most of its support from voters aged 55 and older, especially voters over 75.
Still, it is easy to see how sceptics might blame our culture differences with the European continent on the right’s alleged inability to win over the young. After all, its clear youth politics is taken more seriously on the European continent. The JFvD, the youth wing of the right-wing Forum for Democracy (FvD) in the Netherlands, is the largest political youth movement in the Benelux. The JFvD regularly organises activities which extend beyond campaign drudgery, from philosophy seminars to beach parties. Contrast this to the UK, where youth participation begins and ends with bag-carrying and leafleting; the drudgery of campaigning is only interspersed by instances of sexual harassment and other degenerate behaviour.
However, this suspicion is just as easily put to rest when we compare Britain to the rest of the Anglosphere, especially New Zealand, Canada, and the United States of America.
In the run-up to New Zealand’s general election, polling from The Guardian indicated greater support for the centre-right National Party (40%) amongst voters aged 18- to 34-years than the centre-left Labour Party (20%), a total reversal of the previous election, defying purported trends of a global leftward shift amongst younger generations.
More to the point, support was not going further left, with the centre-left Labour-Green coalition accounting for 34% of millennial votes, compared to the centre-right coalition’s rather astounding 50%; again, a complete reversal of previous trends and more proof than any that so-called ‘youthquakes’ aren’t as decisive as commentators and activists would have us believe.
Despite Labour’s success with young voters in 2017 and 2019, when the voter turnout of younger generations is as abysmal as Britain’s, it’s not exactly a given that parties and individuals of a non-socialistic persuasion should abdicate Britain’s future to a dopey loon like Corbyn. The creed of Britain’s youth isn’t socialism, but indifference.
If anything, right-leaning parties are more than capable of producing ‘youthquakes’ of their own. In a time when the British Conservatives are polling at 1% with their native young, the Canada’s Conservative Party are the most popular party with, polling at around 40% with 18- to 29-year olds, and despite his depiction as a scourge upon America’s youth, Trump comfortably won white first-time voters in both 2016 and 2020. Perhaps age isn’t the main dividing line in the Culture War after all!
In conclusion, the success of the Conservative Party with younger voters does not hinge upon our electoral system, our constitutional order, our place in Europe or the Anglosphere. Simply put, the Tories’ inability to win over the young is not an inability at all, but the result of coping; a stubborn and ideological unwillingness motivated by geriatric hubris, disproven time and time again by the success of other right-wing parties across the Western world.
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On the Alabama IVF Ruling
On the 19th February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through IVF are “children”, and should be legally recognised as such. This issue was brought by three couples suing their IVF providers due to the destruction of their children while being cryogenically stored under an existing Death of a Minor statue in the state. This statute explicitly covered foetuses (presumably to allow for compensation to be sought by women who has suffered miscarriages or stillbirths which could have been prevented), but there was some ambiguity over whether IVF embryos were covered prior to the ruling that it applies to “all unborn children, regardless of their location”. It has since been revealed that the person responsible was a patient at the clinic in question, so while mainstream outlets have stated that the damage was ‘accidental’, I find this rather implausible given the security in place for accessing cryogenic freezers. It is the author’s own suspicion that the person responsible was in fact an activist foreseeing the consequences of successful Wrongful Death of a Minor lawsuit against the clinic for the desecration of unborn children outside the womb.
The ruling does not explicitly ban or even restrict IVF treatments; it merely states that the products thereof must be legally recognised as human beings. However, this view is incompatible with multiple stages of the IVF process, and this is what makes this step in the right direction a potentially significant victory. For those who may be (blissfully) unaware, the IVF process goes something like this. A woman is hormonally stimulated to release multiple eggs in a cycle rather than the usual one or two. These are then exacted and then fertilised with sperm in a lab. There is nothing explicitly contrary to the view that life begins at conception in these first two steps. However, as Elisabeth Smith (Director of State Policy at the Centre for Reproductive Rights) explains, not all of the embryos created can be used. Some are tossed due to genetic abnormalities, and even of those that remain usually no more than three are implanted into the womb at any given time, but they can be cryogenically stored for up to a decade and implanted at a later date or into someone else.
In this knowledge, three major problems for the IVF industry in Alabama become apparent. The first is that they will not be able to toss those which they deem to be unsuitable for implantation due to genetic abnormalities. This would massively increase the cost to IVF patients as they would have to store all the children created for an unspecified length of time. This is assuming that storing children in freezers is deemed to be acceptable at all, which is not a given as any reasonable person would say that freezing children at later stages of development was incredibly abusive. The second problem is that even if it is permitted to continue creating children outside of the womb and storing them for future implantation (perhaps by only permitting storage for a week or less), it would only be possible to create the number of children that the woman is willing to have implanted. This would further increase costs as if the first attempt at implantation fails, the patient would have to go back to the drawing board and have more eggs extracted, rather than trying again from a larger supply already in the freezer. The third problem is that, particularly if the number of stored children increases dramatically, liability insurance would have to cover any loss, destruction, or damage to said children, which would make it a totally unviable business for all but the wealthiest.
The connection between this ruling and the abortion debate has been made explicitly by both sides. Given that it already has a total ban on abortion, Alabama seems a likely state to take further steps to protect the unborn, which may spread to other Republican states if they are deemed successful. The states that currently also impose a total ban on abortion either at any time after conception or after 6 weeks gestation (where it is only possible to know of a pregnancy for 2 weeks) are Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Utah. There are other states with an exception only for rape and incest, with some requiring that this be reported to law enforcement.However, despite the fact that the ruling was made by Republicans appointed to their posts at the time of Donald Trump’s presidency, he has publicly criticised this decision saying that “we should be making it easier for people to have strong families, not harder”. Nikki Haley appeared initially to support the ban, but later backtracked on this commitment. In a surprisingly intellectually honest move, The Guardian made an explicit link between the medical hysteria on this topic and the prevalence of female doctors among IVF patients. Glenza (2024) wrote:
“Fertility is of special concern to female physicians. Residents typically finish training at 31.6 years of age, which are prime reproductive years. Female physicians suffer infertility at twice the rate of the general population, because demanding careers push many to delay starting a family.”
While dry and factual, this statement admits consciously that ‘infertility’ is (or at least can be) caused by lifestyle choices and priorities (i.e. prioritising one’s career over using ideal reproductive years in the 20’s and early 30’s to marry and have children), rather than genes or bad luck, and is therefore largely preventable by women making different choices.
I sincerely hope that, despite criticism of the ruling by (disproportionately female) doctors which a vested interest, the rule of law stands firm and that an honest interpretation of this ruling is manifested in reality. This would mean that for reasons stated above it will become unviable to run a profitable IVF business, and that while wealthy couples may travel out of state, a majority of those currently seeking IVF will instead adopt children, and/or face the consequences of their life decisions. Furthermore, I hope that young women on the fence about accepting a likely future proposal, pulling the goalie, or aborting a current pregnancy to focus on her career consider the long-term consequences of waiting too long to have children.
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Tavistock: Not the Victory the Right Thinks It Is
Shutting down Tavistock gender clinic is not the victory the Right thinks it is.
When it was announced on Thursday that the NHS will be shutting down a children’s gender identity development service (not a noun I ever thought I would use), the Sophie Corcorans of the world jumped onto Twitter claiming this as a victory in keeping children away from trans ideology. However, what those so keen to jump on the celebratory bandwagon fail to recognise is that the reason that this clinic is being shut down is not because it was over-providing its services, but the fact that it was seen to be under-providing them.
While there have been some concerns raised about the overdiagnosis of gender dysphoria, the main reason for the service being shut down has been due to concerns of under provision. The number of referrals to gender specialists across the country has increased from around 140 in 2010, to around 2,300 in 2020. Whereas in the past gender dysphoria mostly affected men who believed themselves to be women, the inverse is now true, and much of the additional referrals come from teenage girls; the same group who are targeted by all others who seek to create a groupthink craze. These stretch from the relatively harmless, like One Direction fans back in the day, to the magazines promoting anorexia in the 90’s – and in the true spirit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – the same publications now using Tess Holloway to promote ‘health at any size’.
Because of the immense increase in referrals, waiting times to be seen at Tavistock are now five years. According to Hillary Cass, who was tasked with reviewing the service and writing a report which was published this spring, the service was under ‘unsustainable pressure’, with the long wait times causing patients considerable ‘distress’ and ‘declining mental health’. While the right picked up the quote that the clinic was ‘not safe’ for children, they failed to see that the reason this was claimed is that their supposed needs were being ignored, as opposed to being sated.
What this argument seems to ignore is that long wait times are good and necessary when dealing with children with no medically urgent needs. Given the number of young adults seeking to de-transition (aka reverse the alterations done to their bodies during their adolescence), forcing those seeking such services to have a long wait period to consider the permanence and impact of such a decision is an entirely sensible policy. In accordance with the government’s focus on levelling up, a new network of ‘regional hubs’ is being planned to replace Tavistock, despite the fact that for someone in Birmingham or Manchester seeking such a service, the need to make a trip to London may make them consider whether or not their reasons for doing so are legitimate.
However, the long wait times that have been tacit government policy for decades (and quite successfully, given the negligible numbers of de-transitions until very recently) are now being undermined by private providers with even fewer scruples than the NHS. Given that upper middle-class children of guardian-reading intellectuals are most likely to want to transition in the first place, there has been an increase in private provision of cross sex hormones and surgery, as well as an increase in people going abroad for cheaper surgeries. In order to gain the Brownie points of ‘supporting their trans child’, the parents will do whatever is necessary to fast-track their child’s transition without giving them the chance to change their mind.
In conclusion, shutting down Tavistock is not a victory for conservatives but a loss. The ideologically driven medicine that was once contained in London for those determined enough to make the journey will now be spread out across the country in order to reach more and more children. If the government keeps allowing supply to grow to keep up with the supposed demand, we will end up with a generation where fewer and fewer young people have healthy bodies, and even fewer with healthy minds. However, the worst offenders in creating this contagion among young girls is TikTok and an educational culture which defines its role as helping children ‘unlearn’ their biases, as opposed to learning the realities of the world: until this changes, nothing will.
