In the throes of the culture wars, it’s easy to get acclimated to the situation after some time has passed. It feels like a lifetime ago that the battlefield that has become of the issue of transgenderism was little more than a few videos on YouTube imploring viewers to cringe at ‘Die Cis Scum’, and if anything demonstrates the futility of the adage ‘twitter is not real life’, it would be the recent admission from Jamie Wallis that he considers himself a woman.
There is almost certainly some kind of meaning to the fact that Jamie’s desire to be a woman emerged after he was raped, as though he psychologically associates a lack of autonomy to womanhood. But I am not a psychologist, and Jamie’s warped feelings about his identity are irrelevant in and of themselves. What this turn of events creates however, is a moment of Decision for the Conservatives.
For a long time, the Conservatives have enjoyed playing both sides of the culture wars. At conference, they can laud Maggie Thatcher as the first female Prime Minister and reap the benefits of appearing to be progressive – knowing that opposition can be quickly labelled sexist, and something that even the Conservative party has outgrown. Simultaneously, they can point to the Labour party and remind us of what happens if we abandon them. A few cringeworthy remarks about supporting women into politics is certainly a preferable alternative to those same “women in politics” sporting a five-o’clock shadow and suspiciously broad shoulders.
Governments, political parties, and states, like individuals, can hold simultaneously contradictory beliefs. Those who do not act are fortunate enough to never have to confront these contradictions – for they never implement them. But it is through existential participation in life that these contradictions make themselves plain, and a moment of Decision must occur. Constitutional monarchies justified themselves with recourse to the people – but what happens when the monarch and the people (or at least, the institutions representing the people) are at odds over a decision? Who decides? The logic of constitutional monarchy legitimises the king with recourse to the people, and so those institutions closer to the people in the mind of the populace ultimately set the laws. It’s these moments of Decision that move history – a constitutional monarchy may retain the state form of monarchy but rest atop the principle of democracy, but the moment of Decision reveals the incoherence of this state form and opens up a state of exception to alter it.
Equally, the Conservatives present themselves as being opposed to wokeism, but like the constitutional monarch – justify themselves on the principles of equality, and the moment of Decision reveals the incoherence of their rule. Whilst the party had no skin in the game, and whilst it had no existential participation, it could ignore the incoherence because it never actually had to make any decision based on these two contradictory principles. But the moment of Decision has arrived, and what is in store for us as members of the party?
Jamie Wallis has been supported by Boris and Oliver Dowden, the CEO of the party. It is clear the Conservatives have no intention of removing this person from the party or even coming close to asserting that transgenderism is in no way conservative. Jamie Wallis will most certainly be in attendance at Conference and all Conservative events in the future. The Conservative party will now have to decide:
- How will it refer to Jamie, should he ask to be referred to by female pronouns?
- What will they do if Jamie Wallis decides he wants to use the female bathrooms?
- If they wish to affirm Jamie’s wishes, how will they then define what a woman is, since it clearly no longer conforms to a simple definition?
Once again, the failure of Conservatives to engage in philosophy rears its ugly head. When you don’t attempt to delve into your beliefs, when you rest everything on ‘Common Sense’, you actually rest your political order upon the principles of those who do wish to assert and articulate their beliefs. Then, when you inevitably go to implement your beliefs: you’re struck with the inability to implement them in accordance with the principles you’ve justified your beliefs on. It’s simply not enough to have a political philosophy which resolves political (read: economic, technical, bureaucratic, etc.) problems. Your political philosophy must blend, gel, mesh, and harmonise with your ontological beliefs about the very essence of what it means to be anything at all. The idea that culture, economics, and philosophy are distinct and separate spheres is an optical illusion brought about by extended periods of peace. Any of these things, driven to a sufficient extreme become political, and our only tool to navigate these new political realities is philosophy. Those who don’t use it will find themselves lost, both politically and spiritually.
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A Brief History of US Student Politics
‘Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?’
These chants outside of the White House haunted Lyndon B. Johnson throughout his presidency. He would sit in the Oval Office with his head in his hands as the chants wafted through the walls. When his son-in-law Charles Robb sent in a tape from Vietnam, Johnson buckled against the table and looked as though he was in tears. For the loud Southern Jackson, who took great pleasure in towering over and intimidating others, this seemed like quite a big deal.
This is not about Johnson, however. This is about the students who protested him and the Vietnam War. This is about the students who protest now and any time.
An American Education
Harvard University was founded in 1636 and is classed by many as the oldest institute of higher education in the United States. Throughout history, the Ivy League colleges (Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell) have been considered the most elite, though others have made quite the showing. Between them, the Ivy League colleges have educated fifteen US presidents. They’ve also educated many Supreme Court Justices, Governors and members of Congress.
Throughout early American history, the Ivy League and other elite colleges were almost exclusively for white, wealthy men. Colleges for women did exist, such as the female equivalent of the Ivies, the Seven Sisters, though they came far later. Colleges for African-Americans also came later, such as Howard and Tuskegee.
Cornell began to accept women in 1870, but it took until 1983 for all of them to admit women, with Columbia being the last.
Minority men were able to attend earlier and more frequently, with Yale being the last to accept black students in 1964.
Despite more diversity in terms of the student body, Ivy League colleges see students of the wealthy 1% overrepresented. One in six Ivy students have parents from the top 1%, and they are 34% more likely to be accepted than students with the same scores but from less wealthy backgrounds. The children of these parents are also more than twice as likely to attend elite universities- the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Duke and Chicago.
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Whilst protests and activism were not unknown prior, the 1960s saw an explosion in it.
The decade was one of great social change, perhaps the greatest since the 1860s. Firstly, there was more of a focus on youth. TV, radio and movies began to cater to teenagers. Bands like the wholesome Beach Boys and sassy Beatles saw teenage screaming along. As incomes expanded, college enrollment doubled between 1945 and 1960, doubling once again by 1970.
There was also less social and cultural hegemony than before, something that Richard Nixon and his Silent Majority sought to exploit. The Civil Rights movement was at an apex as students sat at segregated café counters and took integrated buses to register African-American voters in the Deep South. Second-wave feminism saw women demand access to birth control, abortion and equality in the workplace. As students moved away from their generally conservative homes, many became embroiled in a more progressive political atmosphere.
Perhaps most impactful in terms of lives was the Vietnam War. Action in the Asian nation had significantly escalated, particularly after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964.
Students in particular were opposed to the draft. College students could receive deferments, but they were in the target conscription demographic of being young and healthy and unmarried, though the marriage deferment ended in summer 1965. One of the most notable forms of protests saw students burning their draft cards.
They were also active in the protest movement as a whole. College campuses became hotbeds of political activity. Students also joined protests and demonstrations.
There were varied reasons as to why students in particular were opposed to the war. Some echoed the popular sentiment of many that it was war thousands of miles away that did not have anything to do with America. Others believed that American soldiers were killing innocent civilians. Some thought that the money would be better spent elsewhere or that war in general was wrong.
One college that became a centre of counterculture politics was UC Berkeley. The California university became a hub of activism and protests regarding Civil Rights, free speech and Vietnam.
Most of the decade saw passionate but peaceful protests in the area, but this changed. In April 1969, students at Berkeley set up an informal encampment in People’s Park, scuppering a plan to turn it into a public space. On the 15th May 1969, police arrived to turf the squatters out. This, combined with a nearby college protest, saw around 6,000 people turn out at the park. The police eventually opened fire, killing San Jose resident James Rector as he watched from the roof. Many others were injured; one man was blinded. California Governor Ronald Reagan called in the California National Guard.
There had been a notable protest at New York’s Columbia University a year before. Black student protestors had asked white protestors to protest separately, which they did, segregating it on racial lines. Some of the students occupied the administrative Hamilton Hall, holding Acting Dean Henry S. Coleman hostage.
In another protest that year, students at Morehouse in Atlanta held the board of trustees. One of those students was a young Samuel L. Jackson.
Sixties Assassinations
Adding to the students’ cynicism were the assassinations of four famous men, all of whom were generally admired by students.
The first was John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Kennedy had been a proponent of college education and had been a point of fascination for young people, mainly due to his relative youth compared to other politicians.
The second was Malcolm X, the firebrand minister for the Nation of Islam and advocate of civil rights. He was slain in February 1965.
The third was Martin Luther King Jr, the well-known minister who advocated for civil rights via peaceful means. He was killed in April 1968.
The fourth and final one was Robert Kennedy in June 1968. He had entered the Democratic race for president as an anti-war and liberal alternative to unpopular incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson.
Death At Kent State
One of the most tragic events of the student protest movement came in May 1970.
The Sixties was over and new president Richard Nixon had promised law and order. Meanwhile, America was expanding military operations in Vietnam by entering neighbouring Cambodia. This caused immediate controversy in the anti-war movement. Several hundred students at Kent State in Ohio were protesting this. Residents and police officers had been concerned about potential repercussions in the community, and the Ohio National Guard was called.
The National Guard attempted to disperse the crowd through tear gas and other means, but this failed. Protestors began to throw rocks and other projectiles at them before being herded away. Near a hill, some of the officers started to open fire. Four students- two men and two women- were killed. Nine others were wounded, one of whom was permanently paralysed.
Images of the event, including the famous picture of a horrified teenager standing over one of the bodies, caused even more riots and protests across the nation. 100,000 people marched on Washington a few days later, leading to Richard Nixon famously talking to protestors in the middle of the night at the Lincoln Memorial.
Post-Sixties
Whilst the chaos of the 1960s gave way to a relatively more peaceful 20th century, activism and protests still remained. College Democrats and College Republicans have both been popular hubs for the partisan-minded students. Politicians regularly attend speeches and rallies, especially when they’re supported by the students.
As a rule, colleges tend to be on the left of the spectrum, in both faculty and students. Exceptions to this tend to be religious institutions like Bob Jones and Liberty University.
Issues that have arisen include the Iraq War, climate change, school shootings, race, gender, sexual assault and rape and military engagement in general.
The Current Protests
On the 7th October 2023, Israel was surprised by an attack by Hamas. People were murdered, missiles were fired and civilians taken hostage. In response, Israel had gone all out on Hamas. As a result, there have been numerous deaths and injuries in Palestine. Many people have been made homeless or have needed to evacuate from their homes. Some have flooded into neighbouring Egypt. Neither Palestine or Israel are safe.
Sympathy for the deaths of innocents have been widespread, but there is a huge difference in opinion regarding Israel. Protests have happened in major cities across the world, with the pro-Palestine side occupying most of that space. London for example has seen weekly protests since October.
The issue has become a massive one in America. Historically, the American government has been a strong supporter of Israel. Joe Biden has given assistance to Israel, but seems to want incumbent Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu out. Internally, there is debate amongst the legislative branch. Pro-Palestine and anti-interventionist politicians have come together to stop aid to Israel. Others wish to help it more.
It’s also been dynamite for college campuses. Coast to coast, north to south, university students have been protesting non-stop since October. The Ivy League colleges have been the centre of the protests, but other elite and notable colleges such as Stanford, Berkeley, Northeastern, NYU, Ohio State, and Emerson have seen student activism.
Students have been calling for an immediate ceasefire in the area. Regarding their own colleges, they ask for the institutions to break all ties to Israel, especially regarding financial gifts.
The protests themselves have been controversial. The shouting of ‘from the river to the sea’ is seen as a call to action against Jews, as well as the calling of a global intifada. Flickers of anti-semitism have allegedly been seen in these protests, despite the bulk of participants proclaiming they oppose Zionism, not Jews. Some Jewish students have participated in the protests, whilst others feel unsafe. Classes have been called off and students have been forced to study online.
Encampments have been put up on several campuses. Some have been cleared by police whilst others remain. These encampments are made up of tents, donated food and other communal activities, all of which are subject to rules. Whilst the protests remain mainly about Israel and Palestine, they tend to bend towards anti-capitalism and progressive ideology.
New York’s Columbia University has been the establishment most in the news. On the 17th April, a number of Columbia students started an encampment. Whilst the encampment was torn down by police the next day, it was rebuilt and protests continue. Students report difficulty getting to class. Arrests and suspensions have also been made.
Student Kyhmani James became the subject of media attention following comments regarding the murder of Zionists. He filmed a video of himself talking to the administration in an attempt to get his views across. Unfortunately for Mr. James, he has been kicked out of Columbia.
The Response
America’s 1st Amendment is very strict on the freedom of speech and assembly. That being said, law enforcement and university officials are more than a little tired of it. Students have been arrested, suspended and even expelled. Three college presidents have sat before Congress- Mary Magill of UPenn, Sally Kornbluth of MIT and Claudia Gay of Harvard. Magill resigned in December 2023, and Gay followed in January 2024 after a plagiarism scandal.
Some presidents have been tough. The University of Florida sent out a very clear letter to protestors telling them which behaviour was appropriate and what would get them kicked out. Florida State turned on the sprinklers. Northeastern University got the police to clear the encampment, saying that the use of ‘Kill the Jews’ crossed the line. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to expel any protestors who joined mobs. Even Columbia, the home of the most infamous protests, allowed the police in to tear down the encampment.
It doesn’t look like this is going to go away anytime soon. What some call a win for free speech is what others call going ‘too far’. As parents look away from the Ivy League to less elite but still reputable universities, one wonders if it’s a case of rich kids with too much time on their hands and no problems of their own. Is it that or a genuine example of solidarity with Palestine? Whatever the case, America’s campuses remain on metaphorical fire.
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Why Culture Matters
In 1996 AD, Samuel P. Huntington wrote and published his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.The main thesis of this American political scientist is that unlike the wars of the past, fought over nation and ideology, the wars of the future will be fought between cultures. This book represented a different Western view of future world history after the end of the Cold War, contrasting the liberal thesis of the Japanese-American political analyst Francis Fukuyama and his The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama’s vision of the coming of ‘the end of history’ proved to be an arrogant liberal illusion. Even Fukuyama himself abandoned this position.
On the other hand, Huntington’s vision was criticized by various spheres of the political spectrum. Major criticism of Huntington’s thesis was laid out by two schools of thought: Marxism and post-colonialism. The Marxist critique was based on the lack of an economic analysis within Huntington’s book, especially when compared to the neo-Marxist world-systems analysis of Immanuel Wallerstein. The post-colonial reaction to The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order was based upon the works of Edward Said, such as his masterpiece Orientalism.. Both criticisms are legitimate, even justified. However, they are missing the point.
The point of Samuel P. Huntington’s thesis was to stress the important role culture will inevitably play in the future of international relations. The author of this text, however, would add an even bolder statement – that culture always played an important role within the actual practice of not only international relations, but world history as well. That the ‘clash of civilizations’ was, and is, an inevitability.
However, Samuel P. Huntington’s work should be understood not as a manual or some sort of a holy scripture, but as a reorientation towards older, now forgotten schools of historical thought. His own, extremely simplistic view of civilizations has been influenced by the much more complex and nuanced historical analysis of civilizations offered by the great Irish-American professor, Carroll Quigley. Quigley, was in turn, under the influence of the quintessential British historian, Arnold J. Toynbee – who was himself under the influence of the legendary German philosopher of history, Oswald Spengler.
That is why political analysts of today should go beyond the works of Huntington, and his oversimplified cultural model – but they should bear in mind the political importance that abstract notions, such as culture and civilization, actually play. The current problems and crises of the modern West are, among other things, a direct result of cultural decay. Of course, there are many causes to the conflicts of our age, which have been studied in more detail by countless academics and philosophers, but the loss of cultural identity of the Western man is often neglected. Any form of collectivism, left or right, has been atomized by the forces of neo-liberalism – the final stage of capitalism. Capitalism – especially in its globalist form – is individual, as well as societal, schizophrenia.
Globalism seeks to undo all cultures and civilizations across the entirety of Earth. Although it is a creation of Western civilization, it lacks all of its values. Older civilizations, such as China, India and Islam, are no exception to this. Their values and world-views are challenged by the global forces of Capital, which lacks any and all morals – traditional, religious, ethnic. Even the secular morality of the Enlightenment has been compromised by Capital – all that has been left of them is an empty shell, mere words to be used by mainstream media pundits and opportunistic politicians. Younger cultures, such as Russia, Africa, Latin America or the Malay World are no exception, as well.
One day, a truly global civilization will emerge. But that day has not yet come. Such a culture can only arise naturally, through the endless cycles of cultural death and rebirth. It certainly shall not be born through soulless accumulation of Capital for the oligarchic elites. And it is certainly not the West’s duty to seek the establishment of this ecumenical civilization. The duty of the West is to survive. And in order to survive, the West needs to abandon the globalist project and restore the cultural values which brought its Gothic Springtime. If Caesarism is the inevitable future of the modern West, it is the duty of Western intellectuals to lay the foundations of a more enlightened, yet conservative society.
Caesarism, with its coming, brings destruction – as countless strongmen and charismatic leaders compete for power. At the same time, it is the advent of the Universal State, the final cultural form which brings about the last Golden Age. In order to establish a society which would allow for a more stable transition towards Caesarism and the Universal State, the modern West needs to establish a just society – where working men are awarded for the Labour – as well as a conservative one – where Western traditions are held high. A conservative socialism, where there is a strong sense of spiritual and political hierarchy.
An argument could be made that Capitalism is a product of Western Culture, appearing during the later Middle Ages – what are called by most historians at least, because every connoisseur of the West knows that the period was a truly marvelous birth of a new spirituality. This argument is justified, of course. Evidence for this claim was brought about by the books of Carroll Quigley, Immanuel Wallerstein and Fernand Braudel. Only Japan, as well as Chinese merchants living outside the Middle Kingdom, had the potential to bring about Capitalism – independently from the West. Professor Quigley would add the Canaanites, but that is a topic of its own.
Capitalism is a product of the West, but as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the Communist Manifesto once poetically put it – the sorcerer is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld he has summoned by his spells. This quite interesting allegory brought forth by Marx and Engels strongly resembles Spengler’s Faustian Man – a term which he uses to describe Western High Culture. Capitalism plays an interesting role in Western history, one quite similar to the role of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust. Capitalism tempts the West, as well as the rest of Mankind. It remains to be seen how and when will the West surpass this historical trial. Although it has created Capitalism (or summoned it, if one subscribes to the philosophy of Nick Land), the West is not Capitalism.
However, the creation of Capitalism is an interesting story by itself. When all societies, which can be deemed as Great Cultures, start – each begins with some sort of hierarchy. India was governed by a strict caste-system (varna), ruled by elite warriors (kshatriya) of Aryan descent, although the clergy (brahmin), also of Aryan descent, were held in high esteem. In the West, a similar system was established. Three estates: the Catholic priesthood, the Germanic nobility, and the Third Estate – consisting of various commoners. Among them rose the merchants, the bourgeoisie. It is among these merchants that the Protestant Reformation caught wind. Max Weber sees Protestantism as one of the foundations of Capitalism. It certainly is, but by itself it is not enough.
The Catholic priesthood represented a cultural Symbol – they were the axis mundi between the sinful world of Men and the Ten Heavens above. Politically, but not spiritually, above them were the Germanic warrior-nobles, usually of Norman descent, who represented power and the divine right of kings. The Third Estate lacked symbolism, they existed to be ruled by their betters. This lack of symbolism will prove essential to the advent of Capitalism as a political force.
Capitalism as a true, naked political force starts with two great revolutions of the late XVII century: the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Before these revolutions, Capitalism did exist as an economic force, but it has not yet replaced the feudal political structure of the so-called “Middle Ages”. The nominal protagonists of these revolutions, especially the French one, were the lower classes – often called sans-culottes (those without breeches). They were the men and women who bled for the revolution and fought against an old, now decrepit system. The decadence of the French nobility, which at the time consisted mostly of uplifted merchants loyal to the absolutist monarchs, became insufferable. However, there was more to it than this simple dialectic.
The peasantry was used. It was used by the richest among the common folk, the rising bourgeoisie, as well as the old nobility which turned to mercantile endeavors, to overthrow the monarchy and establish a new system which would suit their needs. It is here that Capitalism finally manifests itself in the political realm, using Liberalism – and eventually nationalism – as its “religious” justification. The once mighty cultural symbols brought forth by the Gothic Springtime of Western Culture were no more, replaced by the “symbols” of civilization. Where once stood the icons and statues of saints and kings serving an infinite God, representing the spiritual needs of Western Culture, now stood the false idols of money and modernity, clear manifestations of the dawn of Civilization.
Lacking all symbols, the Third Estate soon became anti-symbolic – a trait which has intensified since the end of the Cold War and can be observed when analyzing the various “cancel culture” movements which have appeared in the last decade. The revolutionary fervor started erasing all traces of traditional society, in order to make way for Civilization. Soon, however, Civilization found its enemies among two groups of intellectuals opposed to Liberalism: the conservatives and the radicals.
Conservatives, in the European sense of the word as defined by Immanuel Wallerstein, were nostalgic about the lost world many of them grew up in, or at least heard about from those who lived in it. They fought to stop the endless march of History. On the other side of the political spectrum stood the radicals, who saw Liberalism as too slow and quite unjust towards the proletariat – a new social phenomenon of exploited workers and laborers, serving the bourgeoisie. They wanted to speed up the Wheel of History, through any and all means necessary.
In the end, however, Capitalism defeated them both. Conservatives were defeated by Capitalism’s ability to commodify anything – including older cultural symbols, such as religion. Not just religion. Anything most European conservatives held dear. The symbols of Old Europe became commodities, to be sold and bought like common goods. Others became instruments of the Capitalist Reaction – known to us as fascism – and were used to combat the various forms of radicalism which sought to destroy Capitalism. There was a third group of conservatives, thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, G.K. Chesterton, Rene Guenon, Roger Scruton and many others, which did not fall under the temptations of Capitalism. These thinkers, however, are considered marginal, even by the mainstream Right, as their theories and thoughts are considered “outdated”. The mainstream Right fights only for private property, serving as the “conservative” wing of Capitalism.
The radicals were initially fought against by all means available to the liberal elites. They were used, in rare cases, when a new market needed to be opened for the interests of Wall Street – as was in the case of Russia. However, these Russian radicals were quite different from Western ones, in spirit and culture – if anything else, that is an altogether different topic. Be as it may, the radicals failed to establish the society they have envisioned – and the causes of such failure are many: imperialist sabotage, the formation of securitocracies, left-wing sectarianism, ideological dogmatism, the formation of new classes such as the nomenklatura, and many other contradictions. What remained of the radical movements by the end of the Cold War was also assimilated by the power of Capital, becoming the “progressive” wing of Capitalism. Instead of defending worker’s rights, these new “radicals” turned towards promoting the rights of minorities – especially more controversial ones, such as sexual, and so-called “gender”, minorities. Only a few intellectuals in the West still promote old-school left-wing ideals, but they are quite marginal – usually seen as “red fascists” by the mainstream Left.
The proletarian masses have been stupefied by the power of media, which has lulled the Western working class into a state of consumerist torpor in order to protect the interests of Capital. This transformation has given birth to the Fourth Estate. The Fourth Estate however transcends all boundaries as well, creeping its way across the entirety of Western society. It is anti-symbolic, consumerist to the core, easily appeased by the superficial. They are the people of the panem et circenses described by the Roman poet, Juvenal. However, what the liberal elites have forgotten, is that, unlike the working class of yesteryear, the Fourth Estate lacks any semblance of civic duty. They will follow anyone, authoritarian or liberal, who can satisfy their needs.
Now all that is left for Capitalism is global domination and the destruction of not only Western cultural symbols, or their remnants, but all cultures and civilizations across the globe. They must all be commodified, as there can only be “One Market under God”. Morality and tradition must bend before the laws of the Market, as Humanity gives way to the Machine. Consumerism has grown out of proportions, transcending the economic sphere, slowly dominating both politics and culture – while extinguishing true faith. Like a thousand flowers blooming, various cults and sects rise across the Western world – their “spirituality” nothing more than a shadow on the wall. Dark days are ahead for not only the West, as the Earth’s ruling Civilization, but for the rest of the world as well.
But it is in the darkest of days that the brightest light can shine.
Capitalism, as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels predicted, began eating itself. Once it falls, the forces of Chaos shall be unchained as the World Order crumbles. However, as in the Western legends of old, chivalrous heroes, egalitarian aristocrats of the soul, shall rise against Chaos and establish a new world – the final Golden Age of the West.
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Zero Seats isn’t Over
Keep going. The target isn’t eliminated yet. There is more to do. There is more you must do.
You have felt mush. You must keep pushing. The target must not be allowed time to recover. It is not enough that they’re tired, meandering, and feel like they’re under a slow but inevitable gravitational pull toward irrelevancy. Where they are making mistakes, they must be helped along, not just left uninterrupted.
Waiting for the next general election for the double tap isn’t enough. You must be more ambitious and more aggressive. The work must be put in now. The fight isn’t won in the ring, it’s won long before you dance under the lights.
Certainly, the opportunity for zero seats is still open. Is it possible before the next general election?
The target’s prospects are dim. There are two things a party needs to keep going and they have neither: an offer which enough of the right people want, or an ability to inspire any confidence.
If you have one, preferably both, of these, everything else (people, enthusiasm, money, effect) comes easier.
Sundries
Let’s get two small things out of the way first. Money and supporters.
Money. They’re broke.
Donors ran while their rivals raised 15 times more in large donations. They had to cut spending on cut spending on social media advertising because they ran out of money. They’ve been in trouble for a long time, even firing cleaning and security staff ahead of the campaign to make savings. Now the target is squeezing its leadership candidates. What a convenient way of weeding out the biggest of the timewasters.
Conference this year is looking ropey. Businesses don’t see any reason to go and spend lots of money for a stall or to sponsor an event or two, apparently. Previous years have earned up to £2m profit. Pretty meagre to begin with, but better than an imminent zero. Nobody to influence. That’s long before you consider what the content of Conference will be about. Nothing motivating. This will mean less money.
Money is a real problem. They never had a lot of people dedicated to the political work, or to the grind of knocking on doors, delivering leaflets, etc. and settled for a good chunk of their supporters quietly paying membership fees and other donations, which allowed them to make up for the small number of activists compared to their competitors.
Supporters. What supporters?
One estimate puts the target’s membership numbers at 172,000 as of July 2022. Do you think it has gone up or down since then? You can assume some boost ahead of the leadership election. The results of that vote will produce a number for totals and turnout. Now is a good time to buy low, perhaps, but are the signs particularly good?
Signs from the General Election and associated polling. Certainly, the winners didn’t receive very many votes in absolute – the lowest of any winning party since the 1880s, apparently. Goodness. Well, what does that mean for everyone else? They received even fewer votes. (For a particular newer party this may not mean the same thing – perhaps it’s best judged against other new entries/debuts over the years like the Brexit Party or UKIP more recently, or even going back in further psephological history to the birth of the Labour Party, perhaps).
And of this much reduced voter support, how long will that last? In the +70-age bracket, 46%. For the 60-69 range, 33%. For 50-59, 24%, much lower than the winner’s 34%.
Assuming things stay approximately the same, with the, er, normal circle of life, one projection has the target’s vote share in total declining at a rate of 2% per year. From 2025 to 2029 that would be a reduction of 24% to 16%.
Things never stay approximately the same, though, and why take the chance?
There’s no need to be nasty. Instead, be persistently, relentlessly, merely matter of fact. The target must be made to feel like it is neither hot or cold, just straightforward inevitability that it is empty and pointless. It has no energy and looks a lot like UKIP did after Nigel Farage left it all those years ago.
What is the point of you? What are you even doing? Just give it up and try again aligned with people who might actually take you somewhere.
Leadership election
Their leadership election is certainly reminiscent of those early post-Farage death throes.
This whole thing is set to be one big example of why zero seats is not over yet.
They haven’t even technically gotten rid of the “old” disgraced leader yet. And he’s going to hang around all the way until November? Past the reopening of parliament, the budget, conference season, and whatever unforeseen opportunities and scandals and events of importance might happen in the meantime?
Losing the election and the vast reduction of their MPs was bad enough. In the winner-takes-all system the UK has they might as well have had zero seats. Now they won’t have any coordinated response to anything until November? Isn’t that going to look an awful lot more like zero seats in functionality and practice?
And who have they got? The same old ding-dongs who got them there in the first place.
Many are flexing what little they have for the pony show, it seems. The pattern from the 2019 leadership race is so far re-emerging. Never mind the “front runners”, a series of true nobodies are also taking the chance to float their names. How pointless. There are so few of you that you’ll all almost certainly get a job as a shadow this or that anyway, without having to raise your profile.
And indeed, there are very, very few of you. With only 121 MPs the biggest contenders may well only just scrape together the 10 or so nominations (including themselves) needed to proceed. This is weenie. Why is nobody treating them as weenie? Treat them as weenie. They’re weenie.
Who have they got who can take on the Prime Minister (even if he is Keir Starmer) or Nigel Farage?
They’re not just weenie, they’re totally without any creativity. These people are so empty I reckon I could write every single one of their leadership pitches without having actually seen a single one of them. I’d much rather inflict that slovenly indignity on you, duckies. Does the following sound at all familiar?
“Hi, my name is Blah Blahson, and I’m standing to lead the target.
We need to be honest about where we went wrong. We didn’t listen. We broke all of our promises. We did in fact do too much of [insert random thing that was never the real issue, but something on the side or a symptom like divisiveness and infighting]. I will put an end to all that and start the difficult task of earning back your trust in time for the next election.
Here’s a bit about me and how I grew up to make me seem more relatable or sympathetic or something. Economy. Aspiration. Your dreams.
I want to be a tough ole grind-stoning cliché, cliché, cliché. I am proud of my record as [insert not totally unimpressive but generally not uncommon non-political working background here] + of my record as [insert whatever non-detailed and highly questionable ministerial gubbins they want to puff themselves up with]. I am a true conservative blah blah blah, and that is why I believe I am the right person to deserve your trust and lead us back to glory.
Next time, we’re going to be totally honest. I’m a no-BS kind of politician. It’s time for us all to unite. That’s what real leadership means to me.
That is why I am but humbly putting myself forward for leadership of the target, and I ask for your support.”
What do you reckon? That’s about right, isn’t it? Good grief.
November’s a good while away. You can expect a few relaunches of the same leadership campaign. As in, from the same politician. They’ll either fail to hit the mark or they’ll just be doing it again and again on some excuse to try to get more media attention.
And you know what? They’ll probably go through at least two leaders before the next election. And it’ll be from the same pool of MPs. People are going to get really sick of seeing the same unimpressive bunch over and over again. This is only going to be worse if, because there are so few MPs, shadow ministers are going to have to hold multiple briefs and work multiple appearances. It’ll get worse. Do you think these people have enough capacity for the mental arsenal on multiple briefs? What will this mean for their ability to cut through, to work detail, and nuance, and out-fox civil servant-resourced ministers?
All of this will perpetuate the idea that they’re disorganised and pointless. Weak.
Keep pushing on all of this. Keep pushing zero seats. It’s not over.
The target won’t reorganise
The target’s MPs don’t have it in them. There are a few reasons.
First, they’re scrabbling and struggling to keep their heads above zero seats as it is. What does this mean for reorganisation? At the best of times, MPs are looking to pick party leaders who will win them their seat, secure their seat, increate their majority, etc. First and foremost. The strongest incentive is for them personally, above anything else first, to be in office. (This is not the same as them being in power, but they think it is). It’s just that this means their own job, money, perceived prestige, pomp, etc., it’s at least somewhere in the correct 180° arc that you need to be in officer (power) to actually do anything, and that once you get some office (power) the correct thing to do politically is to keep getting more and more and more of it. The problem for the target is that they are desperate, which has its own ick, but this will also make them short-termist and wrong about what they need to do.
Second, the target has the same problem that the dying days of the Gordon Brown Labour Party had, and the first few post-2010 years. Same old people. The ideal best thing they could have done would have been to fire probably almost all of their sitting MPs and brought in a much fresher (not necessarily younger, though that might not have hurt) and energetic bunch. Even if it was naivety they’d at least sound enthusiastic and eager about whatever ideas they’d cooked up while they were dreaming of being MPs. And they wouldn’t be coming with the same dismal tainted track records. Instead, you’ve just got a bunch of blockers hanging around.
Third, the target doesn’t have anyone willing, let alone capable, of reorganising themselves. They might be making some of the right noises (see the accurate leadership pitch above) but they’ll almost certainly all be missing the point. They’ll be doing it on purpose. What’s the pitch otherwise? Here’s all these truthful reasons about why the target is awful but this time the same people will sort it out despite not understanding what was wrong before? If they understood, why didn’t they do something about it? If they didn’t understand, why humour them now? They should resign, but they won’t. Where else have they got to go? There is nothing so “ex” as an “ex-MP”. Maybe they genuinely, deludedly think that they can turn things around? Does it matter? They’re not going to go. It’s why the target is going to stay in a terrible spot.
Zero Seats is right there. Keep pushing it.
They won’t learn the right lessons
A related, but distinct-enough separate point. They won’t reorganise because they won’t learn the right lessons.
The incentives aren’t set up that way. It would mean admitting they were wrong. If they were wrong, why keep them around? Why not just start fresh with some people who were right?
They’re locked into failing to learn the lessons of the 2019 voter realignment. Reform will probably keep at it. This also incentivises them not to change. You can’t really mimic another party. At a certain point your remaining supporters leave, the ones who left will stick with the real deal, and those tempted will also just go to the real deal.
The same applies to the wets. Why not just go with the absolutely soaking in the form of the Lib Dems? Holiday-fun Ed Davey is already promising to come and kill you, at your house, in real life, and wear your dresses and makeup like the ancient Irish did, from the left.
The target is almost entirely ersatz, at best. Will that inspire at Conference?
You’ve known how empty they are for a while. It seems just as likely that they didn’t win because they were totally without plans (except for banning people from buying cigarettes or something? Who knows?) – not because they weren’t left or right enough or didn’t do anything or deliver on promises.
Beyond substance, do they even have the form for a good pitch? More on that next.
They sit out of the Pareto distribution
A lot of you were hoping for a genuine zero seats. Some of you thought sub-hundred would create the same effect.
You’re all too soft. I wanted to see one seat. Just one. Just one only lonely solely wholly put upon target MP in the whole of the country. Rishi Sunak. Could you imagine that humiliation? And then the humiliation of all the other decisions he would have had to make after that?
Anyway, a lot of you were disappointed that the target retained over one hundred seats. You suspect that this might be enough to keep them alive. Maybe, but also maybe not.
It’s still not a strong position to be in. They’re not clearly in one side of the niche of the pareto distribution or the other, are they? Genuine question.
For the uninitiated, the Pareto distribution is also known as the 80/20 rule. This is approximately that 80% of any phenomenon, market, etc. is due to 20% of the factors/actors involved. It’s never an exact 80/20 ratio, but one example might be that 80% of groceries are sold by 20% of all the grocery providers around. In other words, a small number of individual actors do most, but not all, of the business, and that remaining portion is likely done by many much smaller competitors.
In business in particular, this is important, because you either have the size and scale to do a large amount of generic mass market business, or you go smaller and niche and specialise. Think the difference between a mass market M&S suit versus Savile Row. Each has their place doing a particular sort of thing.
In the political case, does the target neatly sit in the big party or small party category? Too small to have a crack at the 80% market share, but too big to really be niche like the Green Party or Plaid Cymru or whoever?
Reform might have the opposite problem – are they genuinely going to try to break into and have a crack at being on the big boy side of that Pareto distribution? Or is it enough to function as a glorified pressure group like UKIP did (hey, not knocking it, it worked) without the full “mainstream” breakthrough?
The target is sitting very awkwardly right now.
What’s next?
Well, really, continue the Zero Seats campaign.
It’s not over. Slog it out. You didn’t think politics was going to be all excitement and meme wars, did you? Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.
The way forward: take their oldies.
The target is pretty much only supported by old people now. As mentioned above, all other things remaining the same, this would see their vote share dwindling at a rate of about 2% per year. But all other things will not remain the same. There will be more oldies along in a minute. The target might start doing good politics and start making a meagre recovery.
No!
I don’t care if it’s Reform UK or the Lib Dems or the Greens or whoever or all of them. Start coming out with plausible policies, announcements, attacks, aimed at splitting off the oldies from the target.
Come on. Zero Seats!
