Russia is the new dividing line on Britain's Right

Telegraph

8 hours ago

The Right has a problem with Russia. With his usual succinctness and sagacity, Charles Moore last week gave expression to an anxiety that has been exercising many conservatives: 'If perverted liberalism leads to neo-Marxism, could not perverted patriotism lead to neo-fascism?'
Could Moore be right? Nigel Farage is our equivalent of Oswald Mosley, who also trumpeted his patriotism – though Farage is a more serious and more successful politician than Mosley ever was. That makes him also much more dangerous.
Farage has a long record of excusing or downplaying the threat posed by Putin. He actually defended the Trump administration's bullying of Zelensky in the Oval Office. We may be sceptical about the 'Coalition of the Willing', but at least Nato's European allies are now rearming on an unprecedented scale and presenting Putin with a united front. Would that be happening under PM Farage? Pull the other one, as he might say.
With JD Vance and his British ally James Orr in mind, Moore mused: 'How did the national conservatism of Edmund Burke get mixed up with the Putinist opportunism of Viktor Orban's government in Hungary?'
In response, Dr Orr protested indignantly that he, Vance and other National Conservatives were in no sense apologists for Putin. Yet he claims that more people are prosecuted for free speech offences in Britain than in Russia. I'm not sure the late Alexei Navalny would agree. Orr champions the 'principled realism' of the 'New Right', arguing that 'the time has come to rally behind politicians who will put Kent before Kyiv'.
Let it first be said that this is an argument among people of goodwill, most of whom probably agree more than they disagree. British conservatives, whether 'Old' or 'New', are in favour of freedom (notably of speech and of the press), King and country, the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. Religious or not, they cherish the Judaeo-Christian foundations of our society and state.
Abroad, conservatives tend to support other nations who broadly share our values, particularly if they are forced to defend themselves, at the risk of being accused by Orr of suffering from 'Ukraine Brain'. Finally, conservatives rely on history as a guide in war and peace, even if (as Orr claims) 'Right-wing Zoomers' sneer at them as victims of 'World War Two Brain'.
Having played a minor part in the fall of the Berlin Wall, I plead guilty to Second World War, Cold War and Ukraine brain. This is the historical context of today's politics and diplomacy. Any attempt to play down the continuity and relevance of these conflicts is as foolish as it is unconservative. And dressing up an abdication of moral responsibility for Ukraine as 'principled realism' strikes me as at best wrong-headed, at worst a betrayal of our island story.
Alas, that is exactly what is meant by 'putting Kent before Kyiv'. Defending Kent is not a matter of fortifying the Channel coastline. The latter-day Hitlers and Napoleons threaten our way of life without setting foot here. If we sacrifice other peoples to appease the monstrous ideology propagated by Putin, we will be incapable of defending ourselves. It is actually Kyiv that is defending Kent, not the other way round.
The late Sir Roger Scruton, the patron saint of the National Conservative movement, understood all this better than his acolytes. Having devoted much of his life to helping dissidents in the former Soviet empire, he knew who the enemy was: the ex-communist secret policeman who is now trying to rebuild that empire.
But Scruton's political romanticism has been co-opted by Putin's chief ally in Europe, Viktor Orban. His goulash authoritarianism has helped to sanitise Putin's dictatorship – a soft cop, hard cop routine. The nationalist Right in Europe and the Maga Right in America have danced to their tune, seeking to diminish Zelensky's status as the symbolic hero of the free world. They promote their allies with money and influence. Elon Musk's meddling in the German election failed to stop the anti-Russian conservative Friedrich Merz being elected, but the Trump loyalist Kristi Noem helped the hardline nationalist Karol Nawrocki to win the Polish presidency.
Reform's intellectual praetorian guard is a motley band, ranging from the former academic and social media influencer Matt Goodwin to a new Millbank-based think tank, the Centre for a Better Britain (CBB), chaired by the aforementioned Orr. They have a blueprint: the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which has set Trump's agenda. Reform's in-house thinkers hope to play an analogous role in a Faragist future. They will doubtless dismiss any similarities between Trump's ersatz authoritarianism and the Putinist original.
Yet Russia remains a problem for the Right, not least in Britain. In one corner, Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives, including most centre-Right intellectuals, remain staunch allies of Ukraine. They reject Putin and all his works. Meanwhile Farage and his camp lean towards authoritarian solutions at home and an isolationist policy abroad.
My guess is that the British public, given adequate time and a level playing field, will opt for Kemi's inclusive patriotism, which precludes any hint of proto-fascism, rather than Farage's exclusive nationalism, which does not. Will the field actually be level, though?