Amid all the confusion and uncertainty about Donald Trump, trade tariffs, and the prospects for peace in Ukraine, one thing should be clear: the “End of History” dreamworld of the globalist elites is itself coming to an end. Their fantasy of a peaceful, prosperous borderless world order run by bureaucrats and bankers has been brutally exposed.
Instead we live, as I wrote here last month, in “a new world of nation states.” Democratic nations now have to wake up and defend the interests of their people in turbulent times.
What’s far less certain, however, is whether most Western leaders have the political will to cope with such dramatic changes. European leaders might now claim to be forming a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend Ukrainian sovereignty. Yet these liberal globalists are too scared of being called nationalists to stand up for their own nations. That’s why they recoil with horror from President Trump’s nation-first cri de coeur, “Make America Great Again”.
If we want to seize the moment, to give a voice to millions of politically-homeless Europeans, it is time to push for a popular patriotic revival and the rehabilitation of nationalism.
It is striking that today, as Frank Furedi of the MCC Brussels think tank writes, “the return of the nation state as the key actor in the conduct of global affairs…has not coincided with the ascendancy of a strong sense of national consciousness.” Instead, nationalism “is still relatively weak and as an ideology still awaits its rehabilitation.” In Western Europe, “even conservatives are reluctant to describe themselves as nationalists,” with nationalism seen as so negative they are “afraid of being discredited if they identified with it.”
Western political elites have spent decades turning nationalism into a dirty word. This has always fundamentally been about their mistrust of the demos, the people.
What is now the European Union was built on the false notion that the horrors of the Second World War were caused by allowing the ignorant masses to become infected by nationalist politics. Italy’s famous 1944 Ventotene Manifesto, now celebrated by the left as a founding charter of the European project, was explicit about the danger of national politics mixing with “the incandescent lava of popular passions,” and the need for a “solid international state” to keep the volcanic national demos under control.
More recently the Brussels elites have used the allegation of “nationalism” as a stick to try to discredit and beat back sovereigntist-populist parties. As former President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker sneered, “The populists, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries.”
The idea that there is something stupid and perverse about love for your own country has been drummed into generations of young Europeans by education systems that trash Western history and civilisation as a continuous dark age. With patriotism depicted as an historic problem, it is little wonder that surveys show few of Europe’s youth say they are now willing to fight for their country.
How could the Western elites who have done everything to turn nationalism into another unspeakable “N-word” seriously expect us to believe that they are now overnight converts to passionate patriotism, willing to defend our nations?
The problem was highlighted this week in Britain, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer used St. George’s Day, the celebration of England’s patron saint, to try to “take back” the flag and patriotism from Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK. A tricky task for the leader of a Labour Party that despises the traditionally patriotic working classes.
Starmer’s gambit was to link toxic nationalism with the small riots that followed the murder of three young girls in Southport last summer. His real target was not just the few people responsible for reprehensible violence, but anybody concerned about the impact of mass immigration on our country and culture, some of whom the UK authorities have proved keen to lock up for expressing their opinions online.
Starmer sought to contrast this with the positive patriotism of people from diverse communities coming together to clean up after the riots. In this pathetic petit-bourgeois Labour Party version of patriotism, national sentiments are acceptable only if it means something like supporting the National Health Service, by coming together to politely clap for nurses during COVID lockdowns, or supporting the national football team, so long as you do it quietly, soberly, and without insulting German supporters.
How does Starmer or any other centrist leader expect to mobilise people to defend their nation and European civilisation on that basis? Would the imaginary forces he has pledged to send to Ukraine be expected to fight, or just to clean up after the Russians?
It is time for us to “take back” the idea of patriotism from the elites, and to free national consciousness from all the negative labels they have attached to it.
Historically, many have made a distinction between patriotism, seen as potentially progressive and therefore good, and nationalism, condemned as reactionary and potentially the source of racist hatred. Now, however, those elitists waging war on Western history are seeking to criminalise any form of popular patriotism, by blaming the patriots who have forged modern Europe since the Enlightenment for planting the roots of racism and oppression.
In the face of such political insults, conservatives should surely stop being defensive about what names they might be called, and stand foursquare for the rehabilitation of popular patriotism and nationalism. It is not racist to see something positive about being English, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, or any other nationality.
A revived attachment to the nation can offer a safe home for the masses cut adrift from their roots by the politics of the globalist elites. More than that, national consciousness and the defence of national sovereignty give people the chance to take democratic control of their destiny.
The nation-state, let us always remember, is the only model on which democracy has been proven to work; any talk of “Europe-wide democracy” or “global democracy” is merely a cover for rule by the unrepresentative bureaucracies of the United Nations, World Health Organisation or European Commission.
The anti-nationalism and anti-populism of the EU elites is all about their fear and loathing of the demos. It is now clearer than ever that politically, we are two Europes: the official Europe where the old establishment parties cling onto power, and the other Europe where millions who suffer the consequences of their mass migration and Net Zero policies are turning to national-conservative parties.
Conservatives should not only embrace the populist revolt as the best hope of shaping Europe’s future. They should also fight to give populism a positive political story, by insisting that patriotism is not the plaything of the polite classes, and that nationalism should no longer be considered a dirty word.
Nationalism Should No Longer Be a Dirty Word
European countries’ flags in front of the European Parliament building, in Strasbourg, eastern France.
Photo: Frederick Florin
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Amid all the confusion and uncertainty about Donald Trump, trade tariffs, and the prospects for peace in Ukraine, one thing should be clear: the “End of History” dreamworld of the globalist elites is itself coming to an end. Their fantasy of a peaceful, prosperous borderless world order run by bureaucrats and bankers has been brutally exposed.
Instead we live, as I wrote here last month, in “a new world of nation states.” Democratic nations now have to wake up and defend the interests of their people in turbulent times.
What’s far less certain, however, is whether most Western leaders have the political will to cope with such dramatic changes. European leaders might now claim to be forming a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend Ukrainian sovereignty. Yet these liberal globalists are too scared of being called nationalists to stand up for their own nations. That’s why they recoil with horror from President Trump’s nation-first cri de coeur, “Make America Great Again”.
If we want to seize the moment, to give a voice to millions of politically-homeless Europeans, it is time to push for a popular patriotic revival and the rehabilitation of nationalism.
It is striking that today, as Frank Furedi of the MCC Brussels think tank writes, “the return of the nation state as the key actor in the conduct of global affairs…has not coincided with the ascendancy of a strong sense of national consciousness.” Instead, nationalism “is still relatively weak and as an ideology still awaits its rehabilitation.” In Western Europe, “even conservatives are reluctant to describe themselves as nationalists,” with nationalism seen as so negative they are “afraid of being discredited if they identified with it.”
Western political elites have spent decades turning nationalism into a dirty word. This has always fundamentally been about their mistrust of the demos, the people.
What is now the European Union was built on the false notion that the horrors of the Second World War were caused by allowing the ignorant masses to become infected by nationalist politics. Italy’s famous 1944 Ventotene Manifesto, now celebrated by the left as a founding charter of the European project, was explicit about the danger of national politics mixing with “the incandescent lava of popular passions,” and the need for a “solid international state” to keep the volcanic national demos under control.
More recently the Brussels elites have used the allegation of “nationalism” as a stick to try to discredit and beat back sovereigntist-populist parties. As former President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker sneered, “The populists, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries.”
The idea that there is something stupid and perverse about love for your own country has been drummed into generations of young Europeans by education systems that trash Western history and civilisation as a continuous dark age. With patriotism depicted as an historic problem, it is little wonder that surveys show few of Europe’s youth say they are now willing to fight for their country.
How could the Western elites who have done everything to turn nationalism into another unspeakable “N-word” seriously expect us to believe that they are now overnight converts to passionate patriotism, willing to defend our nations?
The problem was highlighted this week in Britain, where Prime Minister Keir Starmer used St. George’s Day, the celebration of England’s patron saint, to try to “take back” the flag and patriotism from Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK. A tricky task for the leader of a Labour Party that despises the traditionally patriotic working classes.
Starmer’s gambit was to link toxic nationalism with the small riots that followed the murder of three young girls in Southport last summer. His real target was not just the few people responsible for reprehensible violence, but anybody concerned about the impact of mass immigration on our country and culture, some of whom the UK authorities have proved keen to lock up for expressing their opinions online.
Starmer sought to contrast this with the positive patriotism of people from diverse communities coming together to clean up after the riots. In this pathetic petit-bourgeois Labour Party version of patriotism, national sentiments are acceptable only if it means something like supporting the National Health Service, by coming together to politely clap for nurses during COVID lockdowns, or supporting the national football team, so long as you do it quietly, soberly, and without insulting German supporters.
How does Starmer or any other centrist leader expect to mobilise people to defend their nation and European civilisation on that basis? Would the imaginary forces he has pledged to send to Ukraine be expected to fight, or just to clean up after the Russians?
It is time for us to “take back” the idea of patriotism from the elites, and to free national consciousness from all the negative labels they have attached to it.
Historically, many have made a distinction between patriotism, seen as potentially progressive and therefore good, and nationalism, condemned as reactionary and potentially the source of racist hatred. Now, however, those elitists waging war on Western history are seeking to criminalise any form of popular patriotism, by blaming the patriots who have forged modern Europe since the Enlightenment for planting the roots of racism and oppression.
In the face of such political insults, conservatives should surely stop being defensive about what names they might be called, and stand foursquare for the rehabilitation of popular patriotism and nationalism. It is not racist to see something positive about being English, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, or any other nationality.
A revived attachment to the nation can offer a safe home for the masses cut adrift from their roots by the politics of the globalist elites. More than that, national consciousness and the defence of national sovereignty give people the chance to take democratic control of their destiny.
The nation-state, let us always remember, is the only model on which democracy has been proven to work; any talk of “Europe-wide democracy” or “global democracy” is merely a cover for rule by the unrepresentative bureaucracies of the United Nations, World Health Organisation or European Commission.
The anti-nationalism and anti-populism of the EU elites is all about their fear and loathing of the demos. It is now clearer than ever that politically, we are two Europes: the official Europe where the old establishment parties cling onto power, and the other Europe where millions who suffer the consequences of their mass migration and Net Zero policies are turning to national-conservative parties.
Conservatives should not only embrace the populist revolt as the best hope of shaping Europe’s future. They should also fight to give populism a positive political story, by insisting that patriotism is not the plaything of the polite classes, and that nationalism should no longer be considered a dirty word.
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