In brief, the story runs as follows. The European Young Conservatives (EYC) is a group of 26 political youth groups drawn from the centre-right in Europe. One of these was Blue Awakening, the youth group of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE).
Blue Awakening sent a letter to the EYC critical of its direction and was expelled, with the EYC explaining its decision as follows:
"You may have gotten the wrong impression regarding our views," the EYC told Blue Awakening. "We are the youth organization of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, which means that our primary goal is to propagate the free market and classical liberal values in Europe. Some of our members have the right to maintain conservative views, but we are not a nationalist organization and we do not aim to preserve Europe's ethnic identity."So there you have it. An alliance of "conservatives" sees its primary goal as promoting "the free market and classical liberal values." The founder of Blue Awakening rightly replied that, "True conservatism...is something completely different from classical liberalism."
If you go by the letter, the EYC is "conservative" only in the sense that it wants to conserve the classical liberal tradition, rather than the distinct peoples of Europe.
I had a quick look at EKRE, the Estonian party that Blue Awakening is affiliated with. Its policies and philosophy seem to be aligned with traditionalism. At its founding in 2012, the party declared:
No political party in the parliament represents the Estonian people, our national interest or traditional values. The government acts on right- and left liberal, also socialist ideas that our countrymen are simply statistical units or taxpayers, consumers at best. It is not far right or far left, just ultra-liberalism. The Conservative People's Party gives a solution to the voters who are sick of forced choice between Ansip and Savisaar, East and West, left and right.
That's very well put. EKRE has grown to have seven seats in parliament - I will watch its future development with much interest.
They were thrown out of the European Young Conservatives for being conservative.
ReplyDeleteThis is why the number one priority has to be the destruction of the existing mainstream conservative parties - the Republican Party, the British Conservative Party, the LNP in Australia. It's not that these parties are useless. They are dangerous, harmful, evil.
Many of our current woes can be traced to the incredibly naïve belief among people holding genuine conservative and traditionalist views that it's better to vote for these "conservative" parties than to vote for the supposedly leftist parties. This is the totally deluded "lesser of two evils" belief. It's actually better to vote for the leftist parties, because if we're ever going to have real conservative parties we must first destroy the fake conservative parties.
For half a century we've been dutifully turning out to vote for the Republicans, the British Conservative Party and the LNP and it's led us to disaster.
The most dangerous liberals are the ones on the right who have learned to cloak liberal policy positions in some sort of conservative rhetoric. They sound conservative, and so draw in the support of rank and file conservative voters, but it is smoke and mirrors. They might, for instance, talk of supporting the nation or the nation state, and throw in some support for the "Judeo-Christian tradition", and sound different to the left in saying it, but policy-wise still believe in a high rate of diverse immigration.
DeleteMargaret Thatcher was probably the best example of what you speak of. She won elections using the rhetoric of Enoch Powell, but shared none of Mr. Powell's views on NATO or immigration. The UK today is deindustrialized, largely as a result of her policies.
DeleteWorst of all, she created this image of a "tough" conservative woman, rather than the traditional feminine archetype. There are no shortage of allegedly conservative female activist-celebrities today that claim to be emulating her. While at the same time, these women live no differently than how Gloria Steinem would want them to.
Ms. Steinem was also funded by the CIA.
Worst of all, she created this image of a "tough" conservative woman, rather than the traditional feminine archetype
DeleteShe became a role model for so many modern "conservatives" male and female - mistaking viciousness for genuine strength, worshipping greed, regarding the working class with contempt, welcoming the destruction of traditional values. A ghastly woman.