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Dr Martin Parsons is the author of Good for Society: Christian Values and Conservative Politics (2020) and in May 2024 was elected as a Colchester City Councillor
Last week, just as the present government somewhat belatedly sought to rebuild relationships with the new government of our closest ally, former Conservative leadership contender and Rory Stewart, the International Development Secretary, managed to engage in a quite unnecessary spat with JD Vance, the new America Vice-President.
In an interview with Fox News, he stated:
“There’s this old school – and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way – that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.”
Stewart took to social media and condemned the comments as “less Christian and more pagan”, which prompted the sort of retaliation from the US Vice-President which is quite common in the US, though less common in UK politics.
The principle of relational responsibility
My ears pricked up at the words Mr Vance had used as they very closely echoed those I had written in my book Good for Society: Christian Values and Conservative Politics (2020) where I referred to them as “The principle of relational responsibility”
“Relational responsibility means that our primary responsibility is to care for those we are in closest relationship to, i.e. in ever-widening circles, first family, then community, fellow countrymen, etc.”
This is a basic principle that should be foundational to Conservative thinking on social justice as well as other issues, such as spending on overseas aid and foreign policy. It is not a new principle at all – but it is perhaps one that has been somewhat neglected by Conservatives in recent years – and now needs to experience renewal.
Vance’s words are exactly the sort of comments Margaret Thatcher made – for example, in her 1988 speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. There she emphasised that in difficult times each of us has a responsibility to look after our family, quoting the words of the Apostle Paul to this effect.
This principle has also historically underpinned Conservative thinking on foreign policy. Lord Sailsbury, one of the truly great Conservative Foreign Secretaries (1878-80, 1885-86, 1887-1892, a role he combined with being Prime Minister from 1895 to 1902) expressed it in a truism that epitomised Conservative foreign policy
“Our first duty is towards the people of this country, to maintain their interests and their rights; our second is to all humanity.”
In other words, meeting overseas needs and righting overseas wrongs has to be proportionate to the responsibilities that a government has first of all to its citizens, something which was in danger of being lost sight of during the New Labour era.
This is a principle that should be more widely informing a Conservative counter-narrative not just on social justice, but also on a broader range of issues such as international development and foreign policy.
So, what the new US Vice-President was doing by is quite important. He was fighting a battle of ideas against liberal-left ideology, something that Kemi Badenoch is now also taking far more seriously than any previous Conservative leader since Thatcher. We won’t agree with everything the new US administration does, but this is one of the issues where we really should be finding common ground with them.
The importance of history
It’s also worth noting how the new Vice-President sought to develop that counter-narrative, which was to draw on history – “there’s a old school…” adding to his US audience almost as a separate thought “– and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way –“.
That’s important – because what he is saying – which also forms the basis for my book Good for Society – is that Conservativism is about conserving the best of the past. Much of what is worth conserving has historically been derived from the significant influence of Christian values on our society.
These then produced institutions and social values such as the importance of marriage and the traditional family, as well as concepts such as relational responsibility. Conservatives, whether or not they have any faith commitment, have then on pragmatic grounds seen these institutions and values being worth conserving – precisely because they have been proved by the test of time to be “Good for Society”.
Whilst there are significant differences between British and US Conservativism, it is worth noting that this was a significant influence on British Conservativism right up to the end of the twentieth century. That sort of thinking was fundamental to Margaret Thatcher’s politics, as she said on one of many occasions:
“I believe in what are often referred to as ‘Judaeo-Christian values, indeed my whole political philosophy is based on them.”
In other words, what was important to her was the outworking of those values in our history and the institutions and principles which emerged from that process, amongst which we can include democracy, freedom of speech and religion, one law applying equally to all people and so on.
Conservative renewal
If we are to develop a clear counter-narrative to the challenges of both an increasingly ideologically driven and intolerant liberal-left and of an even more intolerant radical Islamism, both of which pose significant challenges to the historic values our society is built on, then we need to take a leaf out of Vance’s book – and as Thatcher did, and not merely conserve the best of the past – but sometimes actually retrieve and renew it.
The principle of relational responsibility is just one aspect of that – but it’s an important one.
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