Braverman's Leadership Campaign Launch

The lads over at the National Conservatism conference are fizzing with novel ideas. Danny Kruger argued that marriage is the only basis for a cohesive, functioning society. Frank Furedi talked about the virtues of celebrating national identities. Katharine Birbalsingh warned that the culture pushed by schools will cause us to "lose our country". Jacob Rees-Mogg suggested tackling climate change will make people poorer, and Suella Braverman said complaining about too many asylum seekers living here was not bigoted. As forecast, the conference has proven to be a byword for pushing authoritarian right wing politics under the guise of freedom and common sense, tropes and gambits that very definitely have never been used before anywhere.

Apart from Rees-Mogg casually admitting that the government's voter ID scheme was a "gerrymander", interest alights upon Braverman's speech. It wasn't particularly original. More a "greatest hits" of material reminding us why Rishi Sunak employed her in the first place. She attacked the left for spreading pessimism and division, and for demanding that Britain should apologise for its past. "Don't they know we abolished slavery?" she said, while neglecting how it was aggressively maintained by the UK and its predecessor states for centuries, financing its wars of conquest, and providing the capital for the industrial revolution. She attacked the concept of white sin and said no one is guilty of what happened before they were born. True, but when the state and the class enriched by slavery is still with us and finds plenty of defenders wanting to bury Britain's real history, one might suggest those playing down historical crimes believe they are some way responsible for them. Otherwise they might not get so exercised.

Braverman droned on. We heard about the left's authoritarianism, of how the critique of inequality inevitably leads to the suppression of freedom. Just don't talk about Tory protest laws. She had a go at the politics of grievance with all the chutzpah of a Tory on manoeuvres. She pivoted toward the anti-expert ranting of Margaret Thatcher, saying we should be sceptical of "self-appointed gurus, experts, and elites", while speaking at a conference of self-appointed gurus, experts, and elites telling Britons how their lives should be lived. And, hilariously, she warned against pitching the country into a US-style culture war. Not because they're bad in and of themselves, but because they might turn conservative against conservative. Which, of course, won't stop her victimising the groups the Tories just love to victimise.

Today's NatCon conference might as well have dubbed itself the launch of Braverman's leadership campaign. However, unlike Priti Patel who did her star turn at Saturday's Conservative Democratic Organisation gathering, the Home Secretary's record is not as spotless as her putative rival. While Patel affected support for the dear departed Boris Johnson at the time, Braverman - you might remember - announced her decision to stand in the contest to replace Johnson before he had resigned his office, and called on him to go as he clung on for dear life. There will be Johnson fans among the Tories who haven't forgot what they see as her cowardice, and as limited as Braverman is she has enough self-awareness to know her past behaviour could be a barrier to her ambitions. Therefore the BNP-adjacent posturing on all issues is not an expression of deep conviction, but as per all political sociopaths a function of her careerism. Going extreme is overcompensating for plunging the knife into Johnson and works as a big attract sign in the hope her previous inglorious moments slip from the collective mind. Whether it works or not we will have to see when the post-Sunak leadership election swings round, but one thing's for certain. With her and Patel vying for the top job, the political tone of the competition will mark a new low in the history of the Conservative Party.

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