Dilettante at Conference: Day 1

If I take nothing else home with me from this conference, it will be the lesson not to pack the hour before you need to catch your train. It necessitates much wandering in Birmingham City Centre on the first day of conference, buying duplicates of things you already own and with your smart shoes quietly grinding your feet to pulp. Alas, I missed the Welsh Conservative event this morning for this very reason.

Other than that, Conference has been fun. I attended the Rally for Boris and Eric Pickles session on localism (each of which produced a potential quote of the day, see below). I met lots of nice people, ate some good food and charmed a free umbrella out of the Conservative Friends of Azerbaijan. I even met a councillor who read this blog, much to my pleased amazement.

Tomorrow promises to be a bigger day: kicking off with Breakthrough Northern Ireland at 8am (!), then the Scottish Conservative & Unionist event and Iain Dale's bloggers party in the evening.

Quote(s) of the Day:

"Imagine what a new generation of Joseph Chamberlain's could do for this country." - Eric Pickles

"Like Heracles and Lernaean Hydra, like Holmes and Moriarty, like Harry Potter and Voldemort... It seems that this contest is fated to continue for more than one episode, and with the death eaters of union militancy on the march, prepared to suck the life out of British industry, we need your help, my fellow Con Home Homies... " - Boris Johnson, referring to the return of Red Ken.

An Open Letter to Nick Bourne AM

Dear Mr. Bourne,

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm [-], a Conservative & Unionist Party member of several years now. I'm of Irish parentage, and the relationship between the Conservative Party and the Union is a long-term interest of mine. I blog on the subject under the pseudonym Dilettante.

I recently read an article that has finally prompted me to write to you. Although I have might ask several questions of you, in light of the nature of my blog and the hope of eliciting a response I intend to focus on one: the relationship between the Welsh Conservatives and the Welsh language. I was wondering if you could explain to me why the Conservative Party aspires to a bilingual Wales.

I am not anti-Welsh, and neither is the wider party. Indeed, in my opinion it is illogical to be a unionist if you are 'anti' any of the constituent nations of the Union. However, I do take issue with the Welsh Conservatives being "committed to making Wales a fully bilingual nation". I fear that in attempting to shed an 'anti-Welsh' image the party may have adopted nationalist baggage.

I have two potential objections to this policy. The first is practical: whilst I can fully understand supporting Welsh as an optional choice in schools for those who wish to learn it, to create a bilingual Wales would surely involve making Welsh mandatory - imposing it upon Welsh students who could use the slot to take a subject that more accurately reflects their own interest, aspirations and personal priorities. Furthermore, forcibly constricting their academic freedom divides them from English students - is this good either for them or the Union? Additionally, making Wales bilingual must surely cost money: money that could be spent actually improving the lives of the Welsh people, either spent by the state or by themselves. How is any of the above in accordance with Conservative principle?

This leads to my second question: why is a bilingual Wales something that the Conservatives aspire to? The pro-active resurrection of the Welsh language is of no material benefit to British citizens in Wales. It is an understandable nationalist aspiration - but one for the Conservative & Unionist Party? One does not need to be an anglo-supremacist to believe in focusing on improving the material condition of the Welsh people rather than expending money on nationalist indulgences such as bilingual road signs when English is near-universally spoken. Resurrecting 'bilingual Wales' is expensive, proscriptive and of no material benefit to the Welsh - what then makes it desirable?

I hope that you find the time to read and answer this email.

Kind Regards,

[Dilettante]

**Update: Mr Bourne's reply here.**

Is 'Unionist' a counter-productive political label?

When I refer to my party membership, I always consider it important to refer to myself as Conservative & Unionist. Being a unionist is important to me, and I identify with the label. The decline of 'unionism' as a phenomenon and label in mainland politics is something I've long lamented. But the other day it struck me: why is this? Doesn't continuing to identify as a 'unionist' simply help to de-normalise the union?

I support the Conservative Party's attempt to break into Northern Ireland - and Labour's faltering starts in that direction - to bring mainland politics to the province. As Ian Parsley has argued on his blog, the basis of UCUNF was stepping outside the sectarian 'unionist/nationalist' spectrum in order to focus on bread-and-butter issues like the economy. In this context, referring to the party as the Conservative & Unionist Party is surely counter-productive? But beyond the particular issues surrounding Northern Irish politics, surely the problem is the same in Scotland? By emphasising 'unionism' as a belief with which a party needs to identify, does this not emphasise the 'separateness' of England and Scotland?

After struggling with it for a few days, I have arrived at the (tentative) conclusion that in principle at least the answer is 'no'. The inspiration from this came from the most unlikely of sources - nationalism in post-independence southern Ireland. Nationalism did not go away with the attainment of a statehood, and I may be mistaken but surely the continued presence of the Union in the north can't have sustained the deep nationalist undercurrents that have dominated politics in the Republic? Even after independence, nationalism has remained the political and cultural narrative du jour.

The United Kingdom is not a homogeneous nation-state. The state cannot ever hope to impose a uniform national identity upon the citizens of the UK because none exists to impose. British identity is less solid, more easily interwoven with other regional and national identities. I myself am British, Irish, English, Mancunian, Londoner and a Home Counties man. If unionists have anything to celebrate, it is that we have built so successful a state that can easily tolerate a such a multitude of mutually-compatible identities. Where unionism has failed, it is where it has become associated with the interests of one particular group or class - the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland being a key example.

This put me in mind of my own argument about 'neo'-unionism. If unionism were simply an attempt to hold the union together then yes, seeking to phase out the 'unionist' label might be a good idea. To me, however, unionism is more than that - it is the ideology that seeks to build an impartial state to govern free individuals, emphasising what we have in common rather than seeking to fetishise our differences. That is what makes Unionism distinct from British Nationalism - and to me that is a very important distinction indeed. And if this is the case, surely 'unionism' should continue to be a phenomenon in British politics even after the union is secure - defining our politics around a philosophy of cosmopolitan acceptance as the Republic defines its politics around cultural identity-building?

This being the case, the label 'unionist' - outside the context of Northern Ireland, at least - still has something to offer British politics. It evokes a spirit of free people joined in common enterprise, of tolerance and progress. Saying "I am a unionist" does not have to simply mean "I believe in maintaining the territorial and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom", but "I believe that we can achieve more together than alone, and that we should be building bridges between people rather than erecting walls".

Could the Tories get away with it?

Let's take a hypothetical leadership election in the Conservative party. There are five candidates - four are white males, two are brothers and one asked his wife to stand aside. The winning candidate loses the party membership and its elected representatives, but squeaks through on the back of votes from the CBI, Countryside Alliance, Chambers of Commerce and other affiliiated organisations.

Would the blues get treated with the same (relative) equanimity that Labour enjoyed? Not on your life.

Labour and Swing Voters

A bit of light relief. It was such a joy to come across this line, when trawling through Lord Ashcroft's research on Labour's relationship with the electorate, that I burst out laughing and struggled to stop.

The joke probably won't travel unless you go and read the whole thing, but in the words of one swing voter, asked whether Labour should return to its core values to appeal to the middle classes:

“Aren’t their core values aimed at people climbing chimneys?”

Ed Miliband on Labour in Northern Ireland

Firstly, I must apologise for my recent, thankfully short-lived quiet spell - I've been moving into a new house. Nonetheless I'm back and I spent this evening at a Labour event: "In Conversation with Ed Miliband", chaired by Tony Lloyd MP, Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was filled with students, and largely full of the usual student questions - pro-Graduate Tax, Green vs. Growth, Electoral Reform. But yours truly got to spring a question on Northern Ireland:

Dil: "Andy Burnham and David have both issued statements indicated a change of attitude towards Northern Ireland, with Mr. Burnham going so far as to state that under his leadership Labour would start to contest elections in the province. Do you support this position?"

Sadly, the answer was a lot less interesting than what one might have hoped for - essentially a lot of stonewalling, talk of being 'open minded' and reference as to how we mustn't disturb the Peace Process. If nothing else, it's evidence that Labour has not yet made up its mind.

The Inclusiveness of 'Britishness'

The Spectator carries an excellent article on the subject. I might do a post about how this relates to liberal unionism if I can do so without simply retreading old ground, but this post is just pointing it out for those who aren't regular Coffee House readers.