The NatCon Siege: Why is the New Elite so Terrified of a Bunch of Middle-Aged Men Spouting Mainstream, Fairly Anodyne Right-of-Centre Policy Positions?

In The Inheritors, his 1955 follow-up to The Lord the Flies, William Golding masterfully and disturbingly paints a picture of a world on the very eve of its dissolution. The main characters, who it is obliquely implied are the last of their species, are a band of neanderthals who find themselves swept away by the coming of a new dawn – the arrival of homo sapiens. A fresh reality – one that encompasses both a higher culture and greater savagery than they can possibly imagine – is on the cusp of emergence, and nothing will be the same again.

Our times have taken on something of that aspect. The world which most of us grew up in – the world of agreeing to disagree, of reasoned debate, of ‘It’s a free country’, of mutual respect and civility – is disappearing. All manner of disconcerting opportunities seem to be arising in its stead. And the process of replacement threatens to be quite rapid. “How do you lose your civilisation?” as Hemingway might have asked. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

The threatened cancellation of NatCon 2024 by various mayors in Brussels provides quite a stark illustration of the suddenness with which things are now moving. A decade or so ago (I am tempted even to say even five years ago) it would have been basically inconceivable to imagine that people spouting mainstream, fairly anodyne right-of-centre policy positions (the family is a good thing, marriage is a good thing, immigration should not be a complete free-for-all, religion is worthy of respect) would be being characterised as too dangerous to be allowed to speak in public. Yet now here we are: various public authorities in a European capital – admittedly quite an oddball, sui generis place – trying to shut down what is in the end a fairly humdrum opportunity for traditional conservatives to vent for a day or two together about the world going to the dogs before traipsing home again with a bad hangover. NatCon is many things (I was at the London one last year as an observer), but it is certainly not a forum for plotting by nefarious far-right conspirators bent on the restoration of 1930s style fascism. Yet we appear to have come to a position at which mainstream politicians are not actually able to tell the difference between one thing and the other – or at least have so little respect for the concept of civil discourse that flagrant mischaracterisation of the views of one’s opposition is considered a legitimate tactic for political victory.

There are I think four observations to be made about the whole affair.

The first is the marked insecurity and even frailty of the people that Matt Goodwin has aptly labelled the ‘new elite’. People who have the courage of their convictions, and who are confident that they are in the right, don’t particularly worry about people disagreeing, and don’t feel the need to shut down debate – indeed, they welcome it. For all that our public sphere is characterised by strict adherence to orthodoxy, then, it is obvious that that orthodoxy rests on very shallow foundations.

The second, related observation is that politics is becoming oppositional, and it is not difficult to see why. In a society in which people feel themselves to be bonded together by pre-political loyalty (to the nation, a religion, shared values, etc.) they make the effort to accept differences of opinion and rub along. But people across much of the West no longer live in such societies. Instead, they choose their loyalties precisely on the basis of political ideals which in many senses span borders – ironically, this is true both of what people call the ‘woke’ Left and the NatCon-style dissident Right (which insists on a kind of international nationalism). The result is that people no longer seem to want to rub along, but to crush their political enemies. Belgian mayors, then, don’t want to agree to disagree with anyone. They want to stamp NatCon out.

The third is the irony of the disjuncture between the sheer scale of ambition evident in the claims that our governments typically nowadays make (that they can save us from disease and from climate change, that they can alleviate poverty, that they can make us healthier, that they can decide what is true and what is not, etc.), and the vapidity and incompetence of the actual human beings who are engaged in the practice of government. What on Earth were these Belgian mayors thinking? If they had wanted NatCon 2024 to fail, the best thing to do would have been to politely ignore it, and thereby turn it into a damp squib. Instead, through their hamfisted efforts to cancel it, they have given the event, and the nascent movement surrounding it, a veritable bank vault’s worth of free publicity. Not only that, but it is free publicity which precisely vindicates a significant chapter in the entire narrative told by that movement, which is that ‘woke’ technocrats are trying to crush free speech. How profoundly stupid. (Indeed, one has to wonder whether the decision to host the event in Brussels was not a bit of a masterstroke by NatCon’s organisers in light of what has happened.)

The fourth and final thing to observe is that this is all getting dangerous. The picture that emerges is one of an incipient hegemony, which is increasingly intolerant of opposition, but which is at the same time very brittle, subject to bouts of histrionics, and not very competent or capable of thinking things through. Does that sound to you like a recipe for good, calm, strategically sensible government? It doesn’t to me. Rather, it sounds like all of the ingredients are present for a period of serious and sustained political instability. Buckle your seatbelts, then – it’s going to be an exciting ride.

Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. You can subscribe to his Substack – News From Uncibal – here.