Fluent Radical

Gary Monro, in the middle of an excellent post on responsibility and rape, tossed out “Blair and his neocon friends” as the culprits behind the recent repressive anti-terror legislation.

Neo-cons are, largely, ex-Marxists so the idea of oppression, ‘democracy’ at the barrel of a gun, 90 day detention without trial and imprisoning a man for ideological reasons fits the authoritarian thought patterns of such people.

This got me thinking about neoconservatism in the UK. Three questions: (1) is Blair a neocon? (2) is there such a thing as British neoconservatism? (3) is the anti-terror legislation the work of people with neocon tendencies?

What is a neocon, and is Blair one?
There’s a lot of misinformation about neocons going around, as David Brooks says, “‘con’ is short for conservative, and ‘neo’ is short for ‘Jewish’”. This is one of the most popular myths, that neoconservatives are a Jewish cabal that controls White House foreign policy. As a conspiracy theory, it probably stems from the neo-cons unblinking support for Israel, but in truth, the neoconservatives are less of a united cabal as they are a barroom brawl. There is no neocon ‘movement’, only commentators with neocon leanings.

It is possible, on the other hand, to identify some consistent positions. There are two that have been particularly influential: on the management of the economy, and on foreign policy. On the role and size of the state for example, they are often far more comfortable with large and involved government than other conservatives.

I’ll quote from The Neoconservative Persuasion by Irving Kristol. If anyone is a neocon, Irving is:

Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on the ‘road to serfdom’. Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the State in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.

But this does not mean they look favourably upon high taxation. Indeed, if neoconomics is anything, it is Reagonomics:

One of these [neoconservative policies], most visible and controversial, is cutting tax rates in order to stimulate steady economic growth. This policy was not invented by neocons, and it was not the particularities of tax cuts that interested them, but rather the steady focus on economic growth.

Of course, spending accompanied by tax cuts is a recipe for deficits. But this isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Consider the position in Britain. The national debt lies at around £480bn: seem like a lot? The recently released figure for the public sector pension liabilities was put at over £800bn. If we are leaving a ‘burden for our children’, it lies in these liabilities, not a puny £35bn deficit. As far as I can tell, we could run a deficit of up to £13bn a year while still shrinking the national debt as a proportion of GDP. A lack of concern over deficits is a fairly standard feature of a neocon.

From this perspective, Blair and the Labour Party are far from neocons. In fact, Brown has made much of the fact that he is a deficit hawk, the opposite position to neoconservatism. In fact in Britain today we are all - Labour, Conservatives, commentators - deficit hawks. Every policy must be funded, and ‘running a deficit’ is not a serious policy alternative.

Of course for many foreign policy is the litmus test of neoconservatism. In a large part this is simply because after September 11th, the neocons found their ideas in demand, and were catapulted to a position of great influence within the Administration.

It does not do to exaggerate this, as it has never been the case that the neocons were running the show. It is more correct to say that their views struck a chord with the nationalist conservatives who were really in charge.

… there is no set of neoconservative beliefs concerning foreign policy, only a set of attitudes derived from historical experience. These attitudes can be summarized in the following ‘theses’ (as a Marxist would say):

• first, patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment, and should be encouraged by both private and public institutions. …
• Second, world government is a terrible idea since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion.
• Third, statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the history of Cold War revealed. The number of intelligent men who could not count the Soviet Union as an enemy, even though this was its own self-definition, was absolutely astonishing.

[from Irving's piece again - I added the bullets]

Finally, the national interest is viewed in a far wider fashion for a great power like America than it would for a smaller nation.

Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interst to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary.

Where does this leave us with Blair? He is an evangelical democratiser (as are many - but not all - neocons). There is no question that Blair interprets Britain’s national interest as at the least requiring an active defence of, if not promotion of, democracy worldwide. In this sense he is firmly neoconservative.

On the other hand, if neoconservatism contains an uncomplicated patriotism together with a healthy disregard for international organisations, then it cannot be reconciled with the drive to build a European political union. Despite his more recent pronouncements on the EU, Blair has presided over continuing and accelerating European integration, and this places him outside the neoconservative camp.

Actually many US neocons support EU integration as I understand it, but this doesn’t change the fact that if someone suggested America should join something similar they would cough up their skulls.

Who are the British Neocons?

So although the views above don’t have much currency on this side of the Atlantic, we do have people who could be described as British neoconservatives (Britneocons). Roughly speaking, an American neocon is someone who thinks that the US military isn’t nearly large enough, and a British neocon is someone who agrees. I think of the Britneocons as those who believe the following:

• Britain’s interests are well served by the current US hegemony,
• realpolitik is for lefties, we believe in an ethical foreign policy,
• democracy and the rule of law are coming to a cinema near you,
• Britain should not integrate itself within the EU,
• love the tax cuts even when we have no real idea where the money is coming from.

It’s not easy to identify clearcut members of this family (other than myself), but David Davis and Liam Fox seem to make the cut quite handily. David Cameron has also made speeches on the necessity for an ethical foreign policy, although I’m not sure if he would support the tax arguments. Blair is eliminated thanks to his EU prostration and his high tax sensibility.

So I don’t think we can lay the blame for the anti-terror laws at the Britneocons’ door. David Davis is the man who opposed the government so effectively over internment without trial. Liam Fox started the Conservative Human Rights group to put human rights at the centre of the Conservative’s foreign policy.

The neoconservatives amongst us are not the enemy. They are actually those members of the Shadow Cabinet who the blogosphere - that despises the government for it’s repressive legislation - is most excited about.