Love of country is fundamental to all conservatism.
“As The Family Offers Us The First Step Beyond Self-Love, So [Patriotism] Offers Us The First Step Beyond Family Selfishness.”
- C S Lewis, The Four Loves
All conservatives love their country. Patriotism, literally, means ‘love of ‘father’-land’. A conservative sees the relationship between citizen and nation (or subject and mother country) as an echo of child-parent relationships. A nation’s institutions nurture and protect its young citizens and as those citizens grow up they then protect those institutions.
Britishness
British patriots believe in the specialness of Britain. Politicians have sometimes got into difficulty when they have tried to define British-ness. Although some have still tried:
- William Hague: “[Conservatives must embrace] the Britain of big industrial cities and housing estates, the Britain proud of its world class designers and good restaurants, the Britain where hundreds of thousands go to the Notting Hill Carnival and the Eisteddfod, the Britain which watches MTV and Changing Rooms, and which is fascinated by Ricky and Bianca's ups and downs, the Britain which turns to the sports pages before the political news, where more people go on holiday to Florida than Butlins, the Britain, in other words, that has always been Britain too: urban, ambitious, sporty, fashion-conscious, multi-ethnic, brassy, self-confident and international.”
- Baroness Shirley Williams (Liberal Democrat): “Britishness is the countryside, individual liberty, unbroken tradition, and no revolutions.”
- Martin Bell (former independent MP): “It's tolerance, decency and a determination to talk about the weather on all occasions and a tendency, when a stranger stands on one's foot, to apologise.”
This website’s authors would say that fairness is at the heart of the British people’s understanding of themselves.
Also fundamental is internationalism. The British people are concerned about the world’s poorest people – and although they are willing to work with Europe and America, the British people object to either dominating their government. Deep Euro-scepticism has been the reaction to the loss of sovereignty to Brussels. Talk of Tony Blair being George W Bush’s ‘poodle’ reflects a widespread concern at the unevenness of the transatlantic relationship (see Anglosphere).
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