Conservatives unapologetic in support for Ukraine
The Strong and Free Networking Conference — originally the (Preston) Manning Centre Networking Conference, a.k.a. “Manningstock” — kicked off Wednesday in Ottawa with two former anglospheric prime ministers weighing in on Ukraine, Israel, climate change and sundry other topics.
Boris Johnson (Conservative prime minister, United Kingdom, 2019–2022) and Tony Abbott (Liberal prime minister, Australia, 2013– 2015), both Oxford grads and both former journalists, agreed on pretty much everything except climate change. (The Australian Liberals are, broadly speaking, akin to the former British Columbia Liberals: the centre-right option.)
Abbott still expresses skepticism about mankind’s role in that unfortunate business, in a forthright way that no Canadian minister or aspiring minister — or even aspiring opposition critic — would ever attempt nowadays. (Abbott’s skepticism was rapturously received by the crowd in Ottawa, based on my observations down the livestream. There was literal whooping!)
Johnson, a notable former skeptic in his former life as a newspaper columnist, is now fully converted to the climate-change cause.
Other than that, Abbott, Johnson and moderator John O’sullivan — journalist, former speech writer to Margaret Thatcher and one of the architects of this newspaper — offered each other only the mildest disagreements. That’s as it has always been at Manningstock. It’s not a policy conference or a Munk Debate. Per the name, it’s a networking event for conservatives of all stripes, designed to highlight common ground over differences in hopes of bolstering the movement.
But it has always been interesting to me when the Manning/strong and Free folks invite foreign leaders. What inspiration do the organizers hope Canadian conservatives will take away from these guests, and how will their message translate into the Canadian conservative movement?
My theory has always been that it’s a bit like conservative fantasy camp. It’s a chance for the blue team’s partisans to imagine what it might be like to live in a country where you might actually be able to win elections with unapologetically conservative ideas, and make remarkable conservative-ish things happen — Brexit, for example, whose praises Johnson sang in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Manningstock attendees, especially the younger ones, greeted Euroskeptic gadabout-cum-uk Independence Party leader Nigel Farage in 2013 like a conquering hero. I suspect most of those kids would also have said they supported an economic union with the United States.
Arch-libertarian former Texas congressman Ron Paul attracted similar adulation, also in 2013, despite his brand of arch-libertarianism having near-zero constituency in Canada.
To my mind, considering recent events, the most compelling aspect of the Johnson-abbott-o’sullivan confab was the utterly unapologetic support for Ukraine. Johnson in particular tried to expand the case beyond the moral and into the practical.
“If you’re worried about democracy around the world, if you’re worried about security, then investing in the security of Ukraine is the most efficient thing you can possibly do,” Johnson said, O’sullivan having asked his advice for the next American president.
“If you are the party of Ronald Reagan, if you want to make America great again, then you don’t begin a new Republican presidency … by conceding victory to Vladimir Putin and letting the Ukrainians lose,” Johnson thundered, his hair askew and his tie akimbo, as per usual. “It would be a disaster for the West and it would be a disaster for America.”
Under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre, the Conservatives have walked a very disappointing line on Ukraine. In general, their support is rock-ribbed. But they unanimously opposed a free-trade deal with Kyiv because it contained literally meaningless verbiage about carbon taxation, which is precisely the sort of cynical concession of world affairs to domestic interests that conservatives should oppose.
Johnson and Abbott are hardly political colossi, in the grand scheme of things. But Canadian conservatives should listen to them — hard. Based on the applause I heard down the livestream for Ukraine’s survival and indeed victory in the face of Vladimir Putin’s insanity, I suspect any gains the Poilievre gang think they’re making by playing silly carbon buggers are vastly outweighed by the losses.