From Judeo-Christian Values to Climate Skepticism: What the ARC Conference Revealed About the UK Right

Photo Courtesy of Aurelijus Valeiša via Flickr

Last week, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) gathered at the ExCeL Centre for a conference with speakers and guests from all over the globe. According to their website, the ARC’s aim for the event was “to draw on our moral, cultural, economic, and spiritual foundations to develop a more hope-filled vision for the future and, ultimately, to re-lay the foundations of our civilisation.” A small task for three days. In an interview with the Times ahead of the conference, ARC founder Baroness Stroud made assurances that the event was non-political; instead, it was about “finding inspiration and solutions” and “agreeing [on] our values”. 

ARC co-founder Jordan Peterson, a psychologist-turned-life coach and web provocateur, opened the event where tickets to attend were sold for upwards of £450 and access to the livestream cost £150. He wandered around the stage untethered, and he paused frequently–not for effect it seemed, but to conjure up vaguely related thoughts to fill his next sentences. What he did manage to outline was his reverence and concern for the preservation of Judeo-Christian values, a term very much in the cultural zeitgeist of the Right these days. The conference unfolded along these political lines, with speakers expressing their concern over declining birth rates and “genocidal” net zero targets, and pontificating about Western values being under threat. At one point, former Hungarian president Katalin Novák saw fit to congratulate members of the audience who had three or more children. 

The return of Trump to government was a dominant topic of conversation, with speakers looking to the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency and sweeping cuts to government programmes as something to be replicated in Europe. For a conference about defending Western values, promoting the US as a shining beacon seems strange in light of Trump’s suggestion last week that the US would abandon Europe in its effort to support Ukraine’s defence. After all, according to his Vice President JD Vance, the danger posed by Russia is no comparison to “threat from within” Europe. Regardless, a range of US political figures, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and top Republican donor Peter Thiel, were invited to the ARC to tell Europe precisely how it should be done. 

Also in attendance were prominent figures in UK politics, including the leader of the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, and the leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch. In a sit down with Jordan Peterson, Farage, kitted in Union Jack socks for the occasion, lamented declining national pride in contrast to its supposed peak in the 1980s. Attributing much of this decline to energy-sector jobs moving out of the UK, he failed to mention that it was economic policies during this precise decade which sounded the death knell for those industries in this country. Later, Peterson reaffirmed the importance of Judeo-Christian values and asserted that the “fundamental unit” of civilised society was a “commitment to long-term, stable, married, monogamous, heterosexual, child-centred marriages.” Farage, himself a divorcee, was forced to laugh and admit he was hardly a role model in this regard. Nonetheless, he was quick to reassure the audience of his commitment to “family, community, and country”. Do as I say, then, not as I do.

Kemi Badenoch gave a speech in which she declared that “some cultures are better than others” and to say so is only contentious “because honesty has become impossible.” She asserted that the Conservatives are ready to govern again and lead the charge to save the West with a first-pancake theory of governance: “Take a look at President Trump. He’s shown that sometimes you need that first stint in government to spot the problems. But it’s the second time around when you really know how to fix them.” Badenoch was a Conservative MP for seven of the party’s fourteen-year ‘first stint’ in government; there must have been a lot of problems to spot. Badenoch concluded by saying that her party would undertake “the largest renewal of policy and ideas in a generation”, without giving any indication of what those policies and ideas would be. 

In accordance with Baroness Stroud’s claim that the conference was non-political, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was invited to speak but declined. Instead, the PM was at an emergency security summit in Paris, discussing plans to defend Europe’s Western border by strengthening support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.  

The ARC conference was a bit more demure than other right-wing events, contrasting Elon Musk’s antics with a chainsaw on stage at America’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week. Speakers for the ARC conference came from more traditional backgrounds, notably academia, legacy media, and business. One such speaker was Sophie Winkleman, known for her role as Big Suze in Peep Show, and whose children are 55th and 56th in the line to the British throne. Her speech on the “digital destruction of childhood” provided the most in way of solutions to current crises the event promised to address. Winkleman advocated for removing educational technology from classrooms, going back to good old-fashioned pen and paper and encouraging parents to remove screens from their children’s lives. 

The event certainly inspired the audience as promised. It is clear now that the Right in the UK is open to fighting in their own American-style culture wars over issues like family values and climate science. Did the conference provide actionable solutions to current crises as promised? It did not. Nevertheless, the rationale for subscribing to the Trump political handbook couldn’t be clearer: it won him a turbulent election, and his populist brand of politics is making inroads across Europe. Championing Judeo-Christian values also encourages the support of an array of well-funded US political action groups who are willing to spend money in the UK to advance these causes. The question remains, will the British public respond to these values or not?