For this issue’s window on centre-right politics around the world, Oliver Cooper takes a look at the youthful centre-right in Europe
“Advance Australia, fair!” went the cry from Conservatives at the victory of Tony Abbott’s Liberals in September. For the first time in 33 years, there are centre-right Prime Ministers in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. But it’s not just in the Anglosphere where the centre-right is on the rise. Across the EU, only 8 countries out of 28 are led by socialist leaders. Even in the Nordic countries – that bastion of the left – only one socialist Prime Minister remains out of five: and even then, she’s polling 10% behind the centre-right.
The global centre-right is winning because of its ideas. The left likes to think of itself as international and open-minded, but Conservatives as Little Englanders, yet nothing could be further from the truth. ‘Swedish-style’ free schools, ‘Wisconsin-style’ welfare reform, ‘German-style’ labour reforms: almost every policy you hear from Conservatives, frontbench or
back, has been road-tested elsewhere – and proven not just to work, but to be electorally successful, too.
In countries where it’s been most successful, the centre-right has also done something else: it presents itself as the youthful party. Not in a contrived way or to the exclusion of older voters, but by presenting their policies as vital to the future of their country and their children: as open and forward-thinking, not insular and nostalgic. There’s a reason that 75% of commercial advertising spending is aimed at young people, who command only 20% of disposable income: optimism and youthfulness sell to everyone.
It’s also a key part of their policies. Estonia’s free-market Reform Party has championed Estonia’s world-leading flat-tax, low regulation, and innovation in public services. But above all, it has presented itself as the anti-debt party: controlling spending to avoid saddling future generations with debt. As a result, it is overwhelmingly supported by young voters.
Meanwhile, in Slovakia, Freedom and Solidarity – led by the father of Slovakia’s flat-tax – was initially launched as a Facebook campaign and is supported almost exclusively by young people.
Whilst we don’t have a flat tax or zero public debt, we’ve done a lot to benefit the young here, too: reforming one-size-fits-all schools which robbed a generation of a good education, ending restrictions on housing supply which robbed them of a chance to own their own home, and correcting the failure to hold a referendum in forty years which robbed them of a say on Europe. Above all, we’re tackling the bill that Labour racked up in borrowing and handed to our generation.
These ideas are shared through organisations such as the European Young Conservatives, which bring together a vibrant centre-right from across the continent and the world. Conservative Future hosted their annual Freedom Summit in September, with over 120 delegates representing 23 countries: allowing our young leaders to learn from best practice and best policy from around the world.
That’s key to exchanging our different ideas about how we each advance our shared values. There’s no trade-off between championing the values and policies we’ve always stood for and winning over new generations. We just have to be open-minded, learn from the best policies from our sister parties, and always believe that our country’s best days are ahead of us. Around the world, if the centre-right is winning, it’s the young what won it.
