"The Place Which is Theirs"

The London Spectator interviews conservative philosopher Roger Scruton:

Two issues stand out. ‘Europe — our legal autonomy, our right to govern ourselves’, and ‘immigration — our right to control our own borders, and to demand cultural assimilation of people who settle here. If the Conservative party were to make those its central policies, it would be a step back to its core beliefs and to recapturing its natural constituency.’ But will it be enough to win them the election, I wonder? No, he concedes, almost reluctantly. ‘But round the edges they build up the policies which will attract those useless, self-seeking people who don’t know how to vote till someone tells them it is in their interests.’ …



Is he a believer? Yes. ‘I’m also the local organist,’ he adds, proudly. So his faith is as much social and institutional as personal and spiritual? ‘It’s both. I’m a great admirer of the Anglican settlement, at least as it was. It was an attempt to put God at his ease — so that He is no longer a belligerent, rude intruder, but a peaceful presence to whom one can turn.’ That sounds like a God who doesn’t make many demands of you, I suggest. ‘All the demands are contained in the Lord’s Prayer, with that wonderful clause “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” which is the only known solution to human conflict. It also distinguishes Christianity from Islam completely.’ …



Which brings us to Bush. Scruton thinks George W. is an ‘ordinary American oaf — therefore an adequate representative of a country comprising the same’. He wants him to win in November, however, for the same reason that made him a conservative in 1968: the people on the other side. ‘All the people I most despise hate him. I know nothing else so much in his favour as this. It’s enough.’ …



A final apophthegm is offered. Conservatism represents the desire of the English ‘to be at peace in the place which is theirs,’ says Roger Scruton, peacefully.