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Lord Lexden speaks about patriotism in today's ConservativeHome:
The rediscovery of patriotism is indeed crucial for the revival of Toryism which Disraeli defined as ‘love of country and an instinct for power’. There has been far too much talk about the eternal economic verities so successfully put into practice by Mrs Thatcher. There are no permanent economic features of Toryism. Everyone has forgotten that Mrs T who worshipped Churchill with an adulation acquired in war-time Oxford was inspired by deep, simple patriotic faith. She was no intellectual harvester of great ideas. All her early speeches are about the glories of the British Empire and the wickedness of socialism/communism. One of Mrs T’s greatest tragedies is that she did not understand that the language of patriotism, if it is to be successfully employed by Tories, needs to bring a sense of fulfilment and purpose to Ulster and Scotland as well as to England and Wales. In her time the historic bonds between the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists were broken, and the Party ceased to articulate the separate sense of Scottish nationhood which had made it the majority party north of the border.
Today’s Tories have absolutely no recollection of how they once captured the authentic tones of the varying forms of patriotism in our country. If they had not forgotten so much history, the Union would today be rock-firm and UKIP nowhere. Immigrants would within a generation have come to express love for their new country if it had retained a proper understanding of the sources of its own patriotism.