Libertarian, Not Tory

Let’s settle this once and for all. The Tories and not Libertarians. Libertarians are not Tories. In the same way that an aardvark is not an ape. They are different – instinctively and ideologically. Any Libertarian currently supporting the Tories is going to end up massively disappointed. The next Tory government will be just as quick as Nu Labour to suppress freedom, just in different ways.

The Tories have got some support from Libertarians simply because they are less dictatorial than the Labour party. That doesn’t mean that the Tories are Libertarian. The main link between Libertarians and the Tories is a hatred for Gordon Brown and contempt for Nu Labour. Well, I predict that after a few months of Prime Minister Cameron, the Libertarians will be united with Labour with their dislike of the incumbent government.

There are differences between Labour and the Tories. The former like to restrict economic freedom, believing that total control of the economy will lead to increased fairness (whereas it leads to stagnation) and also want to catalogue their populations (through ideas such as ID cards). The Tories are different, but still willing to restrict freedom. They tend to restrict social freedom; looking at your personal life, and if it is not 100% conventional, then they tut at you at best. At their worst, they legislate and they restrict the way in which you can live your life. Don’t look towards Libertarian Tories for examples of what that party is like ideologically. Instead think about the constituency party chairmen in the shires. The people who read The Daily Mail and take it as the truth. The prudes. The reactionaries. It is those guys who fuel much of the Tory ideology, and it those guys why will get there way in the end when/if Cameron is elected.

Whatever policy differences there are between them, Labour and the Tories (and the fucking Lib Dems, come to think of it) all have one key theme running through their ideologies – they believe the state is the solution to almost all of societies ills. And that is why a Libertarian will always end up disappointed by a Labour government or a Tory government. Libertarians believe the state is part of the problem for much of society’s woes, not the solution.