Britain has always been a liberty-loving nation

One hundred years ago this month, a somewhat unlikely fighter for personal liberty was born.

The daughter of a grocer and Methodist lay preacher, Margaret Thatcher didn’t have much of a sense of humour or many vices beyond hard work. On paper, she was hardly a poster girl for radical autonomy. But with her deep belief in the individual as the unit of society, as well as a Cold War warrior’s hatred of collectivism, she transformed British society in ways she likely never expected to.

There is an assumption these days, decades on from the Thatcher era, that Britain no longer cares about freedom. There is even a view, held by most of the commentariat, that statism is an inevitability – that more regulation, legislation, more encroachment on our lives is unavoidable in such a dangerous and complicated world.

If true, this would present a challenge to the reorientation occurring in politics in Britain and across the West. In particular, for fun-loving Nigel Farage, whose partiality for a pint and a cigarette is notorious. Farage is clearly a libertarian at heart, both in the economic and personal sense. How could you work in the City in its Thatcherite heyday and not be?

If the received wisdom is correct, however, and restrictive policies like lockdowns and ID cards are as popular as they seem at first blush, this is a major spanner in the works for Reform UK. How to modify their leader’s natural inclinations toward licence and liberty amongst a censorious populace? Sebastian Payne has argued in The Times that to win over Middle England, Farage and Co will have no option but to downplay their freedom-loving tendencies.

I disagree. The Adam Smith Institute has released some fascinating polling in which a surprisingly libertarian Britain emerges. A staggering 92 per cent of Britons say they should be trusted to make responsible financial decisions. Even a whopping 89 per cent of Labour 2024 voters agree. When it comes to judging ‘what is safe for me’, 77 per cent of Brits trust themselves, not the government. Again, even 69 per cent of Labour voters feel capable of assessing safety risks without the cloying influence of the nanny state. Even on lifestyle issues like drinking and smoking, nearly two-thirds of the British public reject the idea of the government being handed too much control. Just 12 per cent of those who walk among us want the state to call the shots in their lives.

With this in mind, Farage, Kemi Badenoch and even water-sports enthusiast and part-time politician Ed Davey should feel confident in pledging to pull the state out of people’s private business. Clearly, the public has had enough of the nanny state.

Farage, for all the talk of his being a poll-chasing populist, has spent a career championing some decidedly unpopular causes. From leading a lonely Brexit march to being one of the first to criticise Net Zero, he has also been markedly principled on digital ID. This was a popular policy on paper, but evaporated on contact with reality (and with Keir Starmer’s reverse-Midas touch). But rather than equivocate as his Conservative rival did, Farage immediately took a stand against it.

For the Tories, getting comfortable arguing for liberty makes equally good electoral sense. I hosted the Adam Smith Institute’s Rally for Liberty at the Conservative Party Conference earlier this month. It was packed with people, and one of the few events that coruscated with energy. ‘Shame!’, yelled the crowd as Tory MP Jack Rankin reeled off a list of nanny-state policies on food, booze, cigarettes and more.

Let’s face it – by the time Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves the Roundhead are done with Britain, we will be in dire need of some Cavalier fun. So having thought about the Iron Lady this month, I pray that someone picks up her mantle as the next great restorer of British liberty.

James Price was previously chief of staff to the chancellor of the exchequer.