Leading conservatives are confused about race

A critique of Peter Hitchens, Niall Ferguson and Nigel Farage

Written by Frank Salter.

The ongoing mass immigration of non-Western people into Western countries could only be happening with the consent of leading conservatives. After all, conservative parties enjoy frequent, sometimes lengthy, periods of government. Why have they not used these opportunities to reverse radical immigration policies? Leading conservatives are confused about ethnicity and appear to be unaware of diversity’s costs. This is clear when examining their opinions on the racial component of ethnicity—and it is that component upon which this essay focusses.

Consider the conservative British journalist Peter Hitchens, who takes a succinct position on race. He denies the relevance of racial distinctions to politics, even regarding immigration policy and what he sees as the necessity of integrating immigrants into British society.

Hitchens asserts that race is irrelevant to integrating migrants. That is why he cannot see any sense in making racial distinctions when approving immigrants. The following is part of an interview Hitchens granted to Peter Whittle in October 2024.¹

Whittle: When people make the claim … that the country will be minority white British by the … 2060s, what do you feel about that?

Hitchens: Well I'm afraid my, as I've said before, my gall rises in me when you start using terms like “white”. I'm very much from the generation which remembers the great Martin Luther King speech, so [someone] should be judged by the content of his character not the colour of his skin and I reject all classification of people by skin colour instinctively. I'm still very much a “one race the human race” person. I have not in any way shaken off that aspect of my leftwing [youth]. I hope I never shall. It happens to be based on the Christian gospels as well.

So it's nothing to do with colour. The whole question is whether we can actually integrate and create a Britain which is still British but which contains large numbers of new people. That accepts an extremely difficult challenge under certain circumstances but has to be the goal which … civilized people … have to seek.

Whittle: To do that you actually have to have a British establishment that actually believes in Britain.

Hitchens: You would have to have that, and that is fanciful, isn’t it?

Hitchens’s last statement makes sense, though it is difficult to salvage much from the rest. Consider the following points.

First, Martin Luther King fought and died for his people. That is why they loved him and still do. He chose to advance the interests of the African-American community by campaigning for their civil rights. In other words, his civil rights campaign was a means to the particular end of setting his people free. He and his supporters were motivated primarily, though not exclusively, by ethnic interests—as they should have been.

Second, skin colour is an ethnic marker. Hitchens says that he rejects that marker for all purposes of classification. Mortal humans behave differently. In addition to cultural markers, everyone uses skin colour and other genetically-coded characteristics to help identify kin and tribe. Doing so can have survival value. Hitchens claims that he believes there is only one race, the human race. This is not a credible position. Just as there is not one family, the human family, there is also a plurality of genetically distinct populations sometimes called races. The science of race differences is too far advanced to permit the old communist canards to be taken seriously. Parents have a unique genetic (and emotional) interest in the preservation and prosperity of their children, and the members of ethnic groups have a unique genetic interest in their ethnic kin.

Third, Hitchens claims that his views are based on the Christian gospels. It is true that all demographic categories are equal in the sight of the Christian God, for example according to Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” However, it is not at all clear that the Bible denies identity or interests based on tribe, status or sex. As Augustine of Hippo remarked:

Difference of race or condition or sex is indeed taken away by the unity of faith, but it remains embedded in our mortal interactions, and in the journey of this life the apostles themselves teach that it is to be respected.

Christianity is a universalist, proselytising religion. Likewise, kinship—whether within families or ethnic groups—is a human universal and a suitable relationship to be defended by a universalist religion of love. Indeed, the great Christian theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, maintained that ties of blood were real and more stable than other ties.

“If however we compare union with union, it is evident that the union arising from natural origin is prior to, and more stable than, all others, because it is something affecting the very substance, whereas other unions supervene and may cease altogether.”

Fourth, Hitchens declares that the issue facing Britain has nothing to do with race. He was answering a question about white replacement, so his answer implied that ethnic or racial replacement of the British population would not be damaging. Instead, he states, the only real issue is whether the large numbers of newcomers can be integrated while keeping the country British. This sounds confused, but it does follow an iron logic. If we accept for argument’s sake that Hitchens is correct—that race is irrelevant to national identity—then it might be possible to retain that identity while racially transforming the population. According to this logic, wholesale biological replacement does not matter, so long as cultural identity continues. This was the view adopted by John Howard who, as Australia’s prime minister from 1996 to 2007, oversaw massive non-European immigration.

Though the logic of Hitchens’s argument is strong, its premise is false. In fact, there are severe costs in allowing ethnic diversity to become substantial. Social science research shows that rising diversity reduces trust and sense of belonging; it causes divisions and conflict. There are also political costs. Should the founding people be significantly reduced as a proportion of the population, they can lose control of the state apparatus and the regulation of immigration. All Anglosphere countries are heading in this direction. The United States is projected to become minority white in about twenty years.

Actually, the causal arrow between state and population might run in the opposite direction. Demographic oblivion might result from a nation losing control of its state, as appears to be occurring wherever multiculturalism is installed.

Why does someone of Peter Hitchens’s sophistication adopt such an odd position on race? Perhaps it’s a hangover from his youth. Hitchens admits that he has retained the radical race ideology of his days as a revolutionary socialist. Though now a Christian conservative, he evinces pride in what he sees as his sophisticated, realistic political analysis, including race communism. There is considerable truth in that self-evaluation. British conservatives are not usually very strong on analysis, and Hitchens is a refreshing exception to that rule. However, his views on race appear to be more in tune ideologically with Lysenko and Stalin (without the firing squads) than with a conservative Englishman.

Hitchens is not alone in being confused about race. Similar views crop up in politics, the media and academia, because they are common among leftist journalists and influential conservatives. The latter include, in Australia, John Howard, Andrew Bolt and Tony Abbott; in the United States Victor Davis Hanson, Tucker Carlson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her British husband Sir Niall Ferguson; and in Britain David Starkey and Nigel Farage. These conservatives show considerable variation in style and content. But they all deny that race can be an important element of ethnicity. None can bring himself to admit concern about whites becoming minorities in their own countries. They say that such seismic movements do not matter, although they seem more convinced that they should not matter. This is evident in the views of Ferguson and Farage.

The historian Sir Niall Ferguson is a frequent figure on the conservative interview circuit, where his credentials are well known. He has specialised in financial history and the British Empire which, on balance, he praises. He believes that Western universities have been taken over by intolerant leftist ideology. He has coined the term “late Soviet” to describe the bureaucratic machinations of the woke West. He has helped start his own university in the United States, one that is supportive of Western Civilisation. Despite these conservative credentials and a life of prodigious scholarship, when it comes to race, Ferguson’s views resemble those of the establishment multicultural left.

Consider some of his statements in a recent interview. Ferguson asserts that without immigration from sub-Saharan Africa, the human race will die out. He reaches this conclusion by extrapolating into the distant future the decline in population experienced by industrial societies, while assuming that birth rates will remain below replacement level. The only argument he raises in support of this prediction is that sub-Saharan Africa is not contracting demographically, and so could become a vital source of population.

He also argues that it will be impossible to prevent Africans immigrating to the West. Walls will not suffice, he claims, again without supporting argument. Also, he asserts that there are good economic reasons to allow Africans and other non-European peoples to enter the West. An example he gives is that inflation will get worse without them. Ferguson concludes that stopping immigration is unsustainable. The only cost is that Western populations will become browner, a superficial change.

Ferguson is relaxed about racial changes not only because he ignores negative impacts of diversity, but also because he holds there are no functional racial differences, just superficial ones such as skin colour. He claims that the notion of significant functional race differences is a fallacy committed by nineteenth century Europeans and taken up by the far right in the early 20th century. He sees the West's success at science and industry as being wholly due to different institutions. It has had nothing to do with biology, he states. The West was blessed with liberal institutions, and so prospered.

Ferguson is a civic nationalist, arguing that a country’s unity is best promoted by identifying with tenets of liberal democracy rather than with a particular people. “Do you remain true to conservatism as, say, Bill Buckley [or] Churchill defined it … rooted in the rule of law, the idea of a free society … free elections … a free civil society and a free press … or do you go to a dark side [and espouse] ideas of racial hierarchy [or] ideas in which might is more important than right[?].”

This characterisation of ethnic nationalism as being on the “dark-side” neglects its central feature—identification with and love of people. Ferguson implies that indigenous Brits, indeed all peoples, are wrong to be concerned about their declining numbers. They are wrong to feel trust slipping away in response to rising diversity. Ferguson would have us believe that no matter the change in demography, people should not care who controls the state or about maintaining trust. Again, how did a brilliant scholar come to ignore all of the relevant research on such an important subject?

Ferguson’s passing over observational data has its limits. He thinks that mixed-race children “look better, on the whole, than people of pure race.” He calls on God to bless all the mixed race children of the world who he thinks are the future. (As an afterthought, he made exception for the children of his first marriage.) He thinks we can't ignore this future, unless we want to go extinct as a species, because population collapse is a reality.²

Konstantin Kisin asks Ferguson about replacement migration. Isn't the situation in Europe different to settler societies such as America? In Europe the British are the indigenous people. Isn't that why the tensions surrounding immigration are greater in Europe?³ In response, Ferguson calls this argument absurd. He suggests that Kisin’s analogy of settlers in Britain and America evokes an image of bands of asylum seekers hunting down British natives. (Kisin interjects: “You know what I mean!”) Ferguson replies by disagreeing that immigration to Europe harms the host population. After all, immigrants have made great contributions to the economy, by providing employees. Without migrants Britain’s National Health Service would have suffered. Also, they have prevented the population from falling, which would be disastrous.

Ferguson’s assertions are vulnerable to conservative scholarship. Let me consider his argument point by point. It is ridiculous to extrapolate sub-replacement birth rates to the extinction of whole populations. Only replacement migration could achieve that, precisely what Ferguson recommends. For various reasons, long-term extrapolation of trendlines is always risky. For example, voluntary decline in birth rates likely selects for pro-natal attitudes. Crowding also affects birth rates. In order to maintain a healthy population level, it is essential to have reasonably priced housing that young people can afford to buy in order to raise a family. Mass immigration has helped push up the cost of housing and living in general, which impacts the ability of young people to start a family. Periods of declining population are likely to have their discomforts, but also benefits, such as ecological sustainability. At some point, populations must stop growing.

It is also ridiculous to treat immigration as an unstoppable force of nature. On the contrary, present mass migration to Europe is being caused by deliberate policies. Perhaps Ferguson’s most stunning assertion is that African immigration will help keep European populations and economies at healthy levels. This treats human as fungible, as interchangeable across cultural and racial boundaries. To make such a statement in good faith requires that he ignores whole bodies of science and scholarship concerning cultural integration and racial differences. Where is the evidence that immigrants from Africa are exchanging their original cultural values for European ones? Also, the science of race differences has accumulated vast data on physiological and psychological differences. Though debate over theory continues, there is no doubt that differences are normal, often substantial.

Another voluminous body of research ignored by Ferguson concerns the social and economic costs of diversity. This leads to gaps in his argument. For example, he does not recognise collective ethnic interests. Regarding his preference for mixed-race children, Ferguson feels free to use biological theory, for example when urging society to open its borders to African immigration, but only when that theory is self-serving and cherry-picked to ignore the vast bulk of knowledge about human nature. So IQ test results, the most reliable of all psychological data, are out, while his private, un-peer reviewed assumptions are in. This comes from a media-approved conservative guru. No wonder conservative governments have been unable to counter communistic policies on immigration and diversity.

What would Ferguson say of a person who prefers the appearance of a particular race, just as he prefers mixed-race people? To be consistent he could hardly object that such preferences are invalid. It does not seem to have occurred to him that reactions to various phenotypes such as he expresses, underpin the ethnic solidarity he rejects. The great majority of people prefer the looks and company of their ethnic kin, and these biases are just as valid as Ferguson’s. Going by the precedent set by him, opposition to mass immigration seems reasonable.

Ferguson’s statements on race and diversity are far below the usual quality of his scholarship. His race-wokeness is so strong that it carries him into bizarre territory, such as talking about human populations dying out and African immigrants rescuing Europe’s economy. It is extraordinary that he overlooks the relevant research.

The conservative politician Nigel Farage also maintains that race is irrelevant to British identity and politics. Farage is a businessman who pioneered the Brexit movement starting in the early 1990s. He saw EU membership as compromising British national sovereignty. He now heads the Reform UK Party and is a member of the British parliament. Farage admits that parts of Britain have been transformed by immigration and are barely recognisable as British. However, he contends that this is wholly due to cultural, not racial, difference.

I’m very concerned that we have whole areas of our towns and cities that are unrecognisable as being English. But they’re not unrecognisable being English because of skin colour; they’re unrecognisable because of culture.

On the contrary, racial ethnic markers are visible over considerable social distances, while cultural markers, such as language, rituals, elements of material culture and food preparation, are often or only detectable at short-range. When entering a social setting such as a footpath or other public place, race is often one of the first identity markers observed, along with sex and age.

Race can be important to group identity when it is viable as an ethnic marker. According to Pierre van den Berghe (1933-2019), an academic pioneer of ethnic analysis, ethnicity is an extended form of kinship. Just as kinship markers attract parental investment across the animal kingdom, so, van den Berghe argued, ethnic markers attract nepotism at the tribal level. This, he thought, explains the intense emotions that can attend ethnic conflicts. One implication of van den Berghe’s theory is that race is subordinate to ethnicity as a driver of identity politics. In other words, race is influential because it denotes ethnicity.

The salience of racial markers can vary. Historically, most wars and national rivalries in general have occurred among peoples belonging to the same or similar race, because the protagonists originated from the same region. Europe is a prime example. The Battle of Hastings resulted in England changing politically and culturally, not genetically. In those circumstances, racial identity markers are weak or non-existent. In such cases, markers of religion or language or tribal or state allegiance usually take precedence over physical differences. The history of national chauvinism and interstate warfare reflects humans’ tribal nature. As a species we are adapted to feel strongest about tribe, not race, which—compared to the rich cultural markers of tribe—is based on a simple cluster of visible characteristics.

Nevertheless, times have changed and we now live in a globalised world where different races often come into regular contact, making race a perennial identity marker that helps identify genetically distinct groups.

It seems that the foregoing information is not known or admitted by Peter Hitchens, Niall Ferguson, Nigel Farage, or the other conservatives named at the start of this essay. As a result, their solutions to ethnic conflict are often naïve. For some reason, they fill these gaps in knowledge with woke mantras, for example to the effect that immigration cannot be regulated or that diversity carries no social costs or that it is immoral to choose immigrants who share European ethnicity. They justifiably criticise radical identity politics for dispensing with individual merit. They all advocate colour-blind meritocracy as a solution to ethnic conflict and inequality. They also refuse to express support for white interests, even when readily justified, for example the wish to remain the majority in their own country. They appear to lack affection for their identity, perhaps due to uncertainty or shame.

The scholarship on ethnicity and diversity has been around for decades in a range of disciplines—economics, sociology, anthropology, politics, history. If Hitchens and other race-denying conservatives were unable to keep up with this important research, why did not their advisers keep them informed? The ignorance on this issue could not have been maintained without some major distortion or breakdown of communication within the conservative movement. That is yet to be explained. Perhaps it is sufficient explanation that since the Second World War, Western universities and other institutions have been captured by radical ideology. On the other hand, all these personalities are thinkers in their own right and have had talented researchers at their disposal. There might have been other factors.

Despite the absence of a full explanation, it does appear that many leading conservatives have been unduly influenced by radical ideology on race. Though irrational, this ideology has been victorious in distorting the West’s political culture. Conservative ignorance of or aversion to the topic remains a necessary cause of Australia and the West allowing mass immigration.

The worst of it is that these leading conservatives, instead of providing leadership to their people, are part of an elite trend of unilateral ethnic disarmament when other nations typically have leaders who care about their people’s collective interests. Not surprisingly then, Anglosphere societies find that their immigration policies are now almost entirely organised for the benefit of other ethnic groups. “Human Rights” commissions and left-wing media act to deter and punish Anglo-Celts who advocate their people’s interests, especially when those interests conflict with greater diversity.

Like it or not, race is an important ethnic marker. Cultural markers can be acquired, and so are fallible indicators of ethnic similarity. At the same time, racial difference is only weakened by intermarriage. This helps make ethnic diversity a long-lasting solvent of social cohesion.

A racially-marked ethnic group is also a concentrated store of its members’ genes. Consequently, the members of an ethnic group have a large reproductive stake in their group’s success or failure. Yet when the conservatives examined in this essay attempt to account for human interests, they do not include reproductive fitness. Conservatives recognise the need for pro-natal, pro-family policies. They should also acknowledge that humans everywhere, including those of European descent, are stakeholders in kin—both our families and our ethnic groups.

Frank Salter is a retired Australian political scientist best known for his book On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration. He coauthored Anglophobia: The Unrecognised Hatred.

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1. The relevant part of the discussion begins at 37:22 minutes.

2. The relevant part of the discussion begins at 44:29 minutes.

3. The relevant part of the discussion begins at 57 minutes.