Red Tory - Definition Drift

Definition Drift

The term Red Tory is often used today in the media not to refer to those in the tradition of George Grant, Dalton Camp or Robert Stanfield, but simply to moderates in the conservative movement, particularly those who reject or do not sufficiently embrace social conservatism.

For example, in the 2004 Conservative Party leadership election, Tony Clement was sometimes referred to as a Red Tory even though he advocated privatization, tax cuts, curtailment of social and economic development spending and free trade with the United States. Traditional Red Tories would reject most, if not all, of these stances.

More recently, Phillip Blond, director of British think tank ResPublica, has gained traction with his so-called Red Tory thesis which criticizes what he refers to as the welfare state and the market state. He has been mentioned as a major influence on the thinking of David Cameron and other Tories in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis. He advocates a civic state as the ideal, where the common good of society is valued and solutions emerge from local communities. Blond's Red Toryism has been embraced by traditionalist conservatives in the United States, such as journalists Rod Dreher, economist John Medaille, and the editors of the web log Front Porch Republic. Blond's ideas also parallel the socioeconomic tradition of distributism, as is evidenced by Blond's appearance at a distributist conference at Oxford University in 2009 sponsored by the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture.