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This is an edited version of Mick Hume’s opening remarks at the MCC Brussels conference on Patriotic Populism.

The editor-in-chief of europeanconservative.com took part in a panel discussion entitled “Uneasy bedfellows: the relationship between populism and conservatism,” alongside Jorge Buxade Villalba MEP (VOX, Patriots for Europe Group), Susanna Ceccardi MEP (Lega, Patriots for Europe Group), and Anthony Gilland of MCC Brussels.

We hear about conservatives who are unhappy with being called “populists” by their opponents, and who want to distance themselves from populism as if it was a bad smell. Let’s look at the other side of the problem. I’m a self-proclaimed populist—do I want to be associated with a lot of what is called “conservatism” in Europe today?

As the editor-in-chief of europeanconservative.com, I fully support and identify with the populist revolt across Europe and America. There are of course national differences from country to country, but the common theme underlying the rise of national-populist parties everywhere is the people’s demand for sovereignty and taking control from the old political establishment. In short, putting the demos—the people—back at the heart of democracy.

From that pro-populist point of view, why would I want to be associated with much that is labelled “conservative” in Europe?

In the UK, for example, the Conservative Party has made conservative a dirty word. When I worked for Reform UK during last year’s election campaign, I spent a day canvassing support for Nigel Farage in a poor area of Clacton-on-Sea, the Tory constituency where was standing. The hatred for the Conservatives was obvious among ordinary people who see them as the party of mass migration that betrayed Brexit. Nigel won in a landslide.

Then in February, headlines announced that “Conservatives win German election”. In fact the CDU, although emerging as the largest party, had its second-worst election result. And what did these “conservatives” do with their victory? They immediately betrayed the voters by dumping their election promises on migration and the economy, and jumping back into bed with the Social Democrats. Little wonder that the national-populist AfD, which came second in the election, is now leading in some national opinion polls.

Here in Brussels, the “centre-right” European People’s Party—the largest group in the European Parliament—is often described in the mainstream media as the “conservative EPP”. But what is conservative about the party of Ursula von der Leyen, head of the powerful, unelected European Commission, and her allies?

The EPP, in alliance with the left and the greens, is the party of disastrous EU policies from mass migration to the Green Deal.  These people, as our MEP friends on this panel have said, are fake conservatives. They are not our allies but the enemies of democracy, the very Brussels elites that we up against, the establishment that tries to blockade the Patriots for Europe group—and its millions of voters—behind an infamous cordon sanitaire.

I recall that Karl Marx, when some French radicals started taking his name in vain, once declared that “I only know I am not a ‘Marxist’”. In very different circumstances today, I only know that, if this is what you mean by conservatism, you can count me out.

At europeanconservative.com we take a different view. As the website declares, our mission is “reclaiming and advancing the founding principles of European civilisation and fighting for the future of a free and democratic Europe.” With the emphasis on “fighting.”

That is why we fully embrace the populist revolt against the old parties of the right as well as left. And why conservatives who want to be part of the future, rather than simply the past, need to do the same.

Many conservatives, going back to Edmund Burke, have historically been uncomfortable with the idea of “too much” democracy. Fundamentally, they mistrust the masses. Even Margaret Thatcher, the British Conservative prime minister who some might think of as a proto populist, had her doubts about popular democracy, and said referendums were a tool of dictators and despots. (By contrast I like referendums as a tool of direct democracy, and would like to see more of them on the big issues we face.)

Today, there are both principled and practical reasons why any conservatives who want to have a chance to shape Europe’s future should come out unambiguously for democracy and the people’s revolt.

First, defending the connected principles of national sovereignty, democracy, and free speech needs to be at the centre of the fight to uphold European civilisation’s foundational values against the forces of barbarism at home and abroad.

And in the practical terms, democracy is the way we can win today. Across much of the West, powerful institutions from the courts to the universities and the media have been captured and colonised by the other side. Democracy gives us our best hope of changing things.

Look at how the populist revolt in elections across Europe has put pressure on the EU elites to change course. And see how Donald Trump’s populist victory in the US has turned the woke world on its head.

The liberal elites understand the threat that democracy poses to them. They fear the spectre of populism that is haunting Europe and the West. That’s why they are doing all they can to keep the demos away from kratos—power. That’s why they cancelled the Romanian presidential election when a national-populist candidate looked set to win, have barred Marine Le Pen from standing for election as president of France, and would like to ban the AfD in Germany altogether.

The stakes are high. Since I first came to Brussels to work with europeanconservative.com two years ago, I have been telling anybody who would listen that we are in a political war for the future of democracy in Europe. As I wrote recently, with the political trial of Marine Le Pen, the elites’ war on democracy is now out in the open.

That is why we need to take sides and take a stand with the populist revolt. It is about much more than endorsing particular parties or policies. It is about giving a voice to the people’s insurgency against the European establishment. That is the divide that really matters in politics today.

We should not be afraid of or defensive about the slurs from the Brussels elites, calling those of us who stand for national sovereignty “far-right extremists” or whatever insult it is this week. I preferred the bold, combative response of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to the conviction of Le Pen: “Je Suis Marine.” When the elites and their courts come for populist leaders, let us say with one voice, Je Suis Marine, Viktor, Donald, Nigel or whoever is next in the firing line.

We have a chance to win, if we stand with the people under the banners of the populist revolt. But we cannot afford to waste this historic opportunity. It is time to go on the offensive for the principles of democracy, sovereignty and free speech. Let our slogan always be: No Surrender.

Original article: The European Conservative