News from the New Party

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Ideology is not a dirty word

Ideology is not, and should not be, a dirty word. Any political party, in order to survive and prosper, needs to have a clear idea of its own raison d’être: what is it that makes a particular political party necessary?

Experience has shown that it is easier to convince people that a new party is necessary than to obtain their agreement on what a new party should look like. In another article on this website we have referred to some of the problems we have come across in this regard. It would appear that some people seem to think that a new party is needed to agree precisely with one's own personal beliefs, opinions and prejudices on every issue. Unfortunately, life is not like that, and politics certainly isn't. It is as much a mistake for a political party to promote itself on the grounds of novelty, as on the grounds of a particular policy position, or on the grounds of the qualities of a particular leader. Leaders are human, they come and they go. Policy positions can be adopted for a number of different, mutually antagonistic reasons, with the result that a party full of people who agree about one thing will spend an eternity arguing amongst themselves about everything else.

If you take the policy and the personality out of the equation, what you are left with is the ideology: the framework of ideas and beliefs about the world that come together to provide the basis of political principle for the formation of policy and effective leadership, in the broadest sense of the world. Agreement on the fundamental ideological basis of a political party is essential for the unity and effectiveness of the organisation.

The New Party describes itself, on this website, as a party of economic liberalism, political reform and international security. Our statement of philosophy and principles restates this in somewhat more detail, and our manifesto fleshes out these principles in terms of actual policy. We urge you, if you have read and sympathised with many of the views on this website, to familiarise yourself not just with the manifesto, but with the statement of philosophy and principles. If you recognise here a set of ideas and beliefs which chime with your own, please consider joining us to build a practical, popular and progressive movement for reforming this country. Britain needs a New Party, and the New Party needs you.

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Ideology is not a dirty word