PSYCHOLOGIST Jordan Peterson joined prominent members of the US’s Republican Party and UK Conservative Party with other high-profile speakers at a gathering of predominantly right-wing thinkers in London on Monday.
The Canadian academic and psychologist has a large US following as a conservative media personality and author.
Cabinet ministers Michael Gove and Kemi Badenoch are also among the speakers due to address the inaugural conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) being held in Greenwich this week.
The conference is described by organisers as a “major gathering” of political, business and cultural leaders exploring practical solutions to challenges and seeking an alternative to “big government and top-down solutions”.
Peterson, who was previously suspended from Twitter/X after saying transgender actor Elliot Page “had her breasts removed by a criminal physician”, has also labelled Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater “toxically feminine”.
Candidate for the Republican presidential nomination Vivek Ramaswamy and recently-elected US House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson both addressed the conference virtually.
Johnson said there is a “crisis of identity” across the West, which he said has as its foundational principles “the best of classical liberal and the Judeo-Christian tradition” and Ramaswamy warned of the influence of “woke capitalism”, and criticised the “ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) cancer”.
Hedge fund millionaire and GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall was among the speakers, and he hit out at “crony” and “woke” capitalism.
Reclaim Party leader and former GB News presenter Laurence Fox was at the conference, but did not address it.
Peterson placed great emphasis on personal responsibility, which he described as a “noble burden”, saying: “We’re sovereign citizens. We have responsibilities for our own destinies.”
Tory MP Miriam Cates (below) joined other speakers in bemoaning “Western decline”.
She told the gathering: “Our decline has not been brought about by military defeat or economic collapse or natural disaster.
“Rather it has come from within. From the fraying of our social fabric, the network of associations that holds together our families, our neighbourhoods and our nations.
“The surest sign of western decline can be found in the evidence of demographic change, by definition a successful civilisation is one that endures, but the fall in fertility rates across the West threatens the future existence of our society.
“If bringing a child into the world is a sign of hope for the future then in the West that hope is in short supply.”
She added: “Unless fertility rate decline is reversed we are heading for a future of certain economic stagnation or destabilising mass immigration or both.”
She also told the conference: “Our families, our neighbourhoods, are caught in a spiral of decline, and our nations – well, the last few weeks have shattered any remaining illusions that our nations are cohesive or united, as those who hate the West have marched on many of our great cities.
“A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.”
She criticised the pursuit of “superficial GDP growth at all costs” and a culture of “hedonism”, warning about what she described as the rising number of children arriving at school without being toilet trained and the “epidemic” of family breakdown.
Former speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, former Australian deputy prime minister John Anderson, Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali were also among the speakers.
McCarthy, addressing the conference in person, said: “Government isn’t the answer, Government is the problem.”
He warned about the growth of “big Government”, the “false idols” of identity politics, socialism and cancel culture, and threats from a “new axis of evil” of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
Espousing the importance of freedom, he encouraged people to follow the example of former US president Ronald Reagan and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, saying: “Surrender is not an option, and there is no alternative to the western civilisation”.
Author Os Guinness also addressed the conference, warning against the risks of “cultural Marxism”.
