In a conversation at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) with Canadian Professor Jordan Peterson, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage argued that a return to “Judeo-Christian” values and “optimism” are needed to confront plunging birth rates.
Birth rates have been plummeting across the Western world, and the UK is no exception. According to official figures, the British fertility rate fell to just 1.44 children per woman in 2023, well below the replacement level of 2.1 and the lowest recorded since the government started tracking the statistics in 1938.
Dr Peterson asserted that while there will always be deviations from the norm, society should orient itself towards the “stable committed heterosexual child-centred monogamy” if it hopes to produce an environment conducive to increased birth rates.
In response, Mr Farage acknowledged that he may not be the “best advocate for monogamous heterosexuality or stable marriage” given his two divorces; however, he said that the West must return to the “Judeo-Christian” values upon which its civilisation was built.
“We have kind of forgotten that what underpins everything is our Judeo-Christian culture and that’s where we need to start, and if we recognise that, and if we value that, I think everything comes from that,” he said.
However, the Reform leader said that in addition to reviving Christian morality, Britain, in particular, needs a sense of “optimism” in the future for birth rates to be turned around.
“We are not going to get higher birth rates in this country until we can get some sense of optimism. We need a complete 180 shift in attitudes, we got to start telling young kids that hard work is good, that success is good, that there are no shortcuts in life, that making money is good,” he said.
Mr Farage argued that while Britain was previously an optimistic society in the 1980s and much of the 1990s, it has since become mired by efforts to “disincentivize young people” from striving, noting the sharp rise in children receiving disability welfare benefits after the Chinese coronaivrus crisis due to depression.
He accused the Conservative and Labour Parties of having presented a “miserable” and “declinist” vision of the country, and argued: “We need a change of attitude in Britain if we get that right people will have more kids.”
The Reform UK boss singled out the green agenda as being a chief road block to a healthy and growing society, vowing that his party would seek to “reindustrialise” Britain and called for a lifting on domestic energy production restrictions in order to become “energy independent”.
“Our platform is to re-industrialise Britain. Let’s produce all the stuff we need in this country. Let’s become not just energy independent. We could actually become an energy exporter right now.”
Mr Farage, whose party has vowed a windfall tax on renewable energy firms to reimburse the taxpayer for the failed green agenda, has been riding high in the polls.
After only winning five seats in the parliament just over seven months ago — albiet in large part due to the first past the post voting system — Farage’s Reform UK has firmly entrenched itself as the most supported party in the country. A survey this week from YouGov, found that Reform stands on top of the rankings at 27 per cent, followed by 25 for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour, and the Tories at a dismal 21 per cent.
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