ARC conference, London: ‘developed world must unite against the new axis of evil’

New and former US House speakers call at the London ARC conference for Western values to be upheld to win the global struggle for power.

Jordan Peterson, John Anderson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Os Guinness on a panel at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.

The new and former US House speakers have issued a clarion call for Western values to be upheld to win the global struggle for power now taking place across the world as tensions flare from Europe and the Middle East to the Taiwan strait.

Former House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged the developed world to unite against the new “axis of evil” represented by Russia, Iran, China and North Korea that seek to “undermine the security and prosperity of the free world”.

“The ultimate deterrent in the struggle that now is going on in the world will not be bombs or rockets, but a test of wills. The values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated,” he told the ARC conference in London, paying tribute to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Republican Mike Johnson, his successor as speaker in Washington after weeks of political infighting, said the US congress would emerge as a “beacon of liberty for the world” at a time when the west faced a “crisis of identity”, pointing to geopolitical tension in the Middle East, Europe and the South China Sea.

“We’re gathered here today, despite these challenges we face to foster the critical relationships and dialogue needed to push back to present our better story,” Mr Johnson said.

“ARC presents the unique opportunity for us to choose renewal, to revitalise our vision of what it means to flourish, as individuals, as families, as communities and sates and nations,” he added, referring to the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event.

Over 1500 advocates for political and economic freedom, including John Howard, Mark Latham and at least half a dozen Australian current and former senior politicians, descended on London on Monday for a three-day conference to advocate for traditional liberal democratic ideals at a time of heightened global tension.

Dubbed as an emerging rival to the annual Davos conference of corporate and political elites in Switzerland, senior UK, American, Australian political, business and intellectual leaders gathered near London’s O2 Arena to hear luminaries decry the trend toward greater government control and advocate for free speech, liberty and “Judeo-Christian values”.

Renowned psychologist Jordan Peterson, dressed in a much commented on two-tone suit, launched the proceedings before over 1500 delegates from 71 countries, calling on international leaders to “define reality and set out the choices that people must make”.

Jordan Peterson and his ‘heaven and hell suit’.

Australian politicians in attendance included former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet, former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, senators James Patterson and Matt Canavan, former deputy prime ministers Barnaby Joyce and John Anderson.

Mr Anderson, another of the founders of the landmark gathering, said Australian had been “alienated and patronised” by the Voice referendum.

“We can draw out the better angels of our nature, and try and ensure that our democracy works again properly on the basis of restored trust,” he declared.

Ayann Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch critic of Islamic fundamentalism, took a firm stand for Israel. “I can say today, given what’s going on. I support Israel, no ifs no buts,” she said.

“People who live here, who’ve grown up here and enjoy the blessings of this civilization, march in London, and make excuses for people, and side with evil, it makes it makes me despair,” she said.

“We now know what evil looks like, and we know exactly what we’re facing. It’s not only the Jewish babies that ‘re beheading, they will behead your babies, Jewish or not, if you don’t fit into their story,” she added, speaking in the shadow of Hamas’s atrocities in Israel weeks earlier.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined a panel led by British billionaire Paul Marshall to condemn ‘woke capitalism’ and the corruption of the corporate sector by the ESG and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movements.

“Woke capitalism is the imposition of a top-down ideology onto the free market system by politically motivated bureaucrats either from the public or the private sector,” Mr Marshall said.

Jordan Peterson, left, John Anderson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Os Guinness on a panel at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.

Following a presentation by UK conservative MP Miriam Cates, who stunned the audience by stating 90 per cent of British kindergarten teachers had reported that some new students had not been toilet-trained, which she linked to working mothers, a renowned American cultural critical, Jonathan Haidt, suggested parents prevent their children from using social media until they were 18.

“I don’t believe social networks are useful at all for children, they should be playing in person, it’s just insane that we let kids do these things,” he said, stressing TikTok and Instagram were particularly destructive of children’s mental well being.

“If you plot out the trend lines for depression and anxiety, self-harm, and suicide, they’re relatively flat until around 2010, and then, all over the English speaking world, they start shooting up,” the author Coddling of the American mind added.

“Rates of suicide are at peak levels across the Anglosphere, but only for girls, so I think this is a real discovery,” he said.

Jordan Peterson's introductory speech to the ARC Conference.

Professor Haidt said social media had been a disaster for children’s physical development and self-esteem, pointing out that “60 per cent of British kids in 2019 used to go over to a friend’s house each week, and then by 2015, that it drops to something like 20 per cent”.

The Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan, who attended the conference with the paper’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly, chaired a panel including shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie, who warned Australia and the west more generally weren’t ready for the military and economic challenges presented by Russia, China and other nation allied with the ‘axis of evil’.