Part “megachurch”, part political rally; this week’s Arc conference put traditional family values and an exigent danger to western civilisation at the centre of what many who attended hoped would become a powerful new UK social movement.
Importing the Christian values agenda that is a mainstay of US politics, the three-day Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) gathering saw conservative politicians, commentators, theologians and business leaders from around the world congregate to preach to an often-whooping crowd of more than 4,000.
It is a “right-wing Davos,” one visitor said, gesturing to the scale of the event spread across two vast halls in the Excel centre in east London. Others attending called it a “mega church assembly”, or a “Save the west” campaign.
“It’s a gathering of vaguely like-minded people who for the last five or 10 years have been worried about the direction of travel for western civilisation,” said Inaya Folarin Iman, founder of the Equiano Project, which campaigns against identity politics and on race and immigration issues.
The conference represents a new front in the culture wars — as some on stage voiced — although organisers insist it is a forum of heterodox debate, a free thinking challenge to conventional opinions. Many speakers talked of the need to save a western civilisation that is rooted in Christian morality and is today under threat.
“Its time to do something,” said Chris Lunsford, known by his stage name as Oliver Anthony, a country music singer. “That’s why people who have travelled from all over the world have gathered here.”
It is twice the size of its debut conference last year, its rise tracking the fortunes of right-leaning politicians who often share its messaging.
“I don’t think of [Arc] as an organisation,” said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch activist and politician. “It is a network and I hope it could lead to the kind of movement that can bring around desired change peacefully and through the ballot box.”
Elections have favoured those who share its worldview: Donald Trump’s name was cheered, while his allies were represented by US House Speaker Mike Johnson and energy secretary Chris Wright — a pro-fracking oilman who described the UK’s 2050 net zero target as “a sinister goal”.
Guests — some of whom had paid over £1,000 for tickets — were often smartly dressed in suits or sports jackets. They had a variety of fringe events and drink receptions to attend after hours, spreading out to London venues including Mansion House and Merchant Taylors’ Hall.
Stands outside the main auditorium promoted Christian-tinged conservative causes and free speech organisations, as well as a live broadcast booth by GB News, part-owned by the event’s co-founder Sir Paul Marshall.
The leaders of both the Conservative and Reform UK parties attended, both happy to play into the themes of family, the dangerous energy policies of the left and — in the case of Kemi Badenoch — the threat to western civilisation.
Such apocalyptic messaging was never far from some of the key speeches. The theme of the first day was a western civilisation in decline, ranging from warnings over the decline of Europe’s industry to the failures of the British health system and railway.
Many of the solutions for the renewal of civilisation appeared to come from a return to Christian beliefs and the importance of traditional, heterosexual family values.
Jordan Peterson, the right-wing Canadian psychologist and commentator, described homosexuality as a deviation, calling “stable, committed, heterosexual, child-centred monogamy” the “fundamental unit of civilised society”.
“Restore the family and you restore prosperity,” intoned one video played to delegates.
Several speakers — including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and event co-founder Tory peer Baroness Philippa Stroud — raised the issue of the need for rising birth rates.
Katalin Nokak — a former president of Hungary who was forced to resign last year after pardoning a man convicted of covering up a child sexual abuse case — asked anyone in the audience with 10 children to stand up.
One did — to thunderous applause. At one point, babies were held aloft from the back of the room.
Among the audience, Ijen Suhendra had travelled from Indonesia, where he is involved in an educational organisation with Christian values. He heard about the event back home through a pro-life campaign and was drawn by the conference’s focus on the importance of the family unit.
He praised Arc for setting out positive narratives about the future. “Society is very used to a one-sided story . . . I think the problem nowadays is that there is not much of the other type of compelling story, like this, available.”
However, not all in the auditorium were convinced about some of the more overt Christian messaging. One attendee, who declined to be named, questioned whether the UK voters cared enough about faith within their political parties.
Andrew Gold, a YouTuber and podcaster who also highlighted the importance of the event for the Jewish community, admitted that it was “a bit odd for me to be around all the religious stuff” but added that the event served an important purpose: “I hope people outside of it don’t see it as some sort of extremist thing”.
But Luke Tryl, executive director of the More in Common think-tank, said the event had compounded his view that the UK right risks “becoming a bit too online and a bit too ‘US pilled’.”
His organisation’s research has found that hardline views on net zero and free speech are popular “online talking points” but are out of step with mainstream voters’ nuanced thinking.
“The biggest mistake you can make in politics in the UK is assuming we’re the US,” he said.
Migration was largely absent from the five core themes as billed by the event organisers, despite being a key interest of some of its headliners including Ali.
Among them was controversial online pundit Konstantin Kisin, who earlier this week sparked outrage on his podcast by questioning former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Englishness because he is a “brown Hindu”.
Kisin told the conference that “the tide [is] turning” against woke measures including “anti-meritocratic” diversity and inclusion programmes. “Our American friends are leading the way . . . not just in the American government but, much more importantly, across the global corporate world.”
But if some wanted to hark back to a more Christian past, it was the future that was the main goal of the event — and especially around what many saw as the dangerous push for net zero.
Marshall, the hedge fund boss, described the UK’s energy policy as “unilateral economic disarmament”. Former Tory minister Sir David Frost said that the west had been “captured by the ideology” of net zero, which has given a “new lease of life to socialism”.
But the Excel centre — a vast and draughty venue whose own heating was repeatedly criticised by speakers in their attacks on energy policy — obviously had not got the memo: outside the hall was a prominent advert asking visitors as they filtered into the conference to join its own “journey to net zero”.
