BORIS JOHNSON’S 80-SEAT MAJORITY IN December 2019 encouraged British conservatism to believe it was on the cusp of a great transformation. Get Brexit Done embodied a can-do spirit and there was anticipation about how gaining Red Wall voters would move the Conservative party a little to the left on economic matters while Labour’s metropolitanism prevented it from parrying even the slightest hint rightward on social and cultural issues. Johnson’s resignation and Liz Truss’s 49-day catastrophe have dampened the optimism, leaving Rishi Sunak to portray himself as the boring but capable option.
If political conservatism in Great Britain is to revive, learning how to think like the twentieth century’s greatest Frenchman offers some practical guidance. Even the briefest survey of Charles de Gaulle’s accomplishments makes it easy to understand his appeal. In the Second World War, de Gaulle was primarily responsible for enacting one of the most impressive turnarounds in European history: France, defeated and occupied, managed
