Read: Kemi Badenoch’s full speech at the Arc Conference

Western civilisation is in crisis. Our ideas and our culture have dominated the world for well over two centuries. This is not a crisis of values. It’s a crisis of confidence that has set in at exactly the same time that we face existential threats on the left. This self-doubt manifests as an embarrassment of the West’s legacy and in extremists, a hatred of western history and even its culture.

But what about the right? We know that the West has given the world amazing ideas and values, from democracy and free markets to our banking systems. Yet around us we see so much cultural and economic decline. We doubt ourselves. We doubt our ability to build like our predecessors did. We doubt liberal values of tolerance or free trade demanding a post-liberal world. It’s not liberal values that are the problem. It’s weakness.

Last week, two surveys were released that should alarm everyone in this room.