Heritage Party

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The logo may be the best thing about this party.
...We desperately need a change from the policies and agendas which have been pushed over the last few decades ... The agenda of mass immigration, the agenda of net zero, the woke agenda, by which we have comprehensive sexuality education, going into our children's schools and teaching them things which are unscientific and very, very damaging to their upbringing...
—Heritage Party founder/leader David Kurten, 24 June 2024.[1]

The Heritage Party is a British 'socially conservative' political party or a reactionary, right-wing populist party riddled with conspiracy theories and the ugly end of 'Christian values', depending on your viewpoint. What isn't in dispute is how minor this group is; it appears to be a vanity project of David Kurten[note 1][2] which in the 2024 general election came 25th in total votes cast[3] and with the exception of Kurten himself (1.5%), found it impossible to get over 1% of the vote in any seat they contested[4]. With the exception of the very occasional defection of a sitting politician at a lower rung of government[5] the party has not enjoyed any representation at any tier of government in their own right, to the credit of the British people.

History[edit]

Kurten (then a teacher) was involved in the first Faragist vehicle - the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) - from 2012 onwards; judged decent enough to stand (and win) under their banner in the 2016 London Assembly election[6]. It appears Kurten fell out with two leaders in a row; Henry Bolton and then Gerard Batten - the exact reasons for this are undocumented, but not hard to conjecture; that Kurten (who is mixed race) was alienated by the former's dalliances with racism[7] which then deepened with the latter's embrace of the racist Tommy Robinson[8] - something which appeared to be (then) a step too far for even 'Uncle Nige'[9]. His decision to not re-engage with UKIP after Batten's fall (or throw his lot in with 'UKIP v2' - the Brexit Party) may have been a pragmatic one, believing that as Boris Johnson had finally 'got Brexit done'[10] and as such, needed a new flag to march under. Why he didn't hook up with either the Christian Peoples Alliance or the Christian Party is a bit of a mystery, as Kurten is either a hardline Christian (of the American Religious Right stamp)[11] or just so happens to take all of his social positions from them. In this, two guesses can be made; that either those parties did not want Kurten or that they were not willing to parashute him into being their 2020 London Mayoral candidate. Either way, Kurten put himself forward as an independent[12], which led to the founding of the Heritage Party a few months later.

Policies[edit]

My personal vision for Britain.

As Kurten's vanity project; the party's manifesto etc is basically 'the world according to David Kurten'. And it is not a pretty place. There is enough within his opinions which makes a standard pigeon-holing as right-wing/reactionary difficult, but enough odiousness to draw a provisional conclusion to why other parties didn't wish to have him near them. The one interesting thing is that his Christian beliefs are almost unmentioned, most likely in an attempt to court voters who aren't fundies like him.

Socially, it is clearly reactionary. Kurten wishes to fully ban abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and gambling, while his pet hates include the LGBT community[13] (with particular ire towards 'transgenderism'[note 2][14]), 'cultural Marxism'[15] , 'woke ideology', 15-minute neighbourhoods (and other 'anti-car measures'), Black Lives Matter[16] and is pretty close to outright mental illness denial. He's all in favour of preserving/promoting 'the sanctity of traditional marriage', conversion therapy, 'parental rights'[note 3] and 'traditional values', including in policing and education. Put in combination, it appears he is hankering after a Britain which existed before Harold Wilson (1964-1970), which is a little ironic because Kurten was only born in 1971 and said era would have hated his guts due to the fact he was the product of 'miscegenation'[note 4]. Needless to say, he is all for the peddling of narrative that 'Christianity is being persecuted', mainly because it's not the 1950s anymore and general British society doesn't automatically defer to them in every way[17]. Lastly, he's all for free speech, that is the variant where viewpoints Mr Kurten agrees with should have all the airtime they desire while nobody is allowed to argue back at them.

Economically, they are laissez-faire ideologues[note 5]; holding that free market capitalism is inherently superior to all other options, even attacking the fairly benign 'stakeholder capitalism'[note 6] as being 'a mixture of Communism and Technocracy, both of which are totalitarian ideologies'. Expect a lot of crummy voodoo economics now popular with the American Republican Party; that tons of mystical 'efficiencies' can be found to cut, while taxes can be slashed, to 'spur entrepreneurship' through rapid deregulation and all the while 'balancing the books' and having an inflation rate of zero. Except where it's not popular to do this, so nationalisation of monopolies, the increase of taxes on multinationals/online retailers, stopping the building homes on the green belt and the strengthening of banking regulations to effectively render the retail side as a de facto public service.

In a nutshell; it's a total load of crap which they are attempting to give everyone a free unicorn while nobody is footing the bill for it while denying there is even a bill. That is unless you work for a hated 'Quango', are a diversity officer or work within the general 'Green economy' in which you can go to hell. Because the Heritage Party holds that climate change is not real period (which is again ironic because Kurten has in fact a degree in chemistry and is therefore 'a scientist'); that renewable energy is a con[note 7], recycling is useless, energy efficiency is pointless and the country should go head-first into not only new oil/gas production, but bringing back King Coal in production and electricity generation. They even object to anti-pollution measures; such as vowing to abolish all low emission zones - even after admitting that air pollution in urban areas is often dangerous[note 8]. It shall not be a shock to anyone that they held the same irresponsible position during the whole Covid pandemic, during which they lurched deeper towards conspiracy theories such as 'the Great Reset' and attacking vaccine mandates and 'lockdowns'[18] while muttering ever-louder in sinister tones about 'globalists', 'big pharma' and suchlike pulling strings in the background of British society.

Perhaps this quest to have a polluted, poisoned land with coal smogs and chronic nitrogen dioxide poisoning is deliberate to make the United Kingdom as unattractive to foreigners as possible - for the Heritage Party loathes and despises them. Doesn't matter who you are, the reason you came or what you can give back to the country - if you were not here by say, 1990 you are to go, ideally immediately. For Kurten goes even further than the likes of Farage and GB News; even genuine Afghan refugees from the Taliban, Hong Kongers fleeing the Chinese police state [note 9] or Ukrainians declining to be killed/maimed by Russian forces are to 'bugger off back to their own country', 'legal migration' to be capped around a few thousand a year, the number of refugees to be accepted yearly to be zero[19] and all 'illegals' to be deported[20] A lot of this is rooted in Islamophobia; they are portrayed as a combination of cultural 'others', possible sex offenders, likely criminals, freeloaders off the state and the main reason why nothing works and there's a shortage of housing and government services. Oh, and if any international regulation, treaty or agreement stops this - the UK will leave them.

Anything else to note? Ah yes, Kurten is firmly pro-Putin, all but peddling the Kremlin's narrative on the Ukraine War and putting out his own disinformation[21]. Naturally, he is also a fan of other right-wing populists, such as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán.

Effects[edit]

Thankfully for the country, the answer is 'almost nil'. They are occasionally seen haunting the fringes of cranky right-wing conferences, conspiracy theory demonstrations (such as the anti-lockdown protests) and of late trying to help whip up drama regarding 'small boats' and the Great Replacement[22]. Kurten himself did a stint on the Australian conspiracist station TNT Radio until it shutdown due to a lack of interest and/or funding[23], and apparently he is too far gone for even the likes of GB News to be motivated to offer him a berth (though they are happy to repeatedly have him as a guest). Similar can be said during the last election; they spent less than £8,000 to run their campaign[24] which suggests they're too fringe to even attract a sugar parent's loose change and the only 'MSM' attention they got for the last election was to attend a 'minor party hustings' chaired by LBC Radio Iain Dale which ended with him calling Kurten a bigoted homophobe[note 10] on-air and telling him to get the hell out of his studio immediately afterwards[25]. Impressively, Kurten managed to make the stooge from Galloway's Worker's Party appear sane and reasonable in comparison, which if nothing else showed that the tone argument won't always work in your favour (Kurten is quite capable of presenting a polite/calm demeanour even when suggesting on live radio that his host might be mentally ill and/or the victim of childhood abuse[26]).

See Also[edit]

External Links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. As the party is a limited company where he controls 75% of the votes Kurten is effectively 'leader for life'.
  2. A dogwhistle used by transphobes.
  3. Code for 'children don't have rights'.
  4. 'Yet by the 90s racism had mostly disappeared'? Mr Kurten, care to talk to the ghost of Stephen Lawrence?
  5. 'Ideologies' in this case because they do not admit the existence of any downsides.
  6. The idea that a company holds loyalty beyond merely making money for shareholders.
  7. They don't just argue the ending of new solar/wind plant construction, but the scrapping of existing plant.
  8. As there isn't a 'free market solution' to solving this, it means nothing can be done about it. But oddly enough, they find it okay to 'interfere in the market' to demand all new buildings to be 'traditional' in design and construction materials.
  9. So much for foreigners wanting free speech, eh?
  10. Dale is gay himself.

References[edit]

  1. Heritage Party Election Broadcast, 2024 YouTube.
  2. Heritage Party Ltd. Companies House.
  3. Results for a UK general election on 4 July 2024 UK Parliament
  4. Results for a UK general election on 4 July 2024, Elections contested by Heritage Party UK Parliament.
  5. Conservative county councillor Becki Bruneau launches attack on party as she defects to Heritage Party Kent Online, 14th March 2025.
  6. Results 2016 London Elects.
  7. A Drifting UKIP Ousts Leader at Center of Racism Row New York Times, 17 February 2018.
  8. UKIP leader defends hiring Tommy Robinson BBC News, 4 December 2018.
  9. Former leader Nigel Farage quits UKIP BBC News, 4 December 2018.
  10. Brexit: UK leaves the European Union BBC News, 1 February 2020.
  11. DAVID KURTEN: Christians Aren’t Leaving the Church, the Church is Leaving Them Brietbart, 5 Feburary 2018.
  12. David Kurten announces run for Mayor of London East London & West Essex Guardian, 29 January 2020.
  13. Assembly Member ‘not fit for elected office’ after anti-gay comments, says senior UKIP official Pink News, 9 August 2017.
  14. Online Anti-LGBTQ Hate Terms Defined: “Transgenderism” GLADD
  15. Suella Braverman is right: cultural Marxism is a real and present danger Bruges Group Blog, 28 March 2019.
  16. Why I’m not playing the BLM game Heart Media, 30 July 2020.
  17. Marginalised maybe, but we aren’t persecuted The Times, 5 April 2010
  18. London Mayor Heritage Party candidate David Kurten criticises COVID chaos SW Londoner, 29 January 2021.
  19. Using the often repeated 'first available safe country' pseudolaw which means the UK would only ever accept refugees from France and Ireland.
  20. They don't mention where, exactly - which raises the possibility they'd support some kind of 'Rwanda-plus' solution in which said people are simply dumped in some suitably remote locale.
  21. Disinformation: “Britons consider Vladimir Putin as the best president.” Factcheck Georgia, 22 March 2023.
  22. Party conspiracy-nuts fight 41 seats Searchlight Magazine, 23 June 2024.
  23. TNT Radio, a network for conspiracy theorists and fringe politicians, is shutting its doors Crikey, 17 September 2024.
  24. Spending by the Heritage Party Electoral Commission.
  25. Iain Dale on X X.Com, 2 July 2024.
  26. Controversial anti-gay politician who linked homosexuality to child abuse to run in London by-election Attitude, 15 May 2018.