Paper short abstract:

Isiah Berlin's distinction between positive and negative freedom makes a distinction between 'freedom to' and 'freedom from'. This paper asks how 'freedom from' informs the work of the Right in England as they simultaneously critique and further selected liberal ideas.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on ethnographic work among the libertarian Right in England. I draw on the valourisation of 'freedom from' in quests to further and defend certain freedoms seen as threatened by a plethora of political forms. While broadly neo-liberal in orientation, I suggest that certain liberal notions form the bed-rock of such work in ways that bring these ideas into sharp focus, thus indicating how both liberalism is both an object of suspicion and a touchstone for the Right.