Shock and Orr: Meet the Farage-Supporting 'Philosopher King' of British Authoritarianism
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James Orr likes to present himself as a populist with esoteric tastes: cigars in the garden shed, bagpipes louder than Alastair Campbell's, bookshelves lined with Kant and Thucydides in their original languages. Interviews have had him, his blond hair swept back like a young Heseltine, talking about fox hunting, toxic femininity, the decline of British institutions, and the "spiteful technocratic metropolitan animus".
They have also found in him something more striking: a philosopher at the centre of the populist right, one who says that if Reform ever got to No 10, Nigel Farage would have to do "very unpopular things."
Orr is no longer just a don in Cambridge's Divinity Faculty. This 46-year-old is described as JD Vance's "intellectual mentor" and a recent guest at the now (in)famous barbecue in the Cotswolds that gathered Trump's running mate, Farage and a clutch of Conservative MPs. He is loyal to the project, calling Vance "the future of MAGA". He is also very much central to it.
Today, Orr sits as the UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation; chairman of the advisory board of the pro-Reform think tank(s) Resolute 1850 / Centre for a Better Britain; on the advisory board of the Prosperity Institute (aka the Brexit-backing Dubai-based group Legatum); and on the board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (it sets out to "re-lay the foundations of our civilisation"). He also managed to find time to organise the Now and England event in June, which had shadow minister Robert Jenrick and one-time Reform MP Rupert Lowe on the ticket.
He's a man so busy that his list of publications includes a claimed 2022 book, Being and Eternity (Bloomsbury) that, three years on, seems yet to have gone to print. It might take some time.
But judging by what he has published and said, Orr's views are clearly absolute. He opposes abortion at every stage of pregnancy, including in cases of rape. He thinks the US Capitol riot of January 2021 was exaggerated by the "global left". He believes diversity weakens nations. He finds Britain's armed forces compromised by inclusive recruitment adverts. He admires American gun laws.
He also sees secularism as hollowing out "the human world of meaning, significance (and) transcendence". And Orr seeks certainty against this godless world. He's a man, in his own words, who stands "committed to the objective existence of the lawful regularities that order the world".
EXCLUSIVE
JD Vance's 'British Sherpa' Chairs Organisation Funded by Billionaires Urging a Second US Civil War
The man described as the Vice President's "philosopher king" is linked to a series of right-wing billionaires who have condemned democracy and called for a "limited dictatorship" in the US
Olly Haynes
Such a stance has won him full-page interviews in The Times and The Spectator, outlets eager for a philosophical gloss that offers more than the often inarticulate rump of the far-right. Politico has even called him the "English philosopher king".
Certainly, Orr is an attractive sell to a political strand that all too often seems limited to serving up reactionary anger and bigotry. Orr's unwavering belief in God and foundations offers a grounding on which to stack the warm beer and St. George flags.
In his 2019 book, The Mind of God and the Works of Nature, Orr argued that the very notion of natural law only makes sense within a theistic framing. "Metaphysical theism and nomic realism are indeed historically and conceptually conjoined philosophical positions," he wrote. His argument is rather dense, but his point simple. Science relies on the conviction that nature follows laws, but - he argues - unless those laws rest on divine ideas, they are just brute accidents.
"No God, no powers," he subsequently concluded.
In 2021, in his essay Divine Lawmaking: Powers and Kinds, Orr tu...
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
James Orr likes to present himself as a populist with esoteric tastes: cigars in the garden shed, bagpipes louder than Alastair Campbell's, bookshelves lined with Kant and Thucydides in their original languages. Interviews have had him, his blond hair swept back like a young Heseltine, talking about fox hunting, toxic femininity, the decline of British institutions, and the "spiteful technocratic metropolitan animus".
They have also found in him something more striking: a philosopher at the centre of the populist right, one who says that if Reform ever got to No 10, Nigel Farage would have to do "very unpopular things."
Orr is no longer just a don in Cambridge's Divinity Faculty. This 46-year-old is described as JD Vance's "intellectual mentor" and a recent guest at the now (in)famous barbecue in the Cotswolds that gathered Trump's running mate, Farage and a clutch of Conservative MPs. He is loyal to the project, calling Vance "the future of MAGA". He is also very much central to it.
Today, Orr sits as the UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation; chairman of the advisory board of the pro-Reform think tank(s) Resolute 1850 / Centre for a Better Britain; on the advisory board of the Prosperity Institute (aka the Brexit-backing Dubai-based group Legatum); and on the board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (it sets out to "re-lay the foundations of our civilisation"). He also managed to find time to organise the Now and England event in June, which had shadow minister Robert Jenrick and one-time Reform MP Rupert Lowe on the ticket.
He's a man so busy that his list of publications includes a claimed 2022 book, Being and Eternity (Bloomsbury) that, three years on, seems yet to have gone to print. It might take some time.
But judging by what he has published and said, Orr's views are clearly absolute. He opposes abortion at every stage of pregnancy, including in cases of rape. He thinks the US Capitol riot of January 2021 was exaggerated by the "global left". He believes diversity weakens nations. He finds Britain's armed forces compromised by inclusive recruitment adverts. He admires American gun laws.
He also sees secularism as hollowing out "the human world of meaning, significance (and) transcendence". And Orr seeks certainty against this godless world. He's a man, in his own words, who stands "committed to the objective existence of the lawful regularities that order the world".
EXCLUSIVE
JD Vance's 'British Sherpa' Chairs Organisation Funded by Billionaires Urging a Second US Civil War
The man described as the Vice President's "philosopher king" is linked to a series of right-wing billionaires who have condemned democracy and called for a "limited dictatorship" in the US
Olly Haynes
Such a stance has won him full-page interviews in The Times and The Spectator, outlets eager for a philosophical gloss that offers more than the often inarticulate rump of the far-right. Politico has even called him the "English philosopher king".
Certainly, Orr is an attractive sell to a political strand that all too often seems limited to serving up reactionary anger and bigotry. Orr's unwavering belief in God and foundations offers a grounding on which to stack the warm beer and St. George flags.
In his 2019 book, The Mind of God and the Works of Nature, Orr argued that the very notion of natural law only makes sense within a theistic framing. "Metaphysical theism and nomic realism are indeed historically and conceptually conjoined philosophical positions," he wrote. His argument is rather dense, but his point simple. Science relies on the conviction that nature follows laws, but - he argues - unless those laws rest on divine ideas, they are just brute accidents.
"No God, no powers," he subsequently concluded.
In 2021, in his essay Divine Lawmaking: Powers and Kinds, Orr tu...
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