Language Against Liberty: Social Security And National Security

Despite what Mr Burnham might think, national security must come at the expense of social security

Fighting for a Free Future is pleased to welcome you back to the second edition of a new series for Voices for a Free Future: Language Against Liberty. In her monthly column, Fighting for a Free Future Volunteer Associate Jennifer Holly will be exposing the ideology hidden behind terms we use every day and how harmful they are to the fight for freedom.

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In his debut PMQs, Burnham used this rhetorical sleight: “national security cannot come at the expense of social security”. With the welfare bill approaching £350bn, this statement ought to cause malaise; we all know that social security comes at the expense of the taxpayer - who so often gets lost in everyday phrases that pass off as guiltless.

Badenoch played Burnham’s game well. She wrote in the Mail that “For our new PM, social security - welfare - comes above national security”. The break to recall what “social security” actually is - welfare - strips it of the grandeur given to it by proximity to “national security”. One asks themselves: if the nation is not secure, surely welfare cannot be paid, or wouldn’t it be absurd to do so?

“Social security” is a term whose vagueness is designed to shield against critique. Compare it with “national security”, which means what it says on the tin: the state of the nation being secure. “Social security”, by contrast, is a lexicalisation of a conglomerate of policy choices: the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), its benefits, and the state pension. If Burnham had said: “national security cannot come at the expense of the DWP’s benefits and pension spending”, it would not be so catchy.

The concept was introduced by Aneurin Beveridge as “social insurance”, where “security” was the goal, and insurance the mechanism. Writing the mechanism into the title tethers us to a clear contract between State and individual, wherein the former provides protection in return for a contribution from the latter. In “social security”, the mechanism is disguised, allowing all sorts of mischief from the DWP.

“National security” is itself a sterilisation of the prior “defence of the realm”, or “the first duty of government”. Both Burnham’s terms share one thing: the removal of an obvious agent, and therefore, the removal of belonging and responsibility. Somebody must defend the realm, and this is the government’s foremost duty. Yes, both “national security” and “social security” are more efficient terms, which cover more - but to efficiency, specificity and responsibility are sacrificed. Is a soldier more likely to enlist for “national security” or “defence of the realm”? At least the soldiers have implied agency in the latter. “Social security” also hides the agent, and as with “public money”, the taxpayers who fund it are erased.

Burnham’s quip is, of course, much coloured by the ideological subtext of his two securities. “National security” implies that there is something worth defending that exists only within your own realm. As for the other, it is unfettered “social security” that we oppose: Hayek’s “limited security” against severe privation is fair, and it is instead “absolute” or relative security - which has completely run amok in Britain - that is unfair, unproductive, and damaging. Indeed, a certain level of “social security” is conducive to “national security” - but this implies trade-offs that are hidden in forced homogeneity. That is why we must question the “security” of it all - whose sacrifices does this vague word obscure? Because as we speak, the Government continues in heaping more unfair responsibilities onto the forgotten taxpayer.

Jennifer Holly is a student at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. She is a Fighting for a Free Future Volunteer Associate and is committed to the fight for free markets and civil liberties. She can be followed on X through @jenniferaholly.