A Conservative MP has claimed the UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London. Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction, arguing that a lack of family-friendly tax policy in the UK played a significant role, as well as a shortage of housing. But Cates, seen as a rising star in a new generation of culture-war keen Tory MPs, also blamed too many young people attending university, the devaluing of motherhood, and what she described as the mass indoctrination of young minds. “Having a home, a secure job and support from your family, community and nation are not the only conditions to starting a family,” Cates told the event in Westminster. “You must also have hope for the future. And that hope is not reaching so many of our young people today, because liberal individualism has proved to be completely powerless to resist a cultural Marxism that is systematically destroying our children’s souls.” “When culture, schools and universities openly teach that our country is racist, our heroes are villains, humanity is killing the Earth, you are what you desire, diversity is theology, boundaries are tyranny and self-restraint is oppression, is it any wonder that mental health conditions, self-harm and suicide, and epidemic levels of anxiety and confusion characterise the emerging generation?” Asked whether Rishi Sunak agreed with this latter concern, Downing Street appeared to say this was the case, referring to recent concerns Cates had raised with the prime minister over sex education in schools. “We recognise there is significant concern in this and that’s why that the DfE [Department for Education] is working through additional guidance for schools and support for teachers,” Sunak’s official spokesperson said. The use of “cultural Marxism” as a description by the Penistone and Stocksbridge MP is controversial because it is a term referring to a conspiracy theory often associated with the far right and antisemitism. When Suella Braverman, the home secretary – who is addressing the conference later on Monday – used the phrase in a 2019 speech, she was criticised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Cates’s argument for a higher birthrate echoes those made by European populist leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, although they are explicit about contrasting this with what they see as a parallel threat from immigration. Braverman’s speech is to make a case against any increase in immigration, arguing that Britons should be trained to work in haulage, butchery and crop picking to avoid the need to fill vacancies with foreign workers. Cates said the low birthrate was “the one overarching threat to British conservatism, and to the whole of western society”, and was a greater concern that the climate emergency, Russia or China. Criticising no-fault divorce and the expansion of childcare, Cates said the rise of university attendance also played a role: “Many graduates are saddled with debt, and so are unable to afford to buy a house and start a family. “Spending so much time and money on education also makes it much more difficult, particularly for women, to decide when is a good time to pause and have children.” Several other speakers scheduled for the event – known as NatCon – are more explicitly populist or in favour of the ideas of people like Orbán and Donald Trump, including the Trump-supporting Ohio senator JD Vance, who will speak virtually. After Cates spoke, Yoram Hazony, the Israeli-US thinktanker behind the NatCon organisation, told the event that the UK was plagued with woke “neo-Marxist” agitators who want to detach Britons from their entire past, and called for a return to mandatory military service. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, used his address to give an intellectual argument for national conservatism and to delve into contemporary UK politics. He reiterated his condemnation of Sunak for breaking a promise to repeal any EU-origin laws by the end of this year, while also urging people to support the prime minister “because the alternative is far worse”. In one striking intervention, the former business secretary labelled his party’s introduction of mandatory voter ID as gerrymandering that backfired, likening it to Labour’s idea of extending votes to long-settled EU nationals in the UK. “Parties that try to gerrymander end up finding that their clever scheme comes back to bite them, as dare I say we found in insisting on voter ID for election,” he said. “We found that the people who didn’t have ID were elderly, and they by and large voted Conservative. “And we upset a system that worked perfectly well. One of the glories of our country was that we did it on an honesty basis.”