IN DEFENCE OF POPULISM
Populism poses such a threat
that David Cameron has had to go
to the US to tell them, for a fee, how it ruined his plans for a better Britain.
It may once have been the precursor of
reform In the US. Now its global and a threat to the political elite which
imposed the policies which exacerbated the populist drive spreading round the
world. We need to understand it yet the commentariat see it as a turd on the table of Downton
Abbey. In the US its portrayed as a Trumpian disaster slightly less dangerous
than nuclear war. In Europe it endangers the blessings of the Euro and ever
closer union and produces opportunities
for a new Hitler.Even several.
I can agree that populism has its dangers.
It's tide can carry the man on the white
horse or the one with yellow hair, to triumph over safer and sounder hands .In
power populist prophets either become dangerous or betray their
supporters to turn like Orwell's pig, Napoleon who turned into a nasty
human. Insofar as its the bar room braggadocio
of easy answers and loud talk, populism is impossible to implement. Watch how
Trump, having won by denouncing Goldman Sachs and Wall St stuffs his government
Goldman staff and Wall St Republicans
All that provides fun for academics and the commentariat
who are always right after every event Yet for the practical politician, and
particularly for the Labour Party, populism poses more immediate problems. It won't go away and we
either understand that and adjust to it, or fail the protesting people.
Look at how it emerged. Post war politics were a
game of two halves .In the first, the Never had it so good years , full
employment, a welfare state and steady growth raising the living standards and household incomes of
the people shaped an affluent era in which the only symptoms of populism
were protests at immigration from
Smethwick's electors and Powell's dockers. Both condemned but both allayed by
restrictions on Commonwealth immigration.
For those at the bottom of the heap the second
half of the game were the never had it so bad years of globalisation,
neoliberalism, austerity and EU membership all of which ended full employment,
curtailed welfare, replaced job security with the gig economy and damped the
year by year improvement in household incomes and living standards. No wonder a
new populism emerged among those left behind .No wonder either that the liberal
elite, who'd benefitted from the changes found so little response to their sermons about the benefits of globalisation
and immigration and their assurances that the pain would be worth the gain
with a long term good which somehow
never seemed to come.
Labour,
the cause of a good deal of the misery and the source of many of the sermons
must recognise that the populist surge
comes from what should be Labour's
people: those at the bottom of the heap, those not educated enough to
access the joys of a middle class life style, those left behind by economic and
social change and those suffering from the rigours and pain of austerity, globalisation cuts and the
end of full employment. They don't think
that the blessings for the well off will trickle down to them They need help now and no one else will
provide it if Labour doesn't
This not only changes the name of the game but the game itself
relegating Labour's people to the uphill side of a loosing team. This happened
for three reasons Margaret Thatcher's
neoliberal follies, combined with membership of a European union geared to
serving the purposes of more powerful competitors, have undermined
our industrial base and a manual working class which was shrinking
anyway Government reduced the protective power of the people's defenders, the
trade unions, the council estates, the mutuals and local government in order to serve wealth,
big business, finance and London. Labour
ceased to serve those at the bottom of the heap to win the support of those
further up. No wonder politicians began to chant "We're all middle class
now" But we weren't.
How do we respond to this new world which Labour
helped to create? Blair, Mandelson and the third way brigade proposed
to take Labour's traditional vote for granted, win respectability by accepting
the Thatcherite programme and reach out to the growing middle class and the
south .As a result in power we delivered too
little to our people, more to finance. We declined to restore union
rights and kept them on a tight leash to
pursue more esoteric causes. Instead of class and equality we preferred
feminism, ethnic justice, foreign aid, rights, environmentalism , consumerism
and Euro enthusiasm with a welcome to
immigration thrown in
Labour has always been a coalition of
proletarian populism, some of which is inevitably ugly, and middle class
aspiration but in recent decades the latter has triumphed over the former.
That makes it difficult for the party to
change tracks.In Parliament and party, horny handed sons of toil and trade unions have made way for more women,
ethnic groups, middle class kids on the make and apparatchicks and chaps who'd
done an apprenticeship in Blairworld. All are
more presentable, house trained, younger and nicer but middle class in life style
and less in touch with the
world of the underdog. Women took over
the mining seats The party placed trusties in plum seats and a debilitated
outside party accepted the imposition.
Youth and gloss were more
important than proletarian identity. The result was a party less in touch with
its basic support and their world ,which was
taken by surprise when Scotland
rebelled, UKIP stole Labour votes, and
the people rejected an EU Labour had come to see as part of God's plan.
Describing populism is much easier than dealing
with it. Denouncing it as wrong will only exacerbate the alienation and the
feelings of impotence which built it in the first place.It arises
because both parties have failed to deliver the growth, the full
employment and the steady improvement in incomes and .living standards those at
the bottom of the heap expect and had had in previous decades. Instead they've
got sacrifices which fall primarily on them.
Yet
dealing with the dissatisfactions of the
people left behind is not only expensive
but involves a major change in national priorities .It requires us to
compensate the people who've lost out to globalisation. It means making its
beneficiaries pay a fairer share . We need to boost the parts of the country which have suffered
rather than concentrate all blessings on London and the South east Either we rebalance the economy and run it in
a way that satisfies the mass of our people rather than serving the interests
of the monied elite, or we face the
alienation and dissatisfaction which
we'll then have to excoriate as nasty
populism.
Why not learn from history? The never had it so
good years of post war growth shifted the social balances from wealth to people. Economic policy was managed to compensate
them for the sacrifices of war and the suffering
of depression. When neoliberalism shifted the balances back to wealth, a
culture of richesse insultante developed
and the life of the people became harder as they lost the power to help themselves or even live a comfortable
life .Instead of being protected, compensated and helped through the impact of
globalisation its victims were punished by austerity while the benefits went to
the grabbers and the greedy. When
ordinary people are sacrificed to the needs of wealth, banks and financial institutions and condemned to watch
as high salaries and big bonuses are showered on those at the top of the heap,
its a little unrealistic to expect gratitude.
