“We were wise indeed, could we discern truly the signs of our own times.” Thomas Carlyle 1829
On 5 July, in his first speech as prime minister, Keir Starmer called for “a rediscovery of who we are” as a country. A couple of weeks later, he attended the New Statesman’s summer reception. He warned those of us present that if Labour fails to deliver, the growth of national populism on the continent “could happen here”. Labour’s enemy is populism and its intention in government is to defeat it.
And then, on 29 July in Southport, the savage killing of three little girls and the wounding of six others by Axel Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents, unleashed a wave of rioting across England. Mobs attacked the police, sinister masked men menaced local mosques, gangs swaggered in the streets, looting, burning and seeking the thrill of violence. There was a steady drum beat of anti-migrant and anti-Muslim hatred, triggering the mobilisation of Muslim communities.
Keir Starmer has been unequivocal in his response. The violence is “far right thuggery”, coordinated nationally by a far-right network, planning its actions on social media. “I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder,” he said. They will.
The drunks, the gullible and the flotsam of society who washed up in these riots and into the arms of the law are, and will, pay a heavy price. But when the full force of the law has been applied and as social order is restored, what then does Labour do? Those imagining that a new Labour government marked a country more at ease with itself have been disabused. We are gripped by deep historical changes that have torn at the heart and soul of the country, and people know it.
Labour’s election victory was an extraordinary achievement. But while everything in the Palace of Westminster changed on 4 July, the country has not. Turnout was down to 60 per cent of registered voters. The collapse in the old class-based party-political loyalties has left millions politically homeless. Much of the energy in the election came from the margins, those disillusioned with Westminster. Outside the big cities it was Nigel Farage’s insurgent brand of national populism that set the political mood.
The hard-fought Labour landslide is built on shifting sand. The sheer size of Labour’s majority disguises its fragility. It won 63 per cent of the seats on only 33.7 per cent of the vote. A swing of 6 per cent would be enough to defeat it. There is no enduring political support for any one party anywhere. Labour governs with a majority but no coherent electoral coalition. It has no political narrative about the country and its people, nor a diagnosis of the crises afflicting it. It must now undertake the political thinking and renewal to build a new coalition in government. “Delivery” and technocratic pragmatism guided by focus groups and polling will not be enough. If Labour fails, the fate of the Conservatives awaits it.
Keir Starmer was mistaken in the warning he expressed at the New Statesman party of the national populist threat to his government. It is already a growing revolt in England. Labour has in the past offered two responses to it. The first condemns national populism as racist and authoritarian. Its supporters are gullible victims and losers, nostalgic for a past that deserves to be rejected and buried. The second response ignores questions of identity, national culture and belonging and calls for opening up the political system to more participation and more democracy. People want more control and Labour will give it to them through citizens’ assemblies, more devolution and talk of community empowerment.
Both of these reactionary and progressive responses have failed and will always fail because they do not recognise what populism is. The political scientist Cas Mudde describes populism as the rebellion of the silent majority: an “illiberal democratic response to undemocratic liberalism”. The social theorist Christopher Lasch called it “the authentic voice of democracy”. Populism gives political representation to what has been excluded from the democratic process. It draws on the popular traditions of ordinary people against the powerful.
Labour’s first step in contesting national populism is to achieve an emotional connection with the everyday life and experience of the people. It must tell a story about their lives that they already know but are unable to articulate. Without this basic connection, relying on delivery or promising more participation will fail.
And as part of reconnecting with people’s lives, Labour has to reject identity politics. Successive governments have supported the idea of multiculturalism, encouraging minority ethnic groups to sustain their own discrete religious and cultural identities while checking the cultural expressions of the ethnic majority. It is a form of governance derived from the imperial practice of indirect rule that left intact the administrative machinery of the native elites. Britain ruled its colonies through their emirs, chiefs, councils and police. Today it does something similar through the jargon of “communities” and dealing with self-selected “community leaders”.
But the lack of a countervailing argument for a national community in which all belong has allowed multiculturalism to fragment into identity politics. Sectarian politics and culture wars now poison and divide society. Ethnic conflict has become structured into the life of the country.
The left’s anti-Zionism resonates with Islamist hate in a toxic coalition of anti-Semitism. Tommy Robinson, the former frontman of the neo-fascist English Defence League, leads a proletarian movement of ethno-nationalism mythologising the customs and values of the “white ethnic group” in a civilizational struggle of Christendom against encroaching Islam. Hindu nationalism is gaining a foothold in the UK, connecting with Robinson in a shared hatred of Muslims. Muslim communities are organising in response into a “Muslim Defence League”.
In these unfolding conflicts the political class has been supine. The writ of the British state which once stamped its authority on half the world is now barely capable of maintaining domestic social order. After the vote for Brexit our political class lost confidence in the country and its people. Its political choices and policy failures over recent decades – notably on immigration but also austerity and the uncritical embracing of liberal market globalisation – created the gutted and impoverished communities that are now the crucible of thuggery and violence.
For the first time in national history, people are living alongside others with radically different civilisational values. Avoiding deeper conflict requires a confident society supported by a strong state capable of controlling the numbers of newcomers, ensuring their integration, and resolving differences through reciprocal agreement of the common good. This is not England today. We are two nations unknown to one another, the powerful and the powerless, united in mutual contempt and incomprehension.
Labour must engage with national populism. Its adherents – who extend well beyond those involved in the riots – believe they have mobilised in defence of the sovereignty of the nation state and its borders, both real and symbolic. Their motivating energy is the need to redeem a sense of cultural identity and an inherited way of life that feels threatened by demographic change and economic insecurity. To its supporters, the country no longer resembles who “we” are. Their imperilled way of life is defined by the borders they believe have been transgressed, not just national boundaries, but those of binary biological sex, family life and national history.
This is the political terrain on which Labour must now do battle. In his speech on 5 July, on the steps of Downing Street, Keir Starmer set his government the task of finding an answer to the question: “Who are we?” England’s parliamentary democracy, our language, our history of individual liberty and the rule of law, have made us a powerful symbol of Western civilisation. The thuggery, racism and ethnic hatred of recent days has shown us that this legacy is precarious.
