If there is one thing we all should have learned from 2016 it is that in an era when disillusionment with mainstream politicians and parties has reached an apex, populism works a bloody treat. The British Labour Party obviously thinks so too. As The Guardian reported recently: ‘Labour strategists are planning to relaunch Jeremy Corbyn as a leftwing populist in the new year, as the party seeks to ride the anti-politics mood in Brexit Britain and narrow the gap with the Tories.’

Owen Jones, in a recent piece in The Guardian, also spoke of the need for the British left to adopt populism or face electoral wipeout:-

‘Unless the left is rooted in working-class communities – from the diverse boroughs of London to the ex-mill towns of the north, unless it speaks a language that resonates with those it once saw as its natural constituency, shorn of contempt for working-class values or priorities, then it has no political future.’

Owen Jones homespun advise regarding populism accords quite closely with the Oxford English dictionary definition of populism, which is as follows:-

‘A member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people.’

The Guardian (again) posited its own vox rationis by summoning a round-table of political ‘experts’ to consider the idea of left-wing populism and its viability in the case of Corbyn. The general consensus (perhaps not surprisingly given that populism tends to be anti-expert) being that this was a bad idea. The philosopher Julian Baggini spoke for populism-sceptics everywhere when he wrote this in The Guardian:-

‘Populism is not defined by right and left, nor even by the virtue of its goals: think Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Populism is rather a way of doing politics that has three key features. First, it has a disdain for elites and experts of all kinds, especially political ones. Second, it supposes that the purpose of politics is simply to put into action the will of the people, who are seen as homogenous and united in their goals. Third, it proposes straightforward, simple solutions to what are in fact complex problems.’

The scepticism pertaining to this way of doing politics and also its way of viewing the world stems, in large part, from the populist tendency to favour more direct forms of democracy – like the EU referendum that gave us Brexit and the OMOV system that gave the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn as leader – and there are certainly valid objections to made concerning the idea of ‘direct democracy.’

The two main objections to the forms of ‘direct democracy’ which populists tend to favour are: Firstly, what the ‘founder fathers’ of the American constitution referred to as: the ‘tyranny of the majority.’ Secondly, following from the first objection, that it removes checks on executive power opening a path towards demagoguery.

What is meant by the term ‘tyranny of the majority’? which sounds at first glance like an oxymoron. Martin Wolf in the FT gives us an indication here:-

‘For those who fear that resort to referendums might erode parliamentary democracy, the recent past provides unhappy confirmation. The hysterical cry of “enemies of the people” against the High Court’s decision that only parliament is entitled to make and repeal laws, now being reviewed by the Supreme Court, demonstrates that some Brexiters do not care about parliamentary sovereignty.’

The ‘tyranny of the majority,’ produced by forms of ‘direct democracy’ (which populists prefer) as opposed to the ‘representative democracy’ traditionally practiced in the UK, is that it potentially leads to: ‘nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine’ (quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson.)

The ‘tyranny of the majority’ resulting from the outcome of the EU referendum rendered those who lost the Brexit vote: ‘remoaners’ who were potentially (at least in the eyes of the Daily Mail) ‘enemies of the people.’ Whilst those in the Labour Party who did not believe that Jeremy Corbyn was the best placed person to lead the Labour Party (following his election by the OMOV system) became pariahs dubbed ‘Blairites,’ ‘Tories,’ ‘Tory-lite’ or simply ‘Neoliberals’ to emphasise their ‘otherness.’ The irony of this given Corbyn’s own history of opposition to Labour leaders 1983–2015 was not lost on his critics.

The seemingly unexpected rise in populism in 2015/16 has left ‘moderates’ and ‘centrists’ in a quandary. The more centrists attack populists such as Corbyn or Farage, the more it becomes apparent that such attacks entrench factional differences – the so-called ‘chicken coup’ led by the PLP in the aftermath of the Brexit vote being a case in point – which has the effect of undermining their own case.

‘Centrism’ works best when political polarisation is kept to a minimum and consensus politics can then take its place. The question lingers however: what other options do centrists have? to do nothing? obviously this is not an option either.

The problem centrists have (whether centre-left or centre-right) is that no matter how much criticism the likes of Trump, Farage, Corbyn and Sanders get their appeal amongst partisans only seems to strengthen as a direct consequence. The first mistake centrists make is to assume that mud slung at a populist candidate necessarily does them harm.

It didn’t do Trump any harm did it? and why did it not do him any harm? because if a significant part of your appeal as a candidate is the fact that you are seen as ‘anti-establishment’ then mud slung only reinforces the perception that you are truly anti the establishment. Otherwise why are they slinging mud? Look at Corbyn: the mistake the Labour right have made is to double-down on criticism of him thereby reinforcing the perception of him that he represents a break with the past. The VERY reason he won the Labour leadership election in the first place! Moral of the story is: slinging mud at a populist – whether Farage, Trump, Sanders or Corbyn – only serves to enhance their appeal.

What is the great signifier of anti-establishment cred? The answer is that central to a populist’s appeal is perceived ‘authenticity.’ What does ‘authenticity’ mean in this context? It means that this is a politician who will appeal to people who dont like politicians. Mud slung reinforces these anti-establishment credentials thereby enhancing their appeal.

Some have said that it is a mistrust of ‘big government’ that is driving the anti-elitism which propels the animus towards the so-called ‘metropolitan liberal elite’ (as personified by those doyens of the ‘third way’ Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair,) but one could argue that if anything its the opposite. It is actually the perceived symbiotic clientelism/cronyism between government and big business representing a ‘rigged’ system against ordinary men and women that the likes of Hillary Clinton and George Osborne personify to many of the voting public that is actually the perceived problem.

What Farage/Corbyn/Trump/Sanders have in common is that they are seen as outsiders to the current political establishment, not that they represent some form of political philosophy that is anti-statist, whether that be libertarianism (in Farage’s case) or revolutionary Marxism (in the case of Corbyn.) Thus its not government per se that is mistrusted (a common critique of populism) it is the current crop representing it i.e:- the current political establishment. A subtle distinction but an important one.

This is the essence of Sanders and Trump’s appeal: the fact they are political outsiders. Its the same reason Farage and Corbyn have attracted support this side of the Atlantic. Political outsiders, i.e ‘populists,’ are free from the baggage of the past that encumbers mainstream political parties/candidates.

Where does this leave ‘centrists’? how should they respond? first of all by recognising that the circumstance are propitious for populists, populism doesnt just energe in a vacuum and more importantly: that ‘third way’ centrism itself has contributed towards the rise of ‘populism’ by narrowing the range of options available to the voting public and fostering a sense that the various political parties represent one political class. Its not only arch-Corbynista’s who referred to the pre-Corbyn lead Labour party as ‘Tory-lite.’

In addition, the post-Brexit terrain is arguably more politically polarised than at any time in this country since Thatcher left office.What does a polarised political terrain represent for self-styled ‘moderates’ and ‘centrists’? It means that their claim to represent the political centre ground rings increasingly hollow because currently there isnt really any centre ground to occupy and if there is no centre ground to occupt the objections to ‘populism’ by proponents of the ‘third way’ start to look increasingly pointless. Like old soldiers fighting wars already lost using weapons that have already been superceded. This is certainly true if we take the rise of populism to represent a rejection of the status quo. ‘Third way’ centrism IS the status quo that is being rejected.

Furthermore, centrists should recognise the wisdom contained in this section of Nick Pierce’s article published in the New Statesman in 2015:-‘The trap facing all centrist parties: the one between responsibility and responsiveness. Parties aiming for elected office seek the patina of responsibility, fiscal and political. They set out credible, carefully crafted programmes for government, mindful of its constraints and compromises. Instead of representing the people to the state, they increasingly represent the state to the people. This leaves the field open for populists, who eschew responsibility in favour of responsiveness, unmediated authenticity and the articulation of an anti-politics.’

Centrists appear to subscribe to the myth of the rational voter. A way to illustrate this point would be to compare two recent blogposts on ‘Medium,’ one by a Labour ‘centrist’ and one by a ‘Corbynite.’ In ‘A New Year’s Resolution For Labour’ Labour member, blogger and centrist Rob Francis presents a logical, rational case for the traditional New Labour approach of reaching out to swing voters and downplaying any indicators of partisanship. The following is a passage from that blog in which Francis excoriates a local labour leaflet for mentioning the word ‘socialism’:-

‘The reason I’m singling this leaflet out is because it is very representative of the problems Labour currently has. It will win over exactly nobody who wasn’t already going to vote for us, and it will put off those who may have been considering it. It is a microcosm of how the party is currently operating; that “not being socialist enough” is the cause of all our recent woes.’

Compare that to this by Stephane Savary, also a member of the Labour Party and a blogger (but unlike Rob Francis a Corbynite,) published in the same week entitled ‘Socialist or Capitalist: Labour Must Quickly Decide What It Is.’ To a centrist the premise of this blog-post encapsulated in the title of the piece (socialism vs capitalism) is arrant, simplistic nonsense. Which of course it is! but that isn’t the point. If we were to frame this discussion concerning modes of persuasion in terms of the ancient Greek classification of differing styles of rhetoric we would say that the Rob Francis piece appeals to our sense of ‘logos’ (from which we derive the English word ‘logic’) whereas the Stephane Savary piece appeals to our sense of ‘ethos,’ a word still used in English today to denote the character or disposition of a community.

The danger in appealing only to the public’s sense of ‘logos’ is that it risks mutating into a mode of persuasion in which citizens are merely treated as atomised individuals seeking to maximise their own utility. Its not very inspiring. Whereas appealing to our sense of ‘ethos’ – whether by means of the incantation of the word ‘socialism’ in the case of Corbyn and Sanders, or using the language of patriotism in the case of Trump and Farage – has the potential to mobilise sections of the electorate (of which there are many) who have switched off from mainstream politics out of apathy or disaffection. The use of the word ‘socialism’ by populists on the left and that of patriotism by populists on the right (‘make America great again,’ ‘take back control’) should be seen in this light: an appeal to our sense of ‘ethos,’ our shared sense of identity, history and values.

In the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential election Pat Buchanan summed it up well in an article (primarily concerned with criticising Barack Obama’s speech in Greece that week) in the ‘American Conservative’ entitled ‘Obama’s World: Utopian Myth?’:-

‘“So my vision … may not always win the day in the short run,” Obama said in Greece, “but I am confident it will win the day in the long run. Because societies which are able to unify ourselves around values and ideals and character and how we treat each other, and cooperation and innovation, ultimately are going to be more successful than societies that don’t.” What is wrong with this statement? It is a utilitarian argument that does not touch the heart.’

The objections to the use of populism as a political strategy are serious and considerable but given the current political climate: what other choices do the Labour Party have? it is perhaps a little late to worry about the dangers of ‘populism’ (after Brexit in particular,) when the genie has already been let out of the bottle, it is perhaps more realistic to listen to Michael Kazin’s advise, to create a principled populism of the left. Not all forms of populism are bad, as Francis Fukuyama has recently written:- ‘The real question is not why the United States has populism in 2016 but why the explosion did not occur much earlier…….Populism” is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.’

‘Centrists’ pride themselves on their pragmatism. New Labour was a pragmatic recognition that Thatcherism was hegemonic and its corollary: if the left ever wished to return to power they needed to accommodate to Thatcherite policies, set the ground-rules for everything that followed. ‘New’ Labour’s subsequent ideological fleet-footedness and flexibility allowed it to out-fox its opponents for many years due to its abnegation of the past. This rupture with the past allowed room for experimention and to gain ground over its opponents. The danger now is that the schism within Labour between left and right, idealists and pragmatists, creates stasis as the two sides turn inwards as they fight each other rather than looking outwards.

Or, as Christopher Lasch put it:-

‘Both left-and right-wing ideologies, in any case, are now so rigid that new ideas make little impression on their adherents. The faithful, having sealed themselves off from arguments and events that might call their own convictions into question, no longer attempt to engage their adversaries in debate. Their reading consists for the most part of works written from a point of view identical with their own.’

Left-wing populism at least plays to Corbyn’s strengths as an anti-establishment figure. The danger in rejecting all forms of populism are well described in the words of David Greenberg in a 2010 Time magazine article about the populism of the Presidency of FDR:- ‘wise leaders like FDR have always understood the need for populism in measured spoonfuls. Without populism, conservatism hardens into plutocracy, and liberalism calcifies into soulless technocracy.’

Centrists cannot ignore ‘populism’ but likewise socialists cannot ignore nationalism. Political pragmatists and idealists alike who seek a return to power should recognise this: a party that wishes to make left-wing populism work needs to combine economic populism with civic nationalism.

Why? because, to quote Alister Heath: ‘It is almost impossible to be a successful populist and not embrace some sort of nationalism.’ As Francis Fukuyama recently pointed out:- ‘Nation almost always trumps class because it is able to tap into a powerful source of identity, the desire to connect with an organic cultural community.’ This analysis suggests that Corbynite populism, unlike its Scottish counterpart in the SNP, wont work but not for the reason centrists think it wont work.

Labour pragmatists (centrists) need to learn the lessons of 2015/16 and one of those lessons is that the surge of populism was in response to a deep felt need on the part of many for a politics that appeal to their sense of ‘ethos.’

Labour idealists (socialists) likewise need to recognise that unless their brand of left-wing populism is lit by the propane of patriotism it will never ignite the passion of a sufficient number to win back power for Labour.

The appeal of socialism is, in large part, due to the sense of ethos it offers its adherents, what Robert Putnam has written of as ‘social capital.’ The moral of 2016 is that a society cannot completely neglect forms of ‘bonding’ social capital in favour of ‘bridging’ social capital, there has to be a balance.

As Jebediah Purdy has recently written:- ‘No politics can be defined only by openness, no matter how appealing that might sound. Politics needs boundaries and lines; it needs a specific community….The difficult and unpleasant fact is that to be for social-democratic policies today means also being for borders, for a line demarcating who is in and who is out, and for limits on the mobility of labor….Any egalitarian economy will come under stress when capital is free to leave and labor is free to enter.’

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