It has been a while since my last post, but it seems to me that recent events mean I can seamlessly pick up where I left off with my last blogs of 2023.
The past couple of weeks were of course all about the futile – indeed ‘stupid and disgusting’ – Rwanda Bill. This exercise in right-wing dog whistling has taken up way too much space in the media and the public sphere given that it will achieve absolutely nothing even if it were to work in the way the government envisages it to work.
Many a Tory MP was invited onto podcast, TV studios, and breakfast shows to give their take on the plan to deport immigrants to Rwanda. It is in this context that some of them let slip the mask and revealed what modern British conservatism has really come to. On the News Agents podcast, Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland - stated matter-of-factly that ‘politics is about winning.’ Robert Jenrick, in turn, – referring to himself and his fellow MPs – confidently declared in an interview that ‘the law is our servant, not our master.’ The two statements provide a very good explanation of everything that has gone wrong in our country since Brexit: Politicians are after victories – not the common good – and the law is means to achieve that goal not a self-limiting force that applies to any citizens in the country, whether legislator or not. Rather than about serving the people, promoting the common good, and solving the countries problems, governing has exclusively become about winning the next election to maintain one’s personal power. It is the ‘politics is about winning’ attitude that explains why the British media talks a great deal more about the plan to deport a few dozen immigrants to a faraway country than about the real issues (health or care system; education; environment; national security etc). The Tory’s only hope to cling on to power – other than with the help of new electoral boundaries – is to generate enough fear and anger amongst those who can be convinced that immigration is our biggest problem to make them choose a Tory MP in spite of what the party has done to the country in its 13 years in power.
Lord Carlile rightly saw the passing of the Rwanda Bill in the Commons as a sign of the government putting itself above the law – essentially legislating a country to be considered safe that was deemed unsafe by the Supreme Court (Although I would disagree with Lord Carlile that this can be seen as a step towards totalitarianism. In one of my last posts I argued that we should not hesitate to call out fascists tendencies in British politics. Yet equally we should avoid engaging in hyperbole and between fascism and totalitarianism there is still a huge difference).
The Rwanda bill has been in the spotlight for some time now, which may seem surprising given that it evidently is a purely symbolic policy that – at best will remove a few dozen immigrants from the country. But Tory in-fighting about a meaningless policy keeps the media busy, the audience entertained, and the Tory voter’s anger focused for a while. Yet, there is no denying that with every passing day the government’s policies and claims are moving further away from the promises that were made and from people’s reality. Sunak’s insistence that his plan (to stop the boats) is working sounds incredibly shallow given that it essentially consists in a crude – and silly – deterrence strategy that banks on the deterrence effect of sending a few dozen arrivals a year to Rwanda and interning another few dozen in horrible conditions on a boat.
Here, like in other areas, Brexiters’ denial of reality will ultimately be crushed under the unbearable weight of empirical evidence belying their arguments. The past few months provide some indication that that weight is increasingly being felt not just by ‘Remainers’ but also by ‘Leavers’ – this seems to herald in a new phase of Brexit. The question, however, is what will this new phase look like?
Brexiters admitting failure - have we won?
It feels indeed like we have entered a new phase of Brexit. Following the publication of a new set of record net immigration figures before Christmas, the Telegraph’s Jeremy Warner penned an article unequivocally describing Brexit as a failure not just in economic terms – which his piece very tellingly almost takes for granted – but now also in terms of immigration. Similarly, the Spectator ran an article – arguably written by a Remainer – that did not debate whether or not Brexit has failed on its own terms and on Remain’s terms, but rather on the impact of is failure on various factions of the pro-Brexit public. Of course, these are just two examples, but the fact that they were published in the notoriously pro-Brexit biased Telegraph and Spectator respectively is telling.
So, have we – Remainers – won the argument? Far from it. Rather than Brexit being a swing of the pendulum to the extremes, that would be followed by a swing back and ultimately a settling in the middle, Brexit is better captured by the analogy of a slippery slope rather than a pendulum, which has at its end an abyss. Or – to use another analogy – nearly a year ago, after the signing of the Windsor Framework, Chris Grey – arguably one of Britain’s foremost Brexit experts – asked on his blog whether the Brexit fever had broken and cautiously suggested that we may be on the verge of a return to a healthier state that would make a start of a slow recovery possible. That was a reasonable and widely-shared assumption amongst many – including by some Brexiters who used Brexit simply to ‘stick it to the elite.’ However, it is becoming increasingly clear that analogies or metaphors referring to a temporary departure from the centre ground, from moderation, from normality may not just be misplaced, but also dangerous in the sense that they may be leading us to complacency about the radicalisation of the right in our country.
The reversion to the mean myth: A dangerous complacency
The bursting of the Brexit bubble – in the sense that even Brexiters are now admitting its failure – may be greeted by many with joy. Finally, what we have been saying is being accepted by some of the most vocal supporters of Brexit. Finally, British politics will undergo its ‘reversion to the mean’ and reason will return triumphantly. Matthew D’Ancona sees the damage the Tory party is inflicting on the country and on itself with the appalling Rwanda plan as the twilight of the ‘pound shop Enoch Powells’ and predicts that ‘[t]heir era is coming to an end’ even though ‘the harm they have caused will take many years to repair.’
I doubt that is indeed the case. Even electoral oblivion in the next General Election will not put the NationalConservative (NatCon) genie back in the bottle. One of the reasons for this is the wide-spread complacency of Brits regarding the stability of our democracy and our institutions. A shocking example of that complacency comes from the FT’s Janan Ganesh who a few months ago called Britain ‘Europe’s haven from the hard right.’ His evidence for the claim that the Tories are not comparable to continental far-right parties is threefold: 1. Tories were not anti-Vaxx, anti-Lockdown, and they are not climate change deniers. 2. After the invasion of Ukraine, they were not pro-Russian, but amongst the most resolute supporters of Ukraine; 3. they have appointed to important offices of the state people from non-white descent.
The last one of these claims is particularly ludicrous. So, let’s deal with that one first. Using the ethnicity of some members of government – including the PM – as evidence that the Tories are not ‘hard right’ only holds if we define hard right as the crudest sort of white supremacism. It seems to rely on the idea that ‘brown people cannot be racist,’ which is obviously nonsense, as Hardeep Matharu has explained in an interesting video concerning Priti Patel. But even without the complex colonial history of hierarchies of ‘races,’ appointing black people and people of colour to important positions does not constitute proof that the Tories are not hard right.
Regarding the other pieces of evidence, on climate change, the government has since reverted course on its Net Zero goals, bringing the party more in line with climate change deniers – although the reversal was framed in pragmatic terms – which according to Ganesh seems incompatible with the label hard right (despite the constant reference of right-wing populists to ‘common sense’).
On anti-vaxx, lockdowns and Russia, there is myriad of reasons why the Tories may not have adopted what Ganesh seems to associate with typical hard right positions. For one, any political party – however extreme – tends to tune down its policies somewhat upon entering government and facing the realities of what is politically feasible and desirable. Giorgia Meloni’s government in Italy illustrates that. In addition, the Tory government of Boris Johnson may have had extra incentives to display a tough stance on Russia, given how closely intertwined the Tory party and Johnson himself has been with Russian money and oligarchs.
Conversely, Ganesh ignores the obvious signs that the Tories have indeed become a far-right party. Chief amongst those signs are: cabinet ministers attending NatCon conferences, Rishi Sunak attending a far-right post-fascist meeting in Italy, and the continuing undermining of democracy and the rule of law by Tory governments which I wrote about many times before. In this context, Cameron’s decision in 2009 to leave the centrist EEP group in the European Parliament and set up the Alliance of Conservatives for Reformist in Europe, which was joined by post-fascist far-right parties like Brothers of Italy, illustrates that rather than being a haven from the far-right, the UK has built a haven for the far-right.
Ganesh also reaches the erroneous conclusion that it is thanks to the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system that the UK is allegedly protected from far-right political forces. How false that idea is can be illustrated by a simple comparison of the recent polish election where the far-right PiS party got 35.4% of the popular vote in a proportional system and lost power, while the fateful 2015 UK General Election returned a Tory majority government (330 of the 650 seats) when Cameron’s conservatives just obtained 36.9% of the popular vote. The UK’s FPTP system is excellent at amplifying the power of a minority – if that minority is far-right, like it has been at least since 2016, there are no checks and balances protecting the majority of people in the country from the tyranny of the minority.
The delusional article by Ganesh – published in the UK’s most serious newspaper – shows just how far the normalisation of the hard right – that political scientist Cas Mudde talks about – has gone in this country.
Political Brexit v. Technical Brexit
That is not to say that the above-mentioned thesis of a return to moderation is entirely false when looking at Brexit narrowly defined as the policies implemented to manage the UK’s departure from the EU. Here, active divergence from EU rules and regulations remains rather limited (mostly to the area of environmental regulation) although passive divergence is happening. In various respects, successive Brexiter governments have shied away from walking the talk of ‘sovereignty,’ ‘taking back control,’ etc. Rather than imposing a radical reform programme delivering ‘Singapore on Thames,’ Brexiters have been kicking the most tricky cans down the road (e.g. border controls – now set to enter into force at the end of the month), while delivering only on the most ridiculous and futile forms of taking back control (as in blue passports and pint bottles of champagne). So, in that respect, the Brexiter zeal has indeed been considerably dampened in particular on the big issues like the UKCA quality mark and Northern Ireland. But that does not mean that the Brexit battle has been won. In fact, increasingly the greatest danger with Brexit is not the exit from the EU per se, although that remains an economically hugely damaging problem, but the political dynamics it has unleashed, i.e. political Brexit, as opposed to technical Brexit.
In this blog I have consistently considered Brexit not as an end in itself and not even as a means to achieve a specific set of societal, political, and economic policy goals preferred by Brexiters. Rather, I have focused on Brexit as a means to achieve above all one specific goal, namely, to conquer, maintain, and increase the power of a part of the right-wing elite, which previously only held subaltern positions of power in the British polity. Farage and Rees-Mogg – two average financiers – Boris Johnson – a failed journalist –, Suella Braverman – a mediocre lawyer – and Rishi Sunak – a billionaire in search of an identity-creating hobby – all used Brexit not to genuinely change our country for the better, but purely for personal ambition. The crassest example of upwards political mobility on the back of Brexit, however, is David Frost whose new-gained fame and notoriety far outstrip either his intellect or his capabilities as a politician, as he illustrates time and again when he blesses us with a new Telegraph piece on his political theories. That’s what I have called Egocracy.
Ironically then, – given the populist narratives driving it – with Brexit, British politics have finally completely stopped being about the public good and become purely about the elite’s self-interest. That’s what Simon Clarke’s statement about winning is capturing so neatly: It’s not about the common good or making this country a better place for everyone – or even for the majority; it’s about winning in a game played by a group rich, privileged, elite-educated people who can afford not to care about our public services, pensions, housing- and labour markets. The contempt with which the civil service is treated and the nonchalance with which the deliver of public services to the people of this country are approached in face of massive problems can only be explained in this way. The people currently running the country can afford not care about these things.
The new phase of Brexit is hence a crucial not just for Remainers, but also for anyone else who actually cares about this country and its people – and that includes Leavers, many of whom I’m sure voted to leave the EU with the public good in mind, i.e. because they genuinely bought the argument that EU membership was to blame for our ills.
We need to get ready for a new public debate where the dispute is not so much whether or not Brexit has failed – although no doubt some of this will linger on -, but about who is to blame for its failure. To some extent, this is a more dangerous phase than anything we have seen after the 2016 Referendum. While many Remainers had no doubt that Brexit will be a disaster – at least given the obviously incompetent and unserious group of people in charge of delivering it –, for Leavers the first years post-Jun 2016 was a phase of hope. They had gotten what they wanted and could hope for the spoils of their victory to be distributed. None of this has happened – everyone – Remainer or Leaver – has lost and continues to face a decade-long decline in living standards…
Needless to say, that such a situation will do nothing to alleviate the frustrations and grievances that led people to vote leave. If anything, people feel more betrayed and powerless. Their anger is now searching for new targets. Rather than a return to reason, an acknowledgement of the architects of Brexit that their project has failed, we are entering a phase of scapegoating, where those who cannot own up to the ugly truth of Brexit will continue to use it as a means to promote their careers and interests.
The next phase of Brexit: Scapegoating
An obvious scapegoat are immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Warner’s piece leaves no doubt about the popular sentiment in the country and the reason why immigration should be on top of the Brexit deliverables. According to him, “migration has become more of an economic cost than a benefit.” That seems to be his opinion rather than an evidence-based statement of fact. Warner further claims that ‘[e]conomies grow in two ways – either through population growth or productivity gain. It is only the latter form of growth that advances living standards.’ Hence, only ‘[i]f population growth through migration leads naturally to productivity gain, then there would still be an economic case to be made for it, but sadly this no longer seems to be true.’
Even if we were to accept that questionable statement (population growth in itself can drive economic growth, which may increase the living standards at least of a part of the population), blaming immigrants for low productivity growth is utterly dishonest. Two of the main reasons why Britain has been struggling with productivity growth are low levels of business investment and labour shortages and lack of skills. That lack of investment is in turn primarily the result of the type of economic system that has emerged in the UK since the 1970s at the latest. That is to say, a system where shareholders are given a great deal of power and influence over the decision companies make. Such a shareholder-orientated form of capitalism leads to a situation where a large proportion of corporate profits are ‘returned’ to shareholders, rather than being reinvested in the company. Therefore, shareholder pressures are a much more likely explanation of a lack of investment in productivity enhancing technologies than immigrants. Indeed, given the second factor – labour and skill shortages – immigration seems like part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
To the extent that immigration does aggravate the problem – by providing an abundant and relatively cheap workforce at the lower end of the skills pyramid, which reduces incentives to invest to increase productivity – this is only possible due to political choices. Indeed, if the British government wanted to benefit from foreign workers to fill gaps in the domestic labour markets, while still incentivising companies to enhance labour productivity rather than relying on cheap labour, there are a myriad of policy tools at its disposal, such as increasing minimum wages. So, rather than reducing immigration – and thus worsening labour market shortages – the government could increase labour protection and workers’ rights to tackle the productivity issue.
These issues of economic policy and corporate governance are ignored by Warner and most of his right-wing Brexiter colleagues. The goal is obvious: Encourage people to punch down, so that they do not get any ideas about punching up.
Worse still, due without doubt to the constant mantra-like repetition of the claim that ‘[i]mmigration is perhaps the biggest political issue of our time,’ even more moderate and centrist people start accepting the claim as a fact. Thus, on the News Agent podcast, Jon Sopel recently stated that he strongly agrees with the narrative that people in this country strongly care about illegal immigration and notably bout the small boats. Is that true? Evidence-based analyses, like the ones summarised by Prof Rob Ford in a twitter thread, show that despite record high levels, ‘[o]pposition to immigration is *lower*, immigration is *less salient* and concern about it is now more concentrated in particular political and social groups.’ In other words, it is an issue that Tory voters care deeply about, but the majority of the country does not and if anything, have positive opinions about immigration.
This is remarkable given the persistent ‘priming’ of the people who are being surveyed. Anyone who follows the news in print, on the radio, or on TV will have been exposed to reporting about immigration, asylum, and refugees day in day out. Due to the Tory obsession with it, the topic is omnipresent and very senior public figures – such as the former Home Secretary Braverman and former Migration Minister Jenrick – have fallen prey to what Chris Grey calls a ‘small boat psychosis,’ discussing the topic in dramatic terms in the media (‘invasion,’ ‘untold damage to our country’).
Despite all that, there is very little evidence that the country as a whole has fallen prey to the Tory small boat psychosis. Therefore, Sopel elevating the issue to one that voters in general care strongly about is both irresponsible and succumbing to the far-right narrative. Similarly, at the end of an interview with Tory MP Charles Walker Sopel considered the Tory MP to hold ‘sensible views’ – despite the fact that he explicitly reiterated the absurd post-truth claim that Rwanda is a safe country for refugees (“I believe Rwanda is safe”). It is when moderates and centrists stop calling out falsehoods and start accepting the absurd narratives from the populist, post-truth right that the boundaries of reasons are dangerously shifting.
Labour too is guilty of validating the Tory narrative by not showing the courage to call bullsh*t on its policies. Thus shadow Home Secretary Yvett Cooper was to fearful of what people may think to commit to dumping the obviously absurd and ineffectual Rwanda Plan. While it is understandable that Labour tread carefully not just on immigration – but also Brexit (see Chris Grey’s insightful post), moderation on calling out untruths means that labour consolidate post-truth Brexit Britain rather than starting to move us back to the realm of reason.
Whatever the majority in the country thinks, however, given Brexit’s abject failure on all fronts including ‘taking back control’ of our borders, it comes as no surprise that Brexiters feel betrayed and frustrated. Rather than leading to regret and insight, this seems to push them to further radicalisation. Thus, Warner bemoans that supposedly higher-skilled European immigrants have been replaced by people from the middle east and from Africa who allegedly not only have lower skills, but also are more difficult to integrate – presumably due to their more remote cultural values? So, the politically correct argument about ending free movement of people (because it was discriminatory against people from further afield than the EU) has given way to a more racialised view of extra-EU immigration. So, rather than by a ‘reversion to the mean,’ Brexit’s failure is followed by a sense of ‘abject betrayal,’ which pushes the political landscape further to the far-right. Openly rejecting human rights, and openly linking the right to marry and live in the country to one’s income – as James Cleverley’s new measures increasing the threshold for dependents does – are signs of a further radicalisation of the nationalist right.
Sociologist René Girard tells us scapegoating usually leads to what he calls cycles of ‘mimetic violence,’ whereby a society regenerates itself by transforming internal tensions into violence against a scapegoat – historically often minorities. The question for Britain in 2024, who will that violence – symbolic or otherwise – be directed against and how far will it go? There is still hope that ultimately the Rule of Law may be strong enough in Britain to survive until the next General Election. But given the direction of travel, Brexit may soon seem like a very moderate project compared to what its evident and increasingly widely accepted failure will give rise to.