Heroes: What Next for Democracy? Election Special #3

 

“Evil men with racist views

Spreading all across the land”

 
This time I want to consider one issue that this election has highlighted, how politics is moving to the right.

Labour seem convinced that being leftwing makes them unelectable, and is doing its best to purge the party of its traditional values.

There is the shambles that is the Diane Abbot saga, which, although now resolved, highlights how Starmer would prefer a different candidate.

Then there is Faiza Shaheen, Labour’s former candidate in Chingford and Woodford Green, a Muslim woman of colour and the daughter of a mechanic, who defied the odds to become a successful academic and won the overwhelming backing of her local party. Starmer previously described her as a “fantastic” and a “fabulous candidate”, praising her “passion, expert understanding and insight on inequality”. she too, has been purged, because of Tweets going back 10-years, one of which, she said, was about her “experience of Islamophobia in the party”.

Now it’s Central Office who decide the candidates; people such as Luke Akehurst, the director of “We Believe in Israel”, a pro-Israel lobbying group currently encouraging voters to urge their MPs to support the country’s murderous campaign in Gaza. Or Josh Simons, the director of the Starmerite thinktank “Labour Together”, who has previously suggested that people smugglers should be shipped to Scotland.
 

‘Starmer is no more familiar with the truth that Boris Johnson’

 
This is growing evidence to support the statement that Starmer is no more familiar with the truth that Boris Johnson. He championed radical domestic policies in his leadership campaign, promising Labour would be a “broad church”, demanding parliamentary selections be “more democratic” and that “we should end NEC impositions of candidates”. And now…?

Returning to point that Labour is no longer Labour, it was interesting to see how, last week, key members of Starmer’s incarnation of Labour tried to explain socialism; Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, is a Christian socialist apparently. When asked, was his socialism the same doctrine as Jeremy Corbyn’s, he responded, this his socialism “put people first”, promoted growth by working with business and so built a better society.

Rachel Reeves was a social democrat, rooting her philosophy in liberal William Beveridge’s mission of creating a cradle-to-grave welfare state. Streeting was a “democratic socialist”, which he defined as being part of the European social democratic mainstream. Starmer described himself as a socialist and a “progressive”, which meant putting country before party, sounding more and more like a one-nation Tory.

Clearly none wanted to be a “socialist, which can be defined as “state and social ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange being the chief means to common good outcomes”.

Clement Attlee, in 1954, invoked William Morris’s view that socialists “believe in the kind of society where there is fellowship for all. You can’t get that in a totalitarian society, you can’t get that while there’s great inequalities of wealth. That is the hope of the world.”

Put simply, socialism is simply about wanting to make a fairer society.

If people stop to think, aside from “getting Brexit done”, the Tories 2019 election victory was based on a fairer society; “levelling-up. Where it went wrong was in the delivery, because to create a fairer society you have to care about society, and Conservative’s don’t. They care about themselves.
 

‘to create a fairer society you have to care about society, and Conservative’s don’t. They care about themselves’

 
Proof of this came last when it was revealed that 17 (over half) of the £20m levelling-up pots went to towns in areas won by the Conservatives in 2019, although two had since been lost in byelections.

Only 8-eight awards went to towns in Labour seats, despite the fact that many of the party’s strongholds tend to be in more deprived areas in need of levelling up money.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, criticised the regeneration announcement, saying: “This is nothing to do with raising prosperity. This is only about trying to win a few votes at election time”.

Yesterday’s poll for the Observer, showed that, to date, Sunak’s campaigning pledges have had little impact;
 

• Labour are on 45%, up 4-points
• The Conservatives are down two points on 25%.
• Reform is up on one on 11%,
• Lib Dems down two on 8%
• The Greens down one on 6%.
• 45% thought the the reintroduction of national service for 18-year-olds was a bad idea and 35% thought it was a good one.
• 28% said their opinion of Sunak had become more negative since the start of the campaign, against 18% who said it had become more positive.
• By contrast 28% said their view of Starmer had become more positive against 18% who said it was now more negative.

 
If, as it appears, Labour wins this election, it will be by default. There is little real enthusiasm for the party’s agenda nor any real belief in Starmer’s capabilities as a leader, it’s more a desire for change made possible because the Tories have set one of the lowest bars in British political history.
 

‘little real enthusiasm for the party’s agenda nor any real belief in Starmer’s capabilities as a leader, it’s more a desire for change’

 
And then, when Labour is in power, enjoying so little support and enthusiasm among its natural voters, what next?

My fear is what happens is Labour’s disappoints. Inequality, levelling-up, are key, as is the NHS. There is much noise around defence and immigration, primarily because the Tories see it as their only hope of retaining power

What drives my fear, is what a resurgent Tory party might look like. Sunak will be gone, and the next leader will be further to the right. The elephant in the room is Farage, Reform are a red herring, it’s what he does next that matters.

A clue might lay across the Atlantic, where the spectre of the convicted Trump looms large. I read that Farage is “helping” with Trump’s re-election, and, my fear is that he is using that as learning curve for his own ambitions.
 

‘The elephant in the room is Farage, Reform are a red herring, it’s what he does next that matters’

 
Trump is now a convict, found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money trial.

The support of far-right leaders from around the world shows how distressing this situation is. The Kremlin called the verdict a “de-facto elimination of political rivals”, while Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, called on Trump to “keep on fighting”.

In reality, this was a historic moment in which the US joined other democracies in showing the world it is willing to hold its political leaders to account.

Despite this, Trump is still the marginal favourite over incumbent Joe Biden. If this doesn’t change things, perhaps nothing will.

Polling has consistently shown that America is polarised and most views of Trump are already baked in. Trump knows this, which is why, in his own words, he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.

A recent survey from PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist, found that 67% of voters said a conviction would make no difference for them in November’s election, while 76% said a not-guilty verdict would have no impact. About 25% of Republicans said they would be even more likely to vote for Trump if he were found guilty by a jury.
 

‘he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters’

 
Republicans have fallen-in behind Trump; the House speaker, Mike Johnson, came to the court to show his loyalty.

The right-wing media has spent weeks conditioning their viewers for this moment. Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News: “We have gone over a cliff in America.”

His campaign derided the trail as “lawfare”, claiming that the justice system was weaponised against him by Biden and his cronies. A fundraising email, headlined “Political Prisoner”, sent immediately after the verdict declared: “I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!”

At this point I decided to better understand Trump and Trumpism.

Trump clearly seeks to suppress free speech and consequently democracy. This is typical of “authoritarians”, deciding what the “truth” is going to be, and then manipulating events into making it so.
 

‘In general, populists hate their people, even as they tell them they are just like one of them’

 
Dissent is allowed because the people are judged too worthless and troublesome to be allowed to think for themselves. In general, populists hate their people, even as they tell them they are just like one of them. Ideals that form the cornerstone of democracy – free speech, the rule of law – are regarded as things to be got around, subverted and ultimately crushed. Democracy is the enemy, control is the goal.

Contrary to what I believed, Trumps so-called “MAGA” (Make American Great Again) republicans are in the minority in the party. According to a study published in 2022, they represent around a third of the Republicans, or roughly 15% of American voters, a number confirmed by a recent NBC poll.

Nevertheless, he is their candidate and whenever he is in trouble a vast majority (70%) of Republican sympathisers rally behind him. For the majority of Republicans, the mere idea of an indictment feels politically motivated. Similarly, a majority continues to believe that the 2020 election was stolen from them, including those who now recognize that there is no proof whatsoever.

This enduring suspicion illustrates not only that perception counts for more than reality, but also that there is a form of paranoia symptomatic of an identity crisis rooted in economic anxiety and racial resentment.
 

‘Trump’s voters are predominantly white, non-educated, evangelical and middle-class’

 
Research has extensively documented that Donald Trump’s voters are predominantly white, non-educated, evangelical and middle-class, and that it was primarily the question of identity – especially related to race, religion and gender – more than the economy, that was the driving force behind Trump’s election in 2016.

These are the “left-behind”, let-down by successive administrations, victimised and treated with contempt by a left-wing elite. Their resentment stems in part from their weakening demographics: their share of the electorate fell from 69% in 1980 to 39% in 2020, and is expected to fall to 30% by 2032.

His supporters generally live in areas where manufacturing and farming are in decline, and feel they have something to lose. Living in regions with low incomes, lower levels of internet access and less geographic mobility, they’re not part of the new tech economy, and the threat of falling further that feeds their fear and anxiety.

Typically, they didn’t progress to higher, and lack a college degree.

The mix of characteristics that distinguishes Trump voters bears an frightening similarity to the characteristics of those who supported the historical figure most associated with the rise of authoritarianism, Adolf Hitler. Both leaders won support among voters who have more to lose: the working poor who largely have jobs and aren’t at rock bottom. In the US, the poorest – who are more likely to be ethnic minorities – still vote mostly Democrat, and in interwar Germany, the poorest largely voted for the Communists.
 

‘people who feel under threat – from demographic change, economic decline and who are prone to negative emotions – tend to favour authoritarian leaders’

 
Academics studies show that people who feel under threat – from demographic change, economic decline and who are prone to negative emotions – tend to favour authoritarian leaders.

Trump, like Hitler, has a sort of charisma, which enabled them to tap into this fear, resentment and humiliation of the left-behind. Trump has his own resentment toward the New York elite, and toward successful Black men like Barack Obama who he sees as unqualified or guilty of stealing his success by polarizing American politics around the issue of race.

A fact that never ceases to amaze me, is that this narrative of racial resentment is sometimes adopted by minorities who feel antipathy toward other minority groups. A recent study shows, a growing number of Latinos and people of colour in the white supremacist movement.

Trump has also been able to tap into white evangelical Christians’ fear, offering them a narrative of “American carnage” that resonates with their beliefs of decline and destruction in the end times.

Trump has created a narrative around himself as victim-in-chief, a martyr, that his electorate can identify with. In another guise he is a hypermasculine superhero. In 2016 he was the “voice of the forgotten”, now he is their “warrior” and “justice,” promising to be the “retribution” for “those who have been wronged and betrayed.”

In the run-up to the 2016 election I was dealing with some US clients, they assured me that he wouldn’t win the nomination, he did; he wouldn’t become president, he did.
 

‘We’ve forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators’

 
As Robert De Niro said; “We’ve forgotten the lessons of history that showed us other clowns who weren’t taken seriously until they became vicious dictators. With Trump, we have a second chance and no one is laughing now. This is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all.”

De Niro went further, saying that if Trump returned to the White House, Americans could see the civil liberties they take for granted evaporate as well as the end of elections; “If he gets in, I can tell you right now, he will never leave.”

The conditions, the levels of disenchantment, the fear that everything is broken is no different in the UK. The Brexit referendum and the 2019 election show that, once mobilised, the left-behind are a powerful electoral force.
 

‘the levels of disenchantment, the fear that everything is broken is no different in the UK’

 
The right has the media presence to whip-up the necessary hysteria, to feed their innate bigotry, their primitive fears and sense of self-loathing.

Farage is competent, perhaps the best, or maybe, most natural politician in the UK, an effective communicator, who understands the power of propaganda.
 
If it can happen in America it can happen here.
 

“Organizing the boy scouts for murder is wrong

Ten years beyond the big sweat point”

 
Sources: · https://theconversation.com/what-explains-donald-trumps-enduring-appeal-with-republican-voters-207871 · https://www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/ib-knowledge/management/neuroticism-deprivation-and-racial-bias-trumps-unique-authoritarian-appeal/
 
Things are starting to warm up nicely – in the few hours since Philip filed his latest masterpiece, pantomime villain ‘Nasty’ Nigel Farage, has announced that he will not only be standing for the Reform Party, but he will be doing so as party leader.

No random choice of constituency, Clacton was where Douglas Carswell switched horse, and after the ensuing by-election became UKIP’s first elected MP.

Incumbent MP Giles Watling has a pretty healthy majority of 24,700, but it seems likely that Nige’s message will be well received in some of the grittier areas on the patch, and his announcement suggests that his previous tactic of working to deliver change from within the Tory party has been replaced by something a little more in-your-face. The horse-trading will be fascinating.

And what a cracking explanation of all things The Donald; Nige couldn’t be so shallow as to have ditched him just because his mate could be facing a spell in a flowery dell with ‘Baba’, could he?

So, what’s Philip thinking?:

As I said in the editorial to “Election #2”, “Labour is now further right than the LibDems, which is why One Nation Tories feel comfortable joining them.

The Tories now resemble …..the British National Party?

This is something I started to explore in “Armageddon Time”.

Starmer seems to conveniently forget all the things that he promised when campaigning to become Labour leader. Whilst he may feel that the end justifies the means, if that is what it takes to win an election, it worries me that he is either economical with the truth, or another politician of no fixed abode who fancies a few years in #10.

He is clearly out-of-step with traditional Labour voters over Gaza, and his every utterance sounds like a Tory tribute act. Whilst it isn’t in-line with the loony right of the Tories, it is a long way from traditional Labour and socialism.

The Tories are trying to drag him into areas that they feel make him uncomfortable, such as defence and immigration.

Defence is a red herring, we are too irrelevant to bother with these days. We no longer have an empire, and if someone wants to “nuc” us there is precious little we can do to stop it.

I have long been convinced that, the racist minority apart, immigration would fall down people’s priorities if they were better off.

And, there you have the key, income inequality. The campaign Cummings created for Johnson is the one Labour should be considering, levelling-up is more relevant now than in 2019. The problem is that to achieve this needs a break from the accepted economic orthodoxy, and that for Labour is a bridge too far.

The one to watch is Farage, not today, maybe not tomorrow, he’s playing a long game. However, we know how much he idolises Trump which is why this piece looks across the Atlantic.

The similarities scare me.

Lyrically, we start with one of the columns’ favourites, “(we don’t need this) Fascist Groove Thang” by Heaven 17. To finish we look to America, and a “

” by Mike Watt’s Minutemen. Enjoy!

Philip.

@coldwarsteve
 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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