Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Goodwin only refers in passing to the Establishment, a term coined by Henry Fairlie in 1955, and instead describes, in his opening chapter, the “Rise of the New Elite”, which according to him a clearly visible section of the New Elite [my capitals] believe Western nations such as Britain are institutionally racist, see their British identity and history as a source of shame, feel much less pride than others in the nation, and feel much less attached to their national identity and the wider national group.” Goodwin reminds us that one consequence of this reform was the collapse of working-class representation in Parliament: When Eatwell and Goodwin engage in social science, rather than market research, the implications are striking. They identify a nub of the problem as one of major, long-term demographic shifts, in which the population of Africa could be 10 times that of Europe by 2100, with numerous forces driving migration northwards. “The questions that are being asked by national populists about immigration and its associated problems will become even more important,” they assure us. Eatwell and Goodwin like to believe that they and their associates are the only ones facing up to this “uncomfortable” reality, but it is little short of fantasy to claim that, when Salvini demanded a “mass cleansing, street by street, quarter by quarter”, he was just asking a “question”. But if one does so, one sees that the New Elite is nothing like as new as Goodwin supposes it to be. It has existed in various insufferable forms for a long time, and it led Disraeli to develop a form of politics attractive to newly enfranchised members of the skilled working class:

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Revolt on the Rightis not just a timely and fascinating book; it is also an important one: the first detailed study of one of the most significant developments in modern British politics – the rise of UKIP, which not only taps into popular discontent with the European Union, but has emerged as Britain’s first major non-toxic party to the right of the Conservatives." Peter Kellner, President of YouGov The UK Independence Party (UKIP) was the most significant new party in British politics for a generation. Its rise set the stage for the later vote for Brexit. The first serious study of UKIP and its supporters, Revolt on the Rightdrew on an unprecedented amount of survey data and interviews with party insiders to explain its rise and impact. Winner of the2015 Political Book of the Year and long-listed for the Orwell Prize, Revolt has since been selected by academics as one of the most influential twenty books in modern Britain.Although one cannot know what disasters are about to occur, the hysteria provoked by Boris Johnson does not seem any greater than the hysteria provoked, in their different ways, by Enoch Powell, Edward Heath, Harold Wilson or Margaret Thatcher. Goodwin’s book is admirably short, so one cannot blame him for failing to glance at the career of Benjamin Disraeli, touched on in my own recent book about Johnson.

Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics | LSE

More usefully, they provide copious evidence that rightwing populism has been a long time in the making. They organise this evidence into four Ds: distrust in elites, destruction of national culture, deprivation in the economic sphere and dealignment in political identification and voting behaviour. Their review of postwar political and economic history is informative and often compelling, providing clarity around a number of key debates within political science and political theory for the uninitiated. The EU is presented, not unreasonably, as a fundamentally elitist and undemocratic project, while neoliberal globalisation (implausibly described as “the most significant change in terms of its impact” to have afflicted capitalism in more than 400 years) is explored as a basis of rising resentment, not so much due to its material effects as its psychological ones. Rising inequality and immigration produce a feeling of relative deprivation, that one is getting unfairly overtaken by others.We do sometimes learn from our mistakes. One would not wish to overstate this, and should note that any really serious problem is likely to take generations to sort out. This is a canny and deceptive intellectual move. It would be strange to define socialism in terms of the hopes and fears of trade unionists, or liberalism in terms of the worldview of a free rights-holding individual. And yet national populism is only really distinguished from nationalism and racism by the fact that its supporters do not see themselves in these terms. Inversely, Eatwell and Goodwin’s insistence that Le Pen or Wilders are not racist politicians rests on the PR efforts these figures have made to detoxify their images as racists in the eyes of the public and media. National Populism is a self-styled myth-buster. In particular, it aims to disabuse hardcore liberals of any lingering hope that the last three years have been but a blip, after which transnational, elite-led politics will return to normal. This message is less iconoclastic than the authors appear to believe, as any glance at doom-laden Economist op-eds or the latest non-fiction book releases will attest. Remainers and Brussels technocrats are taking up the fight against Brexiters and “illiberal democrats”, precisely because they now recognise that they have a formidable opponent on their hands. Nevertheless, Eatwell and Goodwin hammer away at their prophecy of a populist future, as if they don’t trust the reader to grasp it at the first 18 attempts. National populism is only distinguished from nationalism and racism in that its supporters do not see themselves in these terms Ford and Goodwin haven’t just talked to everyone who counts and crunched all the data that’s out there. They’ve produced a really approachable book on a party which, by providing disoriented and disillusioned voters with the alternative they’ve been looking for, may well make a big impact at the next election and beyond." Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London, author ofThe Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron