In her recent book, Liz Truss considered that we have ‘ten years to save the West.’ For once, I think, she is not far off the mark. Although, I would argue we only have five years, and I would disagree with her on what ‘the West’ needs saving from. From ‘Globalism, Socialism, and the Liberal Establishment’ according to her – from far-right political figures like herself who incite the kind of racial hatred we have seen on the streets of UK citizens and towns last week according to me.
Given the increasing geopolitical tensions and the rise of illiberal political movements in the West, the next five years may very well turn out to be a watershed in Western history. It turns out the UK may – ironically to some extent in line with Brexiter boasts – actually play a pretty crucial role.
It has been just over a month since the new Labour government led by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer took office. As a result, all of a sudden, the UK turned from a country at the forefront of the seemingly ineluctable global trend towards a rather extreme form of post-truth, right-wing, populist nationalism (or popular conservatism, illiberalism or whatever monicker one prefers) into one that may soon be a centrist bulwark against the global decline of liberal democracy.
At a time where far-right figures like Meloni, Orban, and Fico govern important European EU member states and others – like Austria and France – may very soon follow, the UK’s Labour government may become the last bastion of progressive policies in an increasingly right-wing world. The UK’s role in stemming the tide of illiberalism would be particularly important if the US tumbles once again into a Putin-friendly government in November and the German SPD – a traditional ally for UK Labour – loses power to the CDU/CSU under Friedrich Merz – who – like so many centre-right politicians before him most likely will shift the CDU further right to try and outflank the far-right on their right.
The Republican National Convention in the US two weeks ago gave us a taste of what the world could look like for Labour in 2025. Emblematically, Trump’s pick for vice president on the Republican ticket JD Vance – riffing off well-trodden far-right tropes – suggested that the UK was the first Islamist country with nuclear weapons. We have become somewhat immune to vitriolic hyperbole from far-right figures in recent decades, but last week’s racist and Islamophobic riots in the UK show just how quickly such hateful rhetoric can develop real world consequences. Tellingly, the riots – targeted primarily at Muslims and immigrants – were triggered by false information about the immigration status and origins of the attacker who killed three children and injured several others in a knife attack on a dance class. Equally reflective of the times we live in, billionaire right-wing agitator Elon Musk tried to further stoke hatred in the UK, directly attacking our Prime Minister on X.
The violence and destruction that the reporting on the Southport stabbing on gave rise to serves, as a stark early warning to the new government to take the undermining of our democracy over the past fourteen or so years seriously. Indeed, defeating comprehensively the far-right elements in British politics should be a main focus of the new government over the next five years.
Stemming the tide
I have repeatedly written about the decline of UK democracy under the recent Tory governments and warned – perhaps in somewhat alarmist terms for some readers’ taste – against the threat of illiberalism and fascism.
The transition after the Tories’ GE defeat was somewhat reassuring in that respect. Not only did the UK not see any contestation of the election results comparable to what happened in the US in 2020 after Trump’s defeat; but also did Rishi Sunak in his new role as leader of the opposition accept the defeat and carry on his new duties almost statesman-like. That may be a low bar but given all the vitriol and political violence we have seen in recent years in the UK and elsewhere, it is a reminder that all is not lost for UK democracy.
Of course, this should not make us forget the dark sides of the 2024 GE. Most importantly that 4m UK voters have given their vote to Farage’s far-right outfit who now sends five MPs to Westminster, including Farage himself.
Stemming the far-right tide should be Starmer’s key concern over the next five years – otherwise, in five years’ time, he may find himself in a similar position to France‘s Emanuel Macron who did not manage during his years in power to convince people that he was addressing their grievances – leading to an relentless increase in support for far-right Rassemblement National (RN). In 2022, 4m people voted for Rassemblement National in France. By 2024 that figure has increased to over 10m. A truly frightening development that the UK needs to avoid.
The next five years will most likely not be easy in terms of economic, social, and environmental challenges the government will have to tackle. The Labour government will soon be blamed for not addressing key issues that push people to vote for extreme right-wing parties. The right-wing press, GB News, Reform UK, and the Tories will do everything to turn people against the government (as GB News already started doing in the most disgusting imaginable fashion last week, suggesting that far-right thugs rioting and looting small shops was somehow the fault of the ‘left elite’). From experience, blaming everything that is not going well in the country on the Labour government will probably work quite well.
Some in progressive circles seem to place their hope for the 2029 GE primarily on the fact that right-wing voters are overwhelmingly older people and that demographic trends will therefore play in favour of Labour and other liberal democratic forces. Here too, France provides a cautionary tale: 33% of 18–24-year-olds now support the far-right RN and its 28-year-old poster boy Jordan Bardella. There are worrying signs that in the UK, too, a fraction of young people is drifting into the darkest corners of politics notably due to the influence of social media. Reform is already more popular amongst the 18-24 year olds than the Tories.
The reshuffling of the right
Labour’s best hope for the next GE is that the turmoil in the Tory party and the rise of Reform mean that the party landscape on the right remains fragmented, splitting the right-wing vote. This is currently a fairly likely scenario. The conservative leadership contest – which will continue until November – most likely will end in the most far-right candidate being selected by the (far-right) Tory membership. That means that Tom Tugendhat – by current day standards a moderate centrist conservative – will most likely lose out to either Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch and the Tory party therefore shifts further to the right.
An oppositional Tory party led by a far-right figure will in turn mean that there will be fierce competition between Tories and Reform for the 4m people who lent Reform their vote. In that scenario, the Tories would constitute a threat not so much for Labour, but for Reform. Such far-right infighting would drastically increase Labour’s chances of securing a second term in 2029 simply because the right vote will be split.
There is of course the possibility of the Tories inviting Farage – and much of Reform – back into the fold. That would create a formidable far-right party in the UK, but such a merger is far from certain, especially given the egos involved. Moreover, it is far from clear that even a united far-right – as opposed to right-wing – party would garner enough votes to win a general election. While the Tories and Reform together received approximately 38% of votes and thus more than Labour’s 34%, the conservatives adopting a far-right course would most likely lead to more centrist voters turning their backs on the conservatives.
The tribulations on the right of the UK’s political spectrum may provide Labour with further breathing space to pursue their own policy programme without having to look over their shoulder too much for some time.
Relying just on that effect would of course be a risky and indeed foolish strategy. But it may help providing Labour with the leeway to adopt policies that finally give people the feeling that things may actually get better again.
From symbolic to substantive policies
A key recurring theme of my Brexit Impact Tracker over the past four years, has been the dominance of symbolism over substance when it comes to post-Brexit policy making. Many of the government policies adopted by Brexiter governments since 2016 were aimed at proving the point that Brexit is working and/or that Remainers have been wrong all along, rather than addressing any real world issues the country is facing. A good illustration is provided by trade policy, where successive Trade Secretaries have sought to conclude free trade agreements at quite literally any cost to the country so as to be able to claim at least one ‘Brexit benefit.’ Another one is the cruel, absurd, and incredibly wasteful Rwanda plan.
We can expect the new government to still do some of this. Starmer’s red lines for the UK-EU relationships (no single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement) are in this category. They fulfil not substantive purpose – indeed go against the stated purpose of reducing Brexit’s impact on the UK economy – other than signalling to Brexiters that Labour will not ‘betray’ them. Yet, by and large, we can expect the new government to focus a great deal more effort on actually fixing the countries’ problems rather than seeking to score symbolic points in the name of self-interest and of an ideology. The question is whether Labour will be able to deliver on its substantive policy goals. Here the new Chancellor’s fiscally conservative approach provides some cause for concern.
Some of Labour’s policies are bold and even fairly radical, belying to some extent Starmer’s centrist discourse and image. Most importantly perhaps the increase in public sector salaries to resolve the strikes over public sector pay and the willingness not to shy away from renationalising railways. In other respects, however, Labour – and in particular the new Chancellor Rachel Reeves – seem to swallow the current economic doxa hook, line, and sinker. Most importantly, Reeves first interviews and speeches can hardly be seen as anything else than a reaffirmation of the ideology of ‘sound’ public finances and austerity. This is largely self-imposed, however, by the incomprehensible decision to stick to the current ‘fiscal rules’ in spite of the fact that experts have been pointing out the nefarious effect of these misconceived rules.
There can be no doubt that by conventional standards the financial situation is dire, although there have been fiery exchanges with former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt over Reeves’ announcement in the House of Commons of the discovery of a ‘black hole’ of £22bn in the public purse due to Tories’ unfunded spending commitments and tax cuts. Whatever the reality of that ‘black hole’ and whether or not Labour should have known about it before the GE, it led Reeves to announce the suspension of several infrastructure projects. Whether or not the Arundel by-pass is an essential piece of UK infrastructure that would contribute to economic growth Labour so badly wants is one question. But importantly it shows that Reeves completely adheres to the ‘sound’ public finance ideology, which is arguably at the heart of many of the economic ills the country is facing.
At the same time, the Chancellor is reportedly considering Public Finance Initiatives (PFIs) type ways to finance others. The first generation of PFIs introduced in the early 1990s were discontinued in 2018, because they were considered poor value for money compared to the state directly paying for infrastructure. Reeves’s use of 1990s rhetoric about ‘crowding in public investment’ indicates that she thinks more of the same will do the trick.
To be sure, her worry about what the financial markets ‘think’ is justified given recent experience in the form of the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget. But there is little evidence that government borrowing form investment in infrastructure and growth worries capital markets. Mid- to long-term what we need is a more fundamental rethink of last centuries’ macro-economic and monetary theories that have been guiding our policy makers for too long. The planned establishment of a National Wealth Fund may be such a more fundamental change, but again due to the fiscal rules and the limits they put on government borrowing, at £3.5bn per year this fund may just be a drop in the sea.
A glance over the Atlantic could be instructive here. Joe Biden’s economic policies – aka “Bidenomics.” Bidenomics constitutes a paradigm shifting in economic policy making, by reviving Industrial Policy in the US. Over the past four years, for the first time in half a century inequality has declined for the first time in 50 years. Of course, the US is in a privileged position compared to the UK when it comes to public spending, but the basic lessons from four years of Bidenomics is that there is an alternative – and one that works better than the current doxa.
There is of course also another lesson from Bidenomics, which is that it is not enough to improve the countries’ economic situation for people to vote for you. Indeed, given Biden’s record on the economy, it is surprising to see how little credit the Democrats are getting for it. In a situation where large swaths of the electorate get their news from Fox News and far-right billionaire-owned social media, it is difficult for progressive politicians to get their message across. That’s no different in the UK and may become a problem for Labour over the next five years. Beyond getting the substance of the policies right, making sure that the message is being heard loud and clear and not distorted by far-right outlets should therefore be a priority for the new government.
Taking back media control
Establishing control of the public discourse via control over media companies is the very first thing illiberal governments tend to do (see here). This was no different in Britain, where recent Tory governments have successfully staffed the most important positions at the BBC with Tory supporters, undermining one of the key bastions of quality journalism.
In addition, the already extensive control of the print media by right-wing owners and the increasingly problematic use of so-called SLAPP suit to silence journalists like Caroll Cadwalladr means that the UK’s free media are in serious danger. Labour should use its five years in power to make sure the UK media sector becomes more resilient in face of the continuing far-right challenge to liberal democracy.
Part of that strategy should be a reform of the way our media companies are owned and how standards for news are being enforced. Interesting models exist that would make media companies less attractive to far-right agitators and billionaires. Thus, academics have proposed models that would turn media companies from for-profit stock corporations into public purpose corporations whose purpose, by law, would not be to make money – one of the key reasons to propagate far-right ideas and politicians who lead to a lot of ‚clicks‘ – but to inform the population following the highest standards of journalistic diligence and truth-telling. The purpose corporation is a model of organisation that is slowly moving from academic fantasy, to actual possibility (most explicitly in the new French company law). Building on this trend and pushing for a special form of the purpose corporation for media companies would help address many of the issues the UK is facing.
The UK media landscape also needs to seriously address the patent inadequacies of the media regulator Ofcom in cracking down on the spread of fake news and lies via media channels that pose as serious news networks. A recent episode of the News Agents featured an interview with Melanie Dawes – the head of Ofcom – that illustrated to a shocking extent the self-imposed impotence of our media regulator when faced with fake news. Dawes explained that – despite many complaints and confirmed cases of spreading falsehoods – GB News had not been punished by the regulator, because Ofcom’s approach was – essentially – that anyone deserves a second chance. That argument is of course hard to swallow when the channel in question has been investigated and found at fault 12 times over the past three years and continues to spread false news.
Equally unconvincing was her argument that GB News – given its innovative news formats – is not really a news channel and should therefore be subject to different standards then actual news channels such as – say – the BBC. Again, it is hard to buy that argument given GB News’ self-proclaimed status as ‘Britain’s News Channel’ and that GB News audiences surely think it is a news channel.
Whatever the reasons for this lenience of the media regulator towards far-right media sources, cracking down on the spread of fake news is crucial to reign in the further erosion of UK’s body politique by the far right.
The reform of the media sector also needs to focus on social media – notably Twitter and TikTok – to counter the far right which – both literally and figuratively – currently owns these spaces that appeal to young people. Elon Musk’s disgraceful use of his social media platform to stoke hatred during the racist riots in the UK by making absurd claims about the inevitability of civil war in the UK illustrates this. Young voters in particular may be seduced by far-right figures and political parties who have a strong presence on social media channels that ‘Gen Z’ primarily use as source of information. A terrifying example is Farage’s support for Andrew Tate, which chimes with a group of young people for a shockingly large number of whom (31% according to one poll) Tate remains a role model. If Farage manages to use social media to turn a significant part of young voters into Reform supporters, the UK will face a similar situation in 2029 to the one France is facing right now.
Of course, the resistance to overcome is formidable both in terms of the legacy media and of social media. This was illustrated by the shocking allegations of a deal between Labour and Murdoch that allegedly consisted of Labour promising to drop the Leveson inquiry in exchange for Murdoch newspapers’ backing Starmer ahead of the General Election. Now that the election has been won, the UK government should have a genuine long-term interest in removing one of the most constraining forces on the democratically elected government’s leeway to address the country’s problems – including Brexit.
Brexit under Labour
During the election campaign, Starmer’s very timid approach to the Brexit question was a constant source of puzzlement and indeed annoyance for many anti-Brexit Labour supporters. The promise of a closer, more friendly relationship with the EU without any far-reaching reversal of hard Brexit and a series of red lines, seems like a new form of ‘cakeism’ that has characterised the Brexit project from the beginning.
Some had hoped that a large majority would embolden the new government to abandon that cautious approach to Brexit to quickly deliver on the economic growth promise. Yet, so far, it would seem that Starmer will continue down the path of caution. This was most strikingly and puzzlingly illustrated by him turning down a youth mobility scheme with Spain.
At the same time, while publicly holding his red lines, Starmer’s government has included a bill in its legislative programme – the Product Safety and Metrology Bill – that paves the way for tracking EU regulations when it comes to safety standards and the like. This is expected to facilitate the promised agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS), which are responsible for much of the Brexit border red tape, and could constitute a step towards dynamic alignment with EU legislation. This, in turn, seems to be an all but inevitable step if the government is serious about removing much of the trade barriers imposed by hard Brexit.
The problem, of course, is that it is done in a stealthy way and therefore immediately leads to cries of ‘Brexit betrayal’ in the far-right press.
This seems to be the inevitable result of Starmer’s EU strategy: by reaffirming the red lines imposed by the Brexiter side, any attempt to remedy the damage Brexit continues to do to the country on a daily basis can only be undertaken underhand and in the hope of not being noticed by the public. That puts the PM in a situation where he almost has to apologise for trying to fix the Brexit mess.
A much more promising strategy – albeit in the short term more controversial one – would be to impose a new narrative on Brexit. A narrative that acknowledges that Brexit is a problem that needs fixing not an achievement that needs safeguarding. Of course, that would be water onto the mills of the far-right press and Brexiter discourse of scheming and lying elites. However, if remedying Brexit damage helps with improving the economy and people’s living standards and given that all polls since 2016 show waning support for Brexit, Brexiter whining will hardly matter anymore in five years’ time.
Conversely, as the Private Eye has pointed out in its characteristically pointed way, Reeves’ alarmist outcry about the alleged £22bn hole in the public purse is hard to take seriously when at the same time the government does not seem to feel any urgency to fix the £40bn price tag some estimates attach to Brexit.
More generally, it would be incomprehensible for a government that desperately wants economic growth to forgo one of the surest ways of boosting GDP and investment by simply reclaiming some or all of the growth lost to Brexit, which conservative estimates place at around 2-3% of GDP.
That is not a call for starting a process to rejoin the EU. That would be pre-mature. As Chris Grey argued convincingly a couple of weeks ago week, the incentives for the EU to engaging in such a process right now are minimal. There would of course be some political capital to be gained for the EU by showing to other countries that exiting the EU may not be such a good idea. But that lesson has probably already been learned by most Eurosceptic parties. So, the drawbacks for the EU of engaging with the UK on rejoining probably outweigh the incentives to do so. Most importantly, Brexiters – while deprived of direct governmental power – are already promising to sabotage any attempts to undo Brexit, which for the EU creates uncertainty about what might happen after the next GE.
So, the first step to a more productive and ultimately closer relationship with the EU needs to be to comprehensively defeat Brexitism and Brexiters in order to create certainty about the UK’s intentions. Making Brexitism once again the ideology of far-right ‘fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists’ rather than a respectable policy programme is a pre-condition for a permanently improved relationship with the EU. Here the race riots may present a silver lining.
The dropping of the mask and a brighter future
The incredibly sad and tragic stabbing of children in Southport and the appalling far-right racist riots that followed – as awful as they are, have one political benefit: They have unmasked the far-right. The closet racists are out of the closet. And Farage and other far-right figures find it hard to disown the violence which is so clearly inspired by their hate-mongering. When the rioting racists in the streets of UK towns and cities chant the same slogan Prime Minister Sunak had on his lectern a few weeks ago, it is hard to claim you have nothing to do with it. When racists rioters chant your name alongside that of Tommy Robinson; and when the targets of their hatred are the same as the ones you have been stocking hatred against for years – including hotels housing refugees and offices of what the conservatives have called ‘lefty lawyers’ – few people will find it plausible that it is not your fault. As a result, despite Farage’s remonstrations against the moniker ‘Farage riots,’ the British people see the link, and it has affected Farage’s popularity among all but the most extreme voter groups.
This provides Labour with the opportunity to drive home the point that far-right political rhetoric has real-world consequences and needs to be resolutely challenged and defeated, not accommodated. If Labour’s spin doctors are smart about the aftermath of the riots, this will open a space to turn the tide on far-right rhetoric like we have not seen it in this country at least since 2015.
If Labour grabs that opportunity, then perhaps in five years’ time Britain may become a model of liberal democratic resilience that other Western countries envy. Not because Brexit worked, but because the damage it did to the country forces those who oppose it to be serious about proposing an alternative. That would be a wonderful Brexit benefit.
Note: When I started this blog, my motivation was to keep track of what the right-wing populist project does to the country, its economy, and its society. With the electoral defeat of the Tory party, we are now entering a new phase of Brexit. It can be expected that Brexit-related issues – while remaining controversial – will be treated more as issues subject to the ‘quiet politics’ of substantive and technical negotiations rather than as the basis for ‘noisy’ electoral politics. Now that Brexit is likely to move into a more technical direction, I am not sure I am the best person to comment on these issues. Partly that is due to workload and family commitments, which prevent me from spending enough time reading up on all the technical developments and have already led to my posts becoming less frequent. But beyond that there are other sources – such as the excellent UK in a Changing Europe centre, the Centre for European Reform, Chris Grey’s Brexit & Beyond blog, and Paul Adamson’s Encompass Europe – where experts analyse the technical details of the UK-EU relationship in a much more expert way than I ever could. Therefore, I have decided to make the Brexit Impact Tracker an occasional blog for the time being. I will comment on events and developments that speak to my expertise in the area of the political economy of populism rather than trying – in vain – to keep up on a weekly or fortnightly basis with all the technical developments. I do hope regular readers of this blog will continue following it even though posts will now ‘officially’ be less frequent.