Popularity Contests (2019)

Book Review from the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘National Populism: the Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’. By Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin (Penguin £9.99)

‘National populism,’ the authors tell us, ‘is an ideology which prioritizes the culture and interests of the nation, and which promises to give voice to a people who feel that they have been neglected, even held in contempt, by distant and often corrupt elites.’ The word ‘national’ is added to distinguish it from left-wing populism, as seen in Podemos in Spain and Bernie Sanders in the US. (For a socialist take on populism, see the March 2018 Socialist Standard.)

The book is, however, not mainly concerned with the views of populist politicians, and certainly not with how they fare when in government. Rather, it emphasises the characteristics and opinions of those who support them. The authors have little difficulty in showing that national populism is not backed solely by the poor and the unemployed, or by angry old white men. Many people under forty support populists, but one significant point is that people without university degrees are more likely to vote for populist candidates (Trump, for instance).

The reasons why increasing numbers side with national populist candidates are said to include distrust of politicians and other elites (who are rich and had expensive educations) and the weakening of links to mainstream parties, which also lies behind the growth of the Greens and parties like the SNP. The increase in inequality over recent decades is also seen as a major factor, with a feeling of relative deprivation giving rise to political action.

But what marks national populism out from the less successful left-wing populism is its attitude to immigration and what Eatwell and Goodwin call ‘hyper ethnic change’. This is where national populists really tap into many people’s concerns that their way of life is undermined by large-scale immigration, especially of Muslims. And here the book becomes rather unpleasant: racism is defined in narrow terms (so discrimination is not in itself racist), and is contrasted with xenophobia, ‘a distrust and rejection of that which is perceived to be foreign and threatening’. Blatant racism is said to be less successful than appeals to culture and values, yet national populists accept ‘the critical importance of ethnic ancestry’ and want to ‘stem the dwindling size of their group [and] advance its interests’. This is just a euphemism for white people wanting to discriminate against non-whites, or general discrimination against those from abroad.

The authors accept that national populism has a dark side, on which they say very little, but also maintain that it raises ‘uncomfortable but legitimate issues’. However, they do not clarify who counts as a national populist, and, for instance, say little about Latin American populists. Many writers would regard Recep Erdoğan in Turkey as a populist politician, but here he is seen as part of a Muslim plot, arguing that Turkish families in Europe should have lots of children. His repressive rule can therefore be overlooked, as is that of the uncontroversially populist Viktor Orbán in Hungary, where a law was recently passed increasing the amount of overtime that employers can demand from workers.

Above all the book provides no evidence whatever that populist leaders can in any way deliver on their promises. They have allegedly ‘set out an alternative to the status quo’, by which is meant higher pay and more infrastructure projects. This is no alternative at all, for populism, national or otherwise, accepts the existence of capitalism and its elite – the capitalist class – and combines this with intolerant and authoritarian policies.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: The vote and its misuse (2018)

Editorial from the December 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The general election in Britain a hundred years ago this month was significant in a number of ways.

It was the first election to the House of Commons in which some (most but not all) women were allowed to vote and stand as a candidate. It was also the first parliamentary election in which all men had the vote, the belated achievement of the Chartist aim set out in 1838. In the war that had just ended, now presented as a war to preserve democracy, there was the ironic situation of soldiers supposedly fighting for this who didn’t have the vote (at least a third of them) lobbing shells at soldiers on the other side who did. But then, as we explained in last month’s editorial, the war was not about democracy but about conflicting imperialist aims.

Only one woman was elected – Constance Markievicz – but as she was a Sinn Feiner she did not take up her seat at Westminster but met with the other Sinn Fein MPs in Dublin in January 1919 to proclaim themselves the parliament of the Irish Republic (to be marked in Ireland by patriotic centenary celebrations next month). The IRA claimed legitimacy for its various bombing campaigns over the years on the basis that it had a mandate from the Sinn Fein MPs elected to the British Parliament in 1918, preposterously even up to eighty years later. To this day Sinn Fein MPs refuse to take their seats at Westminster as this would involve taking an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. That’s their choice though we have always said that this farcical act should not prevent a socialist MP taking their seat.

The result of the election was a landslide victory (outside Ireland) for supporters of the war-time Coalition led by Lloyd George, which the Socialist Standard of the time described as an ‘imperialist victory’. An election in France in November 1919 was to produce a similar result with a decisive victory for the war-time government – the Union sacrée – under Clemenceau. Even in Germany in elections in January 1919, with an 83 percent turnout only 5 percent voted for the breakaway Independent Social Democrats, the only party to employ an anti-capitalist rhetoric. Women there, too, were able to vote for the first time but most voted for the conservative Catholic and Protestant parties.

So Lenin was clearly (unfortunately) wrong in proclaiming that an epoch of world revolution had opened up after the end of the World War, his justification for the Bolsheviks seizing power in the name of socialism in a country that had none of its preconditions. But at least he recognised that socialism had to be world-wide.

The other lesson is that the vote is a weapon and like all weapons can be misused as well as used properly. In 1918 and 1919 workers in Europe, not to mention the United States, misused the vote to continue with capitalism and in Britain and France to return war-mongers to power. The Chartist pioneers must have been turning in their graves. In view of how the vote has been used since they still will be.

Editorial: Foolish Protest (2014)

Editorial from the November 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

So UKIP have won their first MP, Douglas Carswell, ex-Tory, currency crank and free-marketeer who wants to bash those on benefits even more. Quite how UKIP feel this can appeal to Labour voters is unclear. From a policy point of view, UKIP are still Tories,  an external faction of the Tory party, financed by jumped-up, opinionated businessmen who think they can buy themselves into politics.

The trouble is that people don’t always think rationally when it comes to protest votes. In this instance they are voting against something –the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem Westminster politicians – not for anything. UKIP voters won’t be interested in anything beyond the party’s anti-foreigner stance and don’t know or couldn’t care less what else it says it stands for. Nor would they expect UKIP to carry out its promises if they got into power any more than they expect the other parties to.

There have been protest parties before that have done well at by-elections. That’s what the Liberals used to be in the 60s and 70s, and then there was the SDP in the 80s. They attracted people who were put off by the Punch and Judy show between the Tories representing big business and Labour perceived as representing the trade unions, which they saw as reflecting the industrial disputes of the time. The Liberals were a pretty pointless lot but you could hardly describe them as nasty. In fact, in some ways they espoused some decent values such as tolerance.

It’s different today. Times are harsher and the protest vote is going to a nasty party. In periods of economic downturn people turn more easily to this kind of party. Nationalist, protectionist and anti-foreigner views flourish when people, who already mistakenly consider themselves to be a nation,  feel economically insecure. They tend to turn to the ‘nation-state’ to protect them from world market pressures and the competition of other states.

Panic-stricken, the Tories, who stand most to lose from the UKIP protest vote, are trying to compete with UKIP in the anti-immigration and anti-EU stakes. As far as the dominant section of the British capitalist class is concerned, this is a dangerous game. They don’t want to withdraw from the vast, single European market, nor to be excluded from taking part in decisions about it. And they see more advantages than disadvantages in the free movement of EU labour. They would be appalled if their favourite party, the Tories, in pursuit of the personal ambitions of its MPs and would-be MPs, manoeuvres itself into a position where they have to campaign for an Out vote in an In/Out  EU referendum.

People are right to be discontented and to protest about their situation, but they need to be more discerning and choose the right target. It’s not the Westminster politicians, nor the Brussels bureaucracy, nor the East European migrants who are to blame for their plight. It’s the world-wide capitalist system of production for profit. That’s what they should target. But protesting against it and its effects is not enough. They need to go beyond this and organise politically to bring the whole system to an end and replace it by one in which the resources of the Earth have become the common heritage of all humanity and used to improve the lot of people everywhere.