Populism: a response to two-tier rule?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Despite constant reassurances from international commentators that the ‘grown ups are now back in charge’, populist sentiment continues to assert itself throughout Europe. Populist parties have made serious headway, whether in the European elections, the rise of France’s RN or the election of five Reform UK MPs in the UK (despite the first-past-the-post voting system). There have been large and widespread farmers’ protests against the consequences of Net Zero targets and demonstrations on the streets against illegal migration in too many countries to mention. This all suggests that populist discontent is by no means quelled.

What’s more, some argue that hostile responses from those who run society could stir up further populist feeling. Rather than pausing to ask why so many millions of citizens are revolting, sometimes even rioting, elites seem wedded to doubling down on existing policies. Instead of changing course, politicians across the spectrum determinedly pursue strategies designed to correct the behaviour of the people who voted the ‘wrong way’ or won’t get in line, to destroy expressions of populism in all its manifestations.

In frustration at an inability to defeat populism either electorally or by political persuasion, some worry about policies that could lead to even greater polarisation. A worrying ‘Us versus Them’ narrative is becoming the norm, and with it, two-tier governance. There seems a concerted effort to manufacture consensus around metropolitan opinion as being ‘on the right side of history’. Anyone not signed up to this consensus is ‘the other’, an enemy within, an idea targeting largely working-class people who, it is alleged, have been radicalised by wrong-think.

The ideological demonisation of populism is expressed in increasingly politicised and toxic language wars. Certain opinions or outlooks – from the blandest expressions of national patriotism to hostility to non-consensual mass immigration, from worries about a lack of integration by certain migrant groups to fear of Islamism – are being routinely dubbed hateful, and in turn conflated with speech that incites violence. Labelled as far-right, even neo-Nazi, accused of whipping up bigotry and racism, populism is being consciously associated with the malignant authoritarianism of the 1930s – and deemed unacceptable in mainstream public life.

This is mirrored by a new tactic: quarantining dissent – attempts at insulating a supposedly healthy political population from being infected with the dangerous disease of populism. Former spin doctor Alastair Campbell complained in 2019 that ‘what we have at the moment is a populist virus’. Within the EU, such an approach has been institutionalised. Mainstream centrist and leftish political parties have recently agreed to shut out the Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations party fractions in the European Parliament, which will prevent any of these populist groupings’ MEPs from gaining any influence over the running of institutions or committees in the EU.

Will fear of being socially isolated deflate the present populist dynamism? In the long term, can the mere invocation of the threat of the far-right really discredit populist political parties or quell the concerns that have driven them forward? As citizens increasingly start to see through the narrative that seeks to demonise their aspirations, does this drive a greater wedge between the state and the people? How will new political ideas – so crucial for any political project of transformative change – emerge, if the establishment remains so rigid, tone-deaf and hostile in the face of bottom-up dissatisfaction with the status quo?

SPEAKERS
Sabine Beppler-Spahl
chair, Freiblickinstitut e.V; CEO, Sprachkunst36; Germany correspondent, spiked

Thomas Fazi
journalist and writer; author, Reclaiming the State: A progressive vision of sovereignty for a post-neoliberal world; columnist, UnHerd; contributing editor, Compact

Dr Roslyn Fuller
managing director, Solonian Democracy Institute; author, In Defence of Democracy

Winston Marshall
political commentator; musician; host, The Winston Marshall Show

Bruno Waterfield
Brussels correspondent, The Times

CHAIR
Claire Fox
director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!