Law and Disorder
Law and Disorder
The new government's response to far-right violence has to acknowledge underlying causes
Thankfully, the violent disorder that has scarred many of Britain’s towns and cities since the heinous murder of thee young girls in Southport, appears to have run it’s course. Politicians may claim it was the threat of swift justice that persuaded the racist thugs off the streets. In reality it was bravery and determination of huge numbers of counter protesters on Wednesday evening that put this tiny minority of bullies and cowards firmly back in their box, at least for now.
It’s entirely correct that these despicable, ignorant individuals are punished for their crimes. Rioting and looting are not political acts. Thugs have long attached themselves to political causes as an excuse to act on their violent impulses. In 1990 it was the poll tax, and in 2011 a reaction to the unnecessary and likely racist killing by police of a petty criminal. The fact that the current disorder originates in the twisted minds of the racist far right, rather than from anti-establishment sentiment, matters not as far the law is concerned. The rule of law is a crucial pillar of democracy and must be upheld.
But the rule of law alone cannot protect democracy. While Elon Musk’s moronic suggestion that ‘Civil War is inevitable’ in Britain was so far wide of the mark to be laughable, democracy is currently under greater threat than at any time since 1945. This notwithstanding the recent elections in the UK and France, where millions of decent, reasonable people cooperated to ensure the far right was kept at bay.
The UK government’s response to the violent disorder must go further than simply ensuring the justice system is fit for purpose. We are at a crucial juncture in the development of our civilization, and it will not survive this assault unless we understand why it is happening. If we are to avoid the slow slide to authoritarianism, the government, indeed all governments, must acknowledge and respond to the underlying causes of current unrest:
economic disenfranchisement and the perception of economic injustice
the psychopathology of influential individuals acting as thought-leaders and rabble rousers
the effect of social media in warping people’s world view and encouraging divisive and polarising group think
the failure of the established mass media to present a balanced world view
the impact of politicians, through their statements and behaviour, giving licence to ordinary people to express views they would previously have kept hidden
Let’s tackle each of these in turn, beginning with economic injustice:
Common sense, as well as historical evidence, tell us that society works best when most people feel that everyone has a fair chance in life, especially in respect of securing their essential material needs. Over the last four decades, and especially since the 2008 financial crisis, increasing numbers have a sense that society is becoming less fair. Whereas their parents could be reasonably confident of doing better than the previous generation, this has ceased to be the case. As people struggle to pay the rent and heat their homes, this feeling is compounded by their being unable to escape conspicuous displays of obscene wealth by a small minority.
A pervading sense of accelerating economic injustice isn’t enough, on its own, to bring society to its knees, but it does provide fertile ground in which people like Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Elon Musk and Nigel Farage can plant their divisive ideas.
Which brings us to the pyschopathology of influential individuals. I’m not suggesting that any of the above four named are psychopaths clinically speaking, though there is considerable evidence for a much higher rate of psychopathy among CEOs that among the general population. As neuroscientist Tara Swart says in this fascinating Forbes article by Jack McCullough:
‘psychopaths or people with psychopathic traits, thrive in chaos and know that others don’t, so they will often create chaos at work for this reason’
Sound familiar? And if such behaviour causes harm in the business world, it has far greater consequences in politics: think Boris Johnson.
It’s difficult to see to any ideological motivation for the behaviour of such people. They are driven entirely by their own egos, and by their warped world view. The failure of the far-right politicians who took over the Conservative Party towards the end of its time in government, to articulate any kind of vision for the future is evidence of this. But they are nonetheless able to exploit widely felt discontent at the ballot box. Look at the number of red wall seats that went Conservative at the 2019 election. And take Brexit: it only happened because large numbers of people at the sharp end of the failure of the UK economy to provide enough decently paid work, were encouraged to believe the EU was entirely responsible.
When you add in the impact of social media, once heralded as a tool for improving democracy, but instead hijacked by people whose extreme ideas would never previously have found a public platform, then it’s easy to see how a crazy idea like leaving the EU can, in the space of six short years, go from a fringe fetish to the subject of a referendum in which it achieved majority approval.
But it’s not just social media that enabled Brexit, nor the polarising opinions of people like Farage and Johnson. In Britain, large parts of the mainstream press, most notably the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, moved rightwards in lockstep with an ugly cabal of right-wing politicians. In the end of course, they ran out of road. You can only pull the wool over the eyes of poorly informed citizens for so long. As soon as the reality of Brexit kicked in; as soon as it became clear that there was no new money for the NHS, or that unshackled from the constraints of EU membership, the UK economy was, in fact, even less well placed to race ahead and provide thousands of new, well paid jobs, people lost faith and made their feelings clear at the ballot box on 4th July.
The BBC must also share some of the responsibility here. In it’s relentless pursuit of ‘balance’, it gave massively disproportionate air time to Nigel Farage. Had he not appeared on the Question Time 36 times (only Labour’s Clare Short has more appearances) he would not be an MP today, nor would his Reform party have achieved anywhere near 14.3 per cent of the vote in the general election.
Finally, there’s the question of racists and xenophobes being given licence to express their unsavoury views, views which previously they would have kept under wraps. We know that lots of ignorant, ill-informed people hold racist views. We also know such opinions are held by a fair number of well-informed, well-educated and successful people who should know better (see psychopathy above). But over the last few years, aided by social media, such opinions have been legitimised in their use by senior politicians. If such people can get away with the use of racist slurs (and both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump have employed them frequently and deliberately) then ordinary people are going to feel empowered to express similar opinions, and in some cases commit acts of violence, often targetting mosques, minority-owned businesses and Jewish cemeteries.
We mustn’t be shy about calling out this politics for what it is: it is the politics of racism. It is the politics of blaming ‘others’ for our own failings as a nation. Whether it be anti-Semitism from the left, or Islamophobia from the right, the idea that Britain would be better off by returning to some mythical, ethnically pure, golden age is utterly delusional. But it’s a story that works when used by deranged individuals whose only motivation is power and revenge, to further their own interests. This is why it’s so important for those of us who despise racism, who see this ‘othering’ for what it is, and who celebrate the ease with which dozens of different cultures live happily cheek by jowl in my home town of London, have to tell a better story.
We must also be honest about just how short a series of steps it is from an economy that fails to deliver opportunities for ordinary people; to Brexit; to the crazy ideas of Liz Truss, Suella Braverman and their ilk; into the territory of authoritarian government; and ultimately to full blown fascism. History shows us how quickly it can happen, and how difficult and costly it is to overthrow once it becomes established.
Of course, there’s never any smoke without fire. To a large extent, the conditions that enable these dreadful individuals to achieve power have been unwittingly created by decent and reasonable people: politicians, commentators, economists and business leaders who have failed to question our direction of economic travel, or propose a change of course.
The one complaint that unites the likes of Trump, Farage and other so-called populists is their professed hatred of elites. It is the elites who have brought the world to this sorry state, they argue. It is the establishment which cannot be trusted to supervise the economy so that ordinary working people get a fair share of the cake. Again, it’s a story that contains a sufficiently large grain of truth to gain traction among the ill-informed.
Each of these unpleasant individuals has, of course, benefitted massively from membership of the elites they now claim to despise. And invariably, the policies they propose (when they bother to propose any at all) prescribe more of the same: smaller government, less regulation, the privatisation of remaining state assets; greater freedom for employers to hire and fire; all the things that have created today’s vastly unequal society, the bottom tier of which now provides them with much of their electoral support.
Economic disenfranchisement is a key factor in the disillusionment that drives many people to elect politicians of the far-right. Economic injustice is deeply felt by increasing numbers of people in the rich world. This is a result of our having settled on an economic system which, rather than including everyone in a dynamic economy and rewarding them properly for their contribution, instead facilitates a flow of wealth and wellbeing from the least well-off to the most. There is no solution in more of the same free market hyper-capitalism. Nor is there a solution in a return to the political economy of the post-war period, when the only way to kickstart a moribund economy was for the state to replace many functions of the market. And there is certainly no answer in nations putting up barriers to trade and turning in on themselves.
But there is an alternative, one which I’ve already started to flesh out on this substack, and will continue to do so in the following months and (probably) years. But it’s an alternative that depends on more people taking a conscious decision about what kind of world they want to live in. We have a choice: we can choose freedom, an inclusive economy, and a sustainable future based on international cooperation; or we can try to make the best of current arrangements, carry on destroying the capacity of the planet to support life, and struggle on suspicious of the intentions of our competitors on the world stage. The first option offers hope; the second will set us firmly on the path to fascism.