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Iain Overton’s analysis of Hansard reveals a worrying shift of political rhetoric in Britain in the last decade
How can we trace the political shifts – often gradual and imperceptible – that happen in a State? How can we, caught by the weight of the present, understand how political rhetoric and debate in Britain has changed over time? And how can we track the rise of populism and nationalism in our beleaguered Isle?
It is no easy task. But perhaps the first place to start is an examination of keywords, and the frequency of those words, used in British politics. It would be interesting to chart the rise and fall of specific, loaded words under the shifting right-wing ideological leadership of the last 10 years, and in particular during a period marked by the threads of Brexit, rising nationalism and populism that have so defined our age.
Fortunately, such a thing is possible. The University of Huddersfield has launched a searchable database that allows you to explore the official reports of what has been said in the House of Commons between 1803-2019. It is a fascinating tool and you can lose hours looking at how phrases and words have risen and declined in popularity over the political decades.
But what do these words tell us of the way this Parliament, and the Conservative-led governments that have dominated British life since 2010, have moulded the narratives of power? And how such political cultures have, in turn, moulded British life?
As someone often asked if I came up with the ‘Overton window’ – a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time, and how politicians generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society – how political language has shifted in recent years is frequently something I’ve been made aware of. For if the ‘Overton window’ in UK politics shows a shift to the right, what might once have been considered ‘extreme’ can now become merely ‘to the right’ of a centre that has moved across.
So can Hansard at Huddersfield help us understand if, indeed, there has been a shift to the right?
Perhaps inspiration to answer that question comes from the late novelist and historian Umberto Eco, a man raised in the thick of Italian fascism and who emerged the other side as a humane and insightful critic of the dangers of populism.
“There was only one Nazism,” he wrote in an article on Ur-Fascism in the New York Review of Books in 1995. But, he observed, “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.”
To try to understand the chameleon-like nature of fascism, he set out to distil what he called ‘Ur-Fascism’, or ‘Eternal Fascism’, to its key and unbending features, which were later summed up by blogger Jason Kottke.
His is a guide that could assist us in seeing if a language of ‘Ur-Fascism’ has infiltrated our political debate. Because, by taking key words that sum up Eco’s ‘defining features’ and noting if their use has increased or decreased in the last 10 years in Westminster, we might see if the ‘Overton window’ has – linguistically and culturally – shifted closer to what Eco’s definition of ‘Ur-fascism’.
The Cult of Tradition
First, Eco saw ‘Ur-Fascism’ as inherently aligned with the notion of tradition. He noted “one has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers.” So, to what degree has a desire to revisit the past been seen recently in Parliament?
Since the Tories took power in 2010, perhaps those two quintessential icons of Britishness – Albion and, to a lesser extent, Britannia – have both made a pre-Brexit come-back.
The utterance of ‘Great Britain’ in the House has also almost quadrupled in that time.
The Rejection of Modernism
The next signifier of ‘Ur-Fascism’ is how the modern is rejected by the far-right.
“The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason,” Eco wrote, “is seen as the beginning of modern depravity.” And, aside from Michael Gove’s dismissal that “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts”, it seems that – of late – the appetite for reform (the hallmark of modernism) is most noticeable for its declining absence in Parliamentary debate.
The Cult of Action For Action’s Sake
‘Ur-fascism’, Eco noted, is also a dynamic force.
“Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection,” he wrote.
Since 2010 there has been certainly a drive by the Conservative Party to be the party of ‘doing’. ‘Action’ has become a repeated buzzword since they took office, only dropping off in 2017 before witnessing a pre-Brexit resurgence.
Disagreement is Treason
Apart from Daily Mail headlines denouncing High Court judges as ‘Enemies of the People’, treason has also become an increasing phrase that slips from the mouths of Conservative MPs.
Eco would have worried about this. As he said: “the critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.” Any dissent of traditionalism is, therefore, elevated to the rank of treason, as the rising popularity of the word in the House shows.
