Trump’s Victory: ‘The British Left Has Been Warned of a Far-Right Future’

The warning signs keep coming, and yet – the mainstream left keep ignoring them. From Thatcher to Brexit, Trump and Boris Johnson, and now tragically and alarmingly: back to Trump.  

A more radical left attempted to find its voice against this right-wing populist tide here in the UK as Corbynism, in the United States through Bernie Sanders, and across Europe in various formations such as Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, the Alternative in Denmark, and the SNP in Scotland.

They failed to make a breakthrough, not because they didn’t have some of the right economic policies, but because none of them embraced a new politics of deep democracy and genuine participation. Perhaps there is hope in the shape of the new Popular Front in France, that a marriage of convenience can blossom into a coherent and systematic force for change. Let’s hope.

Meanwhile, the ‘centrist dad’ politics in the UK holds sway and reassures us that the grown-ups are back in charge. The Government’s recent Budget felt like a distinctly Labour affair in terms of its investment in public services paid for through tax increases.

But compare and contrast the rapid economic growth experience post-COVID in the US under Joe Biden and his comparatively radical investments in people and places via initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, with what just happened last night as America turned its back on these real advances and re-embraced Trumpism.

The Identity Trap: Race, Representation and the Rise of Conservative Diversity

Rishi Sunak is in the running to be Britain’s first prime minister of colour – but the debate around whether this will be a good thing for ethnic minorities has laid bare conflicting ideas about the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’, writes Hardeep Matharu

Hardeep Matharu

Back in the UK, despite the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that this Parliament will see the second-worst ever rise in household income levels and that there will be almost zero growth in the economy as a whole. While money for the NHS is welcome, the lack of funding and investment in local government is concerning – because local areas are the places where resilience to the rise of the far-right needs to be embedded.

Some on the left have cheered as the Conservatives have veered further to the right, believing that this leaves more space for Labour to move into. But without a vision, a plan, and organisation to act as a countervailing force, it is more likely that politics as a whole will shift relentlessly and remorselessly to the right. Farage and Reform set the anti-immigration and anti-politics agenda, the Conservatives follow them, and then Labour brings up the rear.  

In July, Labour showed that it can win, but only when enough default Conservatives are prepared to give the party a temporary stint in office on the basis of a small target promise not to change anything; that would not pull the country in a much more egalitarian and democratic direction. Labour proved that it can win without a progressive alliance, but only at the cost of junking the progressive policies the country needs.

And the alternative, which is to recognise the latent progressive majority that exists in Britain, to work across the progressive political parties to mobilise that majority, and win on a progressive mandate is rejected out of factional self-interest and tribalism. 

It is the issue of democracy that is really at play here. Neither the Democrats in the US nor Keir Starmer’s Labour seem to have anything to say about reform of our out-of-date and corrupt electoral system, and in the UK our massively over-centralised state. Both parties cling to the illusion that simply electing well-meaning political leaders will be enough to stop the far-right tide. They do not understand that the idea of ‘command and control’ from the centre is simply finished. 

We need a revolution in the way politics and democracy works.

This starts with an electoral system of proportional representation as the means to break the stranglehold of the media barons, millionaire and billionaire party donors, and a few swing voters in a few swing seats who determine every electoral outcome under first-past-the-post.

Then we have to really devolve power and money, and experiment everywhere with new forms of participatory democracy such as citizens’ assemblies.  We have to show we trust the people. 

This needs to be a revolution, not just of policy, but of behaviour and culture. 

Everywhere across our country, companies, organisations, and communities are practising this new politics, working out how to survive and thrive in a world of dizzying economic climate and technological change. They are negotiating a better future, not just trying to impose it. Our national politics has to catch up, support, and facilitate these emerging forces for good.  

We have been warned. The future is already starting to belong to the far-right. Unless we change quickly, the space for an alternative will be lost for good. 

Neal Lawson is the director of the cross-party campaign group Compass