In far too many cases, 'anti-populist' means anti-democrat
Well, are you too a sufferer? And how bad is the condition? Let us share our experience, because that must help. Yes, I must tell you, I suffer also from false consciousness.
There, I have said it, and it is a relief. And, of course, as fellow sufferers know, there are all-too-many who will help us understand our plight and rush to diagnose a cure. They have the clarity of self-endowed moral certainty and a vigour born of a conviction of superiority over the massed folly of the electorate, us. Their approach is that of Reginald Bunthorne as much as Karl Marx, and if neither might have appreciated the comparison that does not make it less apt. Walking down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in his medieval hand, Reginald in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience (1881) had no time for the jostling ‘Philistines’ and was committed to declaring crude and mean ‘Whatever’s fresh and new.’
His dislike of the new age of mass democracy was shared widely, the Marquess of Salisbury dismissing the Daily Mail as ‘a newspaper produced by office boys for office boys,’ but it was this grounding of British society and government in a popular culture and politics that helped give it resilience in the face of the terrible challenges of the first half of the twentieth century. This was no longer a political system that wanted, almost as a matter of course, to read the Riot Act or send in the Yeomanry. Instead, the appreciation of what was seen, however, problematically on occasion, as an organic development from Anglo-Saxon witans via medieval Parliaments to the Reformation and the overthrow of the Stuarts, should, it was argued, be taken forward from the Revolution Settlement that had followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 to a new age and different age of liberty. This achievement was based on an understanding of rights and duties, and on a sense of identity and identification with country and nation.
Critics could point to compromises and flaws, could call the identification populist and cheap patriotism, and could focus on what Marxists termed a false consciousness in the shape of not understanding true interests. These interests, instead, were presented by whatever the anti-populists advocated, and they derived added energy from their contempt for popular views. Moreover, there was anxiety among the critics of populists that others could lead the foolish people, others that had to be contested. This helps explain left-wing sectarianism, notably repeated Communist hostility to others on the Left, hostility that rapidly became murderous in Russia in 1917.
Leave aside for a moment the point that anti-populist often, far, far too often, means anti-democrat, or democrat on terms. That is readily apparent. Look, most obviously, at much of the criticism of the Leave-voting majority in the 2016 referendum.
Think instead about how populism became seen as a crucial part of a social contract from the nineteenth century. It appeared necessary to governments, British and foreign, anxiously seeking to avoid a repetition of the radicalism associated with the French Revolution, as well as to provide a return for the duty of military service, and as a corollary to the extension by states of universal education. In Britain, this social contract was that of an extended franchise both, as an expression of confidence in the public and as a means to restrain the risks of popular radicalism. There was, of course, criticism and opposition, notably to extending the vote to all men and to women. Yet, both Conservative and Liberal governments took a key role in the process.
In turn, differing groups criticised the rapid extension of the franchise. Moreover, it was frequent in these circumstances to attack opponents for misleading the public. That, however, neither makes the charge correct nor leads us, with the easy judgments of hindsight, necessarily to criticise this extension and the resulting changes. Thus, in its leader of 6 January 1912, Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post vigorously attacked the Liberal government:
‘In all probability, future historians will arrive at the conclusion that the revolutionary schemes of the existing Liberal regime were carried through largely because the nation failed to realise fully their import and tendency. By the sheer weight of words, unctuousness of persuasion, and protestations of honest motives, the present ministry have undoubtedly deluded a sufficient proportion of the public to permit of their pushing through such things as the ‘great’ Budget, the Licensing Act, the Parliament Act, and the National Insurance Act.’
Today, we might see such arguments in 1912 differently. And how will those anti-democratic arguments today be seen a century hence?
The world wars drove forward the process of democratisation, not least in overcoming former opposition to women gaining the vote. There were arguments that social welfare was the just reward of the working class. There were linked attempts to win the working class from Communism, attempts linked not only to social welfarism, but also to comparable policies elsewhere, including Christian Democratic movements in Continental Europe.
Looking toward current disagreements, these and other measures were populist in that their rationale rested on representations of popular, particularly working-class, interests. Ironically, they were not populist in practice, in that many popular views were ignored, although generally implicitly rather than, as with current criticism of referenda, explicitly. This was particularly so of popular concerns about immigration, social and cultural radicalism, and crime. This anti-populist nature, very much seen for example with Roy Jenkins’ social policies, tended to be downplayed. However, it was a central part of the practice of government and, frequently, of systems of checks and balances, or what were presented as thus.
The contempt, as well as criticism, shown for popular views is longstanding, but they are not only condescending and anti-democratic, but also confused. Is populism just any popular movement or what the beholders dislike? Is it ‘good’ in the case of Macron, Corbyn or Sanders or ‘bad’ in those of their opponents? Dr Johnson captured this when he lanced the hypocrisy of American rebels: ‘How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?’ Maybe we should gloss that for today as ‘how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for democracy among those who distrust their fellow voters?’ Why do some of those who pressed for proportional representation show such hostility to referenda and, instead, a confidence in an unreformed Parliament with grossly unequal constituency voter sizes and a ridiculous House of Lords? Why support a lower voting age and oppose referenda? In referenda, literally every vote counts. It is no longer a case of ‘hopeless’ constituencies where the minority is repeatedly disenfranchised. Instead, every vote counts, male or female, old or young, black or white, Christian or not; people whatever their economic, social or ethnic background. That surely is a true democracy. It might be unpredictable. It certainly alarms some commentators, but that was how the popular vote was understood from the outset.
Is populism the modern opiate for the masses or the legitimate expression of the views of substantial sections of a democratic electorate, and not least if these views are being slighted? Underlying the confusion in the treatment of the majority for Brexit – democratic legitimacy through the constitutional means of a parliamentary-approved referendum, or unwelcome ‘populism,’ is a lack of commitment to democracy in the shape of one person one vote.
Linked to this is the other core element of democracy, the acceptance of the legitimacy of opposing points of view. That appears to be under challenge in the current debate. It may be too simple to link Remainer criticism to a non-, even anti-, democratic ethos in the structures and philosophy of the EU, but that element certainly appears present. In Britain, there has been an emphasis on the downward flow of rights and responsibilities, whereas in the EU the emphasis has been on what are allowed as ‘freedoms.’ It is as if the most recent freedom is that from having to make decisions about how Europe is governed and by whom.
Important as the political calculations of the moment are, far more is involved. There is the strong intellectual habit of treating whatever one likes as the supposed zeitgeist or spirit of the age, and thus to marginalise the views of others. This approach in practice subordinates humans to an apparently immutable pattern of ‘should-be’ development. To do robs time of contingency and humans of free-action and, with it, thought, intention, evaluation and free-action.
The nation as an open community of free individuals is inherently a changing entity, because the freedom to choose is the freedom to change. That includes constitutional change. This was opposed in the nineteenth century on the grounds that only the elites could provide the correct conclusion and is (selectively) opposed today. A referendum that produces the desired response on moral questions in Ireland is to be applauded, but not one that leads to the result that is not wanted. This is indeed troubling. It takes us back to Oliver Cromwell’s godly republic of the saved in the 1650s with its banning of the maypoles and its hostile treatment of Christmas. ‘Saving’ people against their will. Not an attractive outcome but the product of an authoritarian assumption that the public needs correcting.
Jeremy Black’s most recent book is Britain and Europe. A Short History (Hurst, 2019).