First published by Common Weal
I fear that nothing at all has been learned by those engaged in ‘politics as usual’, even though they have so, so much learning to do. The participants are the politicians, the media, the commentator class, the lobbying class, the quango set and the NGO-consultancy sector. The learning was supposed to be ‘people seem unhappy with our rule, perhaps we should reflect?’.
Mostly the response has been to do precisely what they were doing before. In fact, quite a few of them took the position that the problem was failing to do much more of the thing that was making people unhappy. The idea that ‘of course we’re right, we’ve just not put the effort into correcting the silly public’ has dominated. It is happening in Scotland now.
There is real danger in this position. It has led to the fall of social democracy and even the centre right in the vast majority of places where it has been attempted. What I want to do here is look at John Swinney’s latest ‘anti-far-right’ stunt, explain why I’m unconvinced it will work and pretty significantly fearful it will backfire, and go over what a more credible alternative would look like.
Let me try and summarise this situation as seen by either side. First, from above. For a quarter of a century now, or in fact closer to half a century, Scotland has been fundamentally better than other nations. We are kinder, lovelier, less extreme, more welcoming, more sharing, more collectivist. This has been a great success, but now there is a fly in the ointment.
The fly is that a kind of evil has taken hold in the consciousness of a coalition of people who are wrong. Some of them are just evil, racists, misogynists, thugs. Some of them are just weak-minded, too persuaded by disinformation to understand why they are wrong. And some of them have done kind of badly out of the status quo but they’ve failed to understand that if they can just wait for another decade or two, things will start to get better for them.
The solution to this is to fight back. This group of people have misrecognised what is happening. They have mistakenly failed to realise that this is literally about as good as it gets. They don’t understand the limits of government. They simply haven’t understood how the system works.
We’ve tried to talk to them. We’ve done press conferences and loads of stuff on social media to explain patiently that they’re wrong but it’s not working. So what we need to do is convene a summit of the many, many people who are currently running this country to work out how to isolate and neutralise them so we can return to normality. Everyone will thank us for this.
One of the learning points from recent Western democracy is that people who are angry with you and feel betrayed will do the opposite of what you tell them if you refuse to listen
Now, from below.
For a quarter of a century, or in fact closer to half a century, Scotland has been fundamentally smug. The politicians kept telling us how well they were doing and how much better things were getting, but our experience of life wasn’t like that at all. We had stagnant wages, declining public services, ever-expanding coercive bureaucracy, struggling communities and personal powerlessness.
All we see is failure – yet the people who fail us get rewarded every time. We have literally heard it all before. They make promises but they’re almost never fulfilled. They are arrogant, unresponsive, make themselves rich from our tax. Their board rooms and conference suites are like fallout shelters where they don’t face the consequences of their own decisions.
They’re controlling my life and making a mess of it but when we complain they have this army of paid flunkies to call us names. We get no alternative to any of this. They have set the rules so between them they are untouchable.
I just want something to change. This is shit and it needs a very firm kick up the behind. I don’t have to agree with everything the arse-kickers say but at least they’re going to do something. And what’s this now? These faceless rich people are holding a summit to work out how to make sure my voice is never heard again? No-one is going to thank them for this.
We have to understand what John Swinney means when he says ‘middle Scotland’. It is code. It really means ‘people aligned with the ruling class’. ‘Middle Scotland’ is no more virtuous or kind or worthy of political respect than ‘Not Middle Scotland’. We’re all citizens. Politicians aren’t meant to pick and choose their electorates. Isolating people who disagree with you is not clever.
So when the ruling classes organise a summit, it is sending a pretty clear message. Worse still, you all know what this really is, right? This is a trade fair for the governing classes. Here’s what will happen. Swinney will turn up with money. The governing classes will turn up with things to do with that money. They will talk about civil values and respect and equality.
Then they will quickly get onto the real business. The NGO sector will have tenders for anti-extremism work in their pockets. The churches will be eyeing grants to repair their crumbling buildings on a ‘holding communities together’ basis. The lobbyists will seek further deregulation (landlords are the definition of ‘middle Scotland’). The politicians will all game how to maximise the votes out of the initiative. The quango class will press their hands to their wallets and sigh.
You don’t have to be the far right to feel a deep degree of anger at this mendacity. One of the learning points from recent Western democracy is that people who are angry with you and feel betrayed will do the opposite of what you tell them if you refuse to listen. John Swinney’s summit is the refusal to listen.
This is just a failing group of centrists desperately looking for something to kick back against to distract others from their failures
Everything about this is tone deaf. None of my friends are far right, all of my friends are utterly sick to death of the Scottish Government. Thinking of my group of about a dozen closest personal friends (none of whom are political), only a small minority of them have ever been in the kind of board room or conference centre venue where this event will take place.
From the average salary of the attendees (which will be north of £70k for the vast majority) to the exclusionary imagery to the patronising chat I can promise you will emanate, this is literally one-percenters in a one-percenter world discussing how to deal with the scum. No, not deal with, isolate and force out of democracy.
The centrists aren’t going to lose control at Holyrood, and the hard right (Reform is not far right) aren’t going to take power. This is just a failing group of centrists desperately looking for something to kick back against to distract others from their failures. It’s PR. It’s not serious. I doubt it will work. I expect it to backfire. The only people who will notice are those it insults.
Let’s just focus for a second. There have been three centrist approaches to the rise of the hard right. There is the Kamala Harris ‘patronise them into compliance’ approach. There is the Keir Starmer ‘get a National Front tattoo’ approach. And there’s the Olaf Scholz approach of ‘isolate! Isolate!’. You can do a websearch for the outcomes if you’re not on season seven yet.
I’m grateful Swinney isn’t getting a tattoo. He’s making do with scrapping rent controls – for the sake of Middle Scotland of course. But he’s borrowing liberally from the other two. I’m sceptical, but what do I know? Perhaps those who have stepped out of line will get right back in line again. Except it won’t work and disillusioned people won’t just become illusioned because they’re told to. Is nothing being learned at all?
I think there is only one way to deal with this, and that is for government to focus not on the failures of its citizens but on its own failures. At the beginning of this piece I characterised what this all looks like from above and from below. There is plenty of truth in both accounts. The problem is that there is more truth in the view from below. A ruling class really is getting rich off failure.
So sure you could invite the quango class in, say ‘you’ve done well out of this so here are spades, help us dig the trenches’. Alternatively you could abolish them and return accountable democracy to the running of government. Certainly you could get the lobbyists in and say ‘sorry for all that populism, we didn’t mean to interfere with your interests’. On the other hand you could say ‘we’re on the side of the public, not you’.
You could certainly go round Scotland holding ‘summits’ to explain why others are wrong. Another option might be to hold a summit for yourselves at which you ponder why you can’t build a ferry, start a National Energy Company, create a National Care Service or go on holiday without billing the public £11k for watching football on a public iPad.
The rise of the right is a response to a mode of government that isn’t working. Every time someone tries to prop up that mode of government through denial, more people become disillusioned. You don’t fix governments overnight. But you start by acknowledging a problem.
If Swinney or anyone else sitting atop a government with the lowest approval ratings in the history of the democracy that elected it wants to fight disillusionment, they should start at home. Accept you weren’t good enough, learn why and explain how you’re going to fix it. Seeking to abolish sections of the public via a governing class trade fair really seems to me to be asking for it.