Popular Strongmen

There has been a lot of speculation about the motives for Johnson's proroguing of parliament. Is it to bypass parliamentary opposition to no deal? Force MPs to opt for a no confidence vote as a means of preventing no deal, rather than a legislatory route, in order to have a general election imposed on the government? Or simply a gesture to Brexit hard liners, that the government is willing to crush opposition if it has to? The first two possibilities both imply that a prorogation is a meaningful impediment to parliamentary procedure, with the aim of preventing MPs from taking their preferred course of action on this vital issue. The third, which does not exclude either of the first two, is a symbolic act of disregard for parliament. What all of these have in common is they set a dangerous precedent, and they are well received by supporters precisely because of symbolic baggage they carry with them.

Let's not kid ourselves about what that symbolism is. It is of a strongman crushing his political opponents and getting rid of constitutional checks and balances to their power. The image isn't accidental. It's the point. Parliament is filled with remainers who won't accept the referendum result, so the line goes, and now we have a leader who will take them on. Just look at the front pages of Brexit supporting press: "PM secures approval from Queen to suspend Parliament in bold move to sweep aside MPs hell bent on stopping Britain from leaving the EU" (The Express), "Boris takes the gloves of" (The Mail),  or: "Ballsy Boris comes out fighting" (the Sun). But the creepiest of all has to be the Telegraph: "The Prime Minister must give effect to the will of the nation."

There has been many a good sardonic comment on the tension between the symbolism of this act and the rhetoric of democracy coming from the Brexiteers. But I think it's worth taking their own rhetoric more seriously. The notion of the strongman as the expression of popular will is not a new one. That idea can be powerful and popular. Whatever doubts there are about Russian democracy, there is no doubt that at many points, Putin has been a tremendously popular figure, who would have won a fairly contested election. Erdogan and Orban are also contemporary examples, as, in his own way, is Trump (popular enough to win in the electoral college, if not the popular vote, having promised to lock up a political opponent).

The appeal of a strongman as the true expression of popular will has deep roots. There has always been a constituency for the idea that institutions frustrate common sense. Think of the popular trope surrounding criminal justice, that strict interpretations of the law lead to criminals getting off on technicalities. Likewise, the idea of politicians and political institutions as corrupt is not new either, (and not always false).Think of Nixon promising to take on the crooks in Washington. And in societies with highly fractured politics, there is deep suspicion of other sections of society that may be undermining a real or imagined majority. Strongmen claim to be championing a popular will frustrated by institutional constraints or by elements of wider society. They claim a higher source of legitimacy that supersedes that of 'normal' democratic institutions. As Carl Schmitt put it, it is the Ausnahmezustand, the state of exception, in which the ruler has the ability to transcend the rule of law in order to implement popular will.

This idea of popular will expressed in the strongman has two important features. Firstly, it is exclusive in who it claims to represent. It represents what is in fact a part of the population and calls it the whole. Secondly, it is also uninterested in finding out what public opinion actually is, or involving the public in an ongoing discussion about this. You might note, in the context of Brexit, that Brexiteers are opposed to any kind of process for further discussion of the issue, be that parliamentary scrutiny or a further public vote. This too can have an appeal. If people are suspicious of the institutional mechanisms for further scrutiny, and suspicious of other sections of the electorate, why would you want more discussion? Better to have someone else impose your will from above. But it also has the appeal of not having to think about the issues, which in the context of Brexit may often seem quite dull.

It's very difficult to tell how accidental this new popularity for the political strongman is. It's worth conceding that the referendum result does pose genuine challenges to which this is partly a response. The absence of proper definitions of either the legal status of the referendum or what it meant to implement poses real problems when the majority of MPs do not want that outcome. Many Conservatives may have found themselves as accidental proponents of strongmen, because right now that is the only way to implement what they feel is a legitimately obtained result. Those who want this kind of politics may not constitute the majority of the population or the entirety of leave voters. But the strength of approval from a substantial, and important minority is troubling. Often, that's all strongmen need.

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