Overstating Incoherence

A frequent charge brought against right wing populist movements is that their arguments hypocritical to the point of absurdity. In the U.K, two such possible hypocrisies stand out. The first is the idea that these movements are anti-elite. Brexiteers rail against the 'elites' and the 'establishment', yet include cabinet ministers, Etonians and influential journalists, at times all embodied in the same person. The second concerns the rule of law and institutions. Conservatives talk a good game when it comes to tough application of the law and the supposed superiority of the British constitution, but seem to make an exception when this imposes constraints on their own power. As Nick Cohen put it, the Conservative party prides itself of being " “party of law and order”. It died invoking mob rule." Certainly there is some hypocrisy here. But I think rather less than we might imagine, if we understand the ideas on their own terms. And it is important to do so if we wish to formulate effective counters to them.

The right wing populist idea of the 'elite' might be strange and infuriating, but it is not random. It does not really refer to wealth or even political power per se, but social status and education. In short, it designates the well educated, liberal, urban professional class. The use of the term is of course tied up with flawed ideas of how power works in modern societies- it tends to presuppose a politically homogenous 'elite' that consists almost entirely of people in certain professions, with certain backgrounds, but the rules of reference aren't incompressible or contradictory in and of themselves. Individuals who inherit their wealth are in this sense not part of the 'elite' as they are not professionals. 

Take a look at who the leading figures in these movements are and how they behave. Many actively flaunt their wealth and privilege. Rees Mogg and Johnson play up their somewhat mythological aristocratic status, using obscure, archaic vocabulary and wearing dated clothes. Or take Iain Duncan Smith, someone born into modest circumstances, alternating between railing against the elites and posing with his classic car in front of his country estate. This is no accident: so long as they play the aristocrats, they are not part of the professional middle and upper middle class. 

Another iteration of this is that of the flamboyant tycoon. Trump is the most obvious contemporary example, but as is the original right wing populist of modern times, Silvio Berlusconi. They do not hide their wealth and power, they flaunt it every opportunity, whether it is Berlusconi's 'bunga bunga' parties or events at Mar-a-Lago. The U.K has its lesser figures of this sort, Tim Martin being an example. 

This idea of the elite is certainly tied up with flawed ideas of political power, but it is historically conditioned. It plays into long term resentments that flow from the shift towards a service economy which rewards education, particularly in law and economics. This development, and the concurrent, if only partially related trend towards greater social liberalism unsurprisingly generates backlash against this particular group. As Simon Wren Lewis argues, one of the key reasons for the success of Brexit was its ability to unite both those who had lost out socially and economically from this trend. This has likely been enhanced by the financial crisis of 2007/8, which contributed to suspicion of people working in the financial sector. Finally, this idea of the elite plays into long standing tensions and resentments of the modern world that arise from bureaucracy and managerialism, many of which are more immediately and frequently experienced at work and in  every day life than the injustice of the ultra wealthy. We need do no more than read a story by Franz Kafka to know these ideas are not new,  and a look at Soviet comedy suggests that these resentments may not be even unique to capitalism.  

The second hypocrisy, on law and the constitution, is more of a mixed bag. On the one hand there is surely some hypocrisy when it comes to direct discussion of things like Parliamentary sovereignty. But it is surely wrong to understand references to 'law and order', as is sometimes suggested, as implying checks and balances to state power. When political parties campaign on 'law and order', they are not campaigning on constitutionalism or the rule of law. If anything, they mean the opposite. They mean being tough on the 'bad guys', being willing to dish out long prison sentences or other brutal punishments, sometimes explicitly in contrast to due process (think about appeals to put the 'victim' above the 'criminal' as justifications for less concern about what happens in a trial, or attacks on 'soft' judges, sneaky barristers etc). In this sense what we see with Johnson's government is an extreme iteration with a familiar way of talking about the law and criminal justice, rather than a complete departure from an old tradition. 

Brexiteers have indeed talked at length about Parliamentary sovereignty and the superiority of the British constitution, but don't seem so interested in these ideas right now. Perhaps they could justify this current indifference as a necessary step towards an eventual goal ('a more sovereign Parliament, eventually'), but it is hard to distinguish this from not caring full stop. And certainly, both here and when talking about the 'elites', there are plenty of tensions, misrepresentations and falsehoods. But if we want to counter these ideas, we have to make a serious attempt to understand how they work and what makes them appealing. It is no good to simply point out that those who rail against the elites are themselves wealthy, or that those who talk about law and order don't want justice to apply to themselves. Nothing is revealed to supporters that is not already known.