“How do we unf*ck the UK, without violence?” (recent Twitter question)
"Governor, you have the vote of every thinking person!"
“That's not enough, madam; we need a majority!” (Attrib. Adlai Stevenson)
Sometimes the problems seem so relentless, and the obstacles to dealing with them so heavily manned and fortified by our administrative elites, that the task of effecting the deep political change we so obviously need seems impossible. It sucks hope and energy from me.
The early days of The Long March were mainly about identifying the problems Britons face. But it was also about hope, and about suggesting solutions. Well, I don’t think I need anymore to point out how our administrative class has failed and is failing the nation. That failure is now so multi-form and ubiquitous that everyone knows, and the resulting anger and disgust at the establishment which have birthed them is profound.
Who said this? ‘Where a society is governed by what is basically a parasite government, no amount of foreign capital in-flow or technical assistance can make for enduring change and bring about the upsurge of production necessary for self-sustaining growth.’
And yet, all the admirable work William Clouston and the SDP has done on policy, and all the energy put into local organization, leaves it still merely a fringe party. Meanwhile, Reform, which has not bothered so much with policy development or organization, is the current beneficiary with 10% of the vote, seemingly. And yet, in truth, Reform is not remotely credible except as a (justified) angry protest vote.
This leaves the political task for the SDP, and for the nation, as yet unapproached. Left like this, our wretched establishment will sit it out comfortably, unchanged, unchallenged, and will continue to reward itself richly. That is the lesson of Sue Gray. The rot will deepen.
If you’ve read The Long March for some time, you’ll know I’m not shy of making suggestions. Today I’m going one further, and putting forward four Rules which can help us overcome the considerable odds. I think they are practical, realistic, and ruthless.
Four Rules to Ensure Social Democratic Progress
Rule 1: Since we cannot overthrow the elite overnight, we have to use their own delusions for our benefit, make them less appalling, less contemptuous of their fellow citizens. This is possible.
Rule 2: Since the two parties, and even Reform, compete to appeal to the same slice of the electorate, we have to recognize and mobilize the new electorate currently waiting in the wings without hope. This is possible.
Rule 3: Recognize that Britain’s problem-pandemic is the result of decades of misrule, and that not all problems will be solved quickly or painlessly. Concentrate, then, on addressing the biggest and most fundamental problem. This is possible.
Rule 4: The status quo suits the people in power. Any party threatening real change will offend them. Not only should be not be afraid of making enemies; if we aren’t inspiring spirited opposition, we’re not opposing effectively. Let’s make enemies!
Rule 1 - Accept That Our Rulers are Imperial Overlords
Late last year, Mary Harrington marvelously skewered the European Union as: "a curious political phenomenon in which the ruling elites of several post-imperial European states collaborated to colonize one another, as a kind of retirement project.”
This is one of those insights which, once uttered, you realize you’ve known it all along.
Its importance for us, however, is less about the nature of the EU than about the nature of Britain’s elite class. That class evolved essentially in the context the various empires forged and abandoned by England, and then Britain, since the 17th century. The essence of the imperial elite was the absolute paramountcy and prestige of the metropolitan capital. With it came the necessity to pick up ‘the white man’s burden’ in order to govern peoples deemed incapable of efficient and effective self-government.
Today’s elites inhabit the buildings of high Empire, and from there have breathed in the complacent certainty of their own imperial fitness and merit. Sadly, they seem to have shed the imagination or moral purpose which we like to believe hid or partially recompensed the crimes which delivered the empire’s swag.
They no longer have an empire of distant and theoretically interesting natives needing organization from London. Now they just have us. No longer able to colonize other peoples, no longer even suffered to play dress-up with the rest of the EU, the only people Westminster can colonize is us. Swap the teeming millions of Uttar Pradesh for Newcastle’s incomprehensible but theoretically interesting Geordies. Swap the North West Frontier for Northern Ireland. Etc
Is it by chance alone that our elites have happily re-fashioned the metropolitan capital into a genetic microcosm of Empire?
John le Carre wrote: “Democracy was only possible under a class system, that’s why: it was an indulgence granted by the privileged. We haven’t time for it any more: a flash of light between feudalism and automation, and now it’s gone. What’s left? The voters are cut off from parliament.”
We all resent the colonial pretensions of our elite class, with their unflagging appetite for imperial moral instruction reinforced by condign punishment. We cannot hope to change it, but we can use it to our advantage.
Imperial administrators throughout history have organized in the same way: they make progress to the top of the administration subject to success in administering the provinces. In ancient Rome, if you wanted to reach the top (as consul), you’d first have to have proved yourself as praetor or lower, helping administer the provinces. In the British empire’s heyday, you’d not reach the top unless you’d done your stint, successfully, in India, Burma etc. And today, China’s communist administration (for China is an empire) is organized in the same way: you’re not a ‘high-flyer’ in Beijing until you’ve proved your mettle in the provinces.
This is the way imperial administrations are organized. Britain’s civil service still has imperial pretensions, but without the discipline of having to prove yourself in the provinces.
That has to change. Want to make it in the Education Department? Well, off you go to, say, Birmingham. You get back to London once you’ve proved you can show dramatic improvement in Birmingham’s educational attainment. If you can’t, you’re not a high-flyer. Think you’re going to reach the top in the Health & Social Care? Not until you’ve spent years in the North East repairing the damage done to the population by decades of official (and personal) neglect. Get cracking. Housing? Sort out the South East, or you’re going nowhere. Industry . . . well, where to start? Community relations, crime, immigration, the places needing help are not hard to find.
The principle must be this: ‘The only way to get to the top is via the provinces. That’s the only way you’ll get an office in W1.’
Rule 2 - Discover, Mobilize and Champion the New Electorate
This one is very easy. Whilst Conservative and Labour politicians were out chasing Worcester Woman or Mondeo Man, of whatever fraction of the voting middle aged/middle class their databases have identified, a whole generation of would-be voters have been not merely neglected, but shafted.
Who can’t connect the dots? Unaffordable housing, stagnant wage growth and labour rights undermined by legal/illegal temporary/permanent immigration, heavy debts for a degraded university system, sky-high childcare costs, unfeasible transport costs, rising violent crime . . . and housing, housing, housing. With all major parties promising to make their life more difficult, more expensive. More than half of Britons’ aged 18-24 and nearly 60% of those aged 25-49 think the system does not work in their interest. And they are plainly right.
Why should these people bother to vote at all, at least until they are aged 50+, at which point the system apparently begins to favour them. The chart below (taken from the IPPR’s report ‘Road to Renewal’) shows that roughly half of the British electorate aged under 35 don’t bother to vote. Among the bottom 20%, nearly three quarters give the ballot box the bird.
Who can blame them? Voting’s really for Worcester Woman, or Mondeo Man. Their interests might, possibly, be addressed. Hey, maybe WW or MM can be attracted by cutting inheritance tax now their parents are entering the grey years?
So here we have the electorate waiting to be discovered, championed and mobilized. The party that can do that will inherit Westminster for the next 20 years. Happily, the Conservatives aren’t interested, Labour aren’t interested, the LibDems aren’t interested. The Greens are interested, but also, by any rational calculation, a real threat to the younger generation.
Rule 3 - Narrow the Focus
Britain’s institutional and democratic problems have taken decades to curdle into the multi-form mess the electorate experiences every day. No government can hope to address them all within the lifetime of a single parliament. Worse, if any government tried, entrenched interests, coupled with the phenomenal power of institutional inertia, duplication and redundancy, would ensure failure.
Rather, we should focus relentlessly on one big topic. And there is one big problem which, unless and until is it solve, will continue to hold the future hostage: housing. Until the housing problem is resolved, Britain’s household formation will continue to crumble; without a revolution in housing provision, its native population will shrink and age; without a revolution in housing, all other savings and investment products will continue to be crowded out, including government bonds and private equities. Without a revolution in housing provision, continued immigration will become increasingly resented.
But whilst housing costs continue to suck dry the country’s energies, imagination, savings and investments, and quash the hopes and dreams of young Britons, the cost to the economy will also mean the inevitable continuing deterioration in all sorts of public provision.
Whereas, a massive and effective program of home-building would not only immediately release huge economic forces needed to increase the supply, but would also release Britain’s younger generation from the financial prison in which our established parties have immured them. The short term economic benefits would be dramatic; the longer-term (more important) economic benefits would be profound and enduring.
So say this: elect us, and we will solve this problem, no matter what. Elect us, and we will allow nothing and no-one to stand in the way of achieving the goal of building 750,000 homes a year.
Too ambitious? Can’t be done?
Back to my favourite 20th century technocrat: Singapore’s Goh Keng Swee: ‘He then slashed the bureaucratic red tape to achieve rapid results. According to him, the 10-15 committee system which managed the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor of the Housing Development Board, was too cumbersome.
‘He decisively changed the system, asserting: ‘I’m the Committee’. (See ‘Lee’s Lieutenants’ - by Lam Pen Er and Kevin Yl Tan)
‘The result? Within the first two years, Singapore’s HDB built 26,168 new homes - approximately the same number built by the SIT in its 32 years.’
750,000 new homes every year. It’s reasonable, and probably the least we need to start genuinely addressing the supply problem. It’s probably the least we need to start to address Britain’s social, political, economic and financial problems.
And, of course, it makes the right marks on the Wycliffe Touchstone.
Rule 4 - Be Happy to Make Enemies!
A mark of the complacent redundancy of our major political parties is that even as institutional failure becomes so difficult to ignore, none are willing to make enemies.
None are willing to lead what is effectively a liberation movement. But we should be prepared to say: yes, we’re trouble, because we need to be. If the SDP is to even attempt to make the changes Britain so badly and so obviously needs, we will be met by a wall of resistance from the entrenched interests which have either made such a hash of it, or are profiting from the mess we live in.
We need to lead a Britain liberating itself from these forces, and it is not to be expect that our elite establishment will like it.
To which our response should be: ‘Tough, geming bu shi qing ke chi fan’.
Those are the stakes. Let’s go!