DHere in British politics there is a lot of action, but not a lot of movement. The government's shaky start in office and the Tory leadership contest have set the Westminster news machine spinning: a frenzied froth. Labour's opinion polls have fallen but that reflects bleak continuity rather than change. Disgruntled voters before the election were not happy. The old blame is unfairly placed on the new regime.
The story of whether the government can lift that mood really begins with the Budget on October 30. In the absence of a settled tax and spending plan, all talk of Keir Starmer's tasks and tough choices is prelude. But that's not the only reason politics is in a state of suspended animation. The US presidential election comes a week after the budget. If Donald Trump Wins, No One Will Talk About It Rachel Reeves Is Changing the Borrowing Rules
While I can imagine such an outcome, I doubt I'm alone in keeping the film in mind without backing down. The implications are dire. Trump hates the principles on which the American republic was founded. His candidacy is an open promise to make vindictive, militant and racist ultranationalism the operating principle of the world's most powerful country.
He is a better friend to A. Vladimir Putin than any reasonably elected leader of any independent country. The nature of the threat has been documented by Trump's brutality in his first term, and he has demonstrated beyond doubt. Refusal to accept the legitimacy of his defeat. Yet half of American voters don't trust that evidence or are willing to ignore it. The 6 January 2021 uprising was a death knell for American democracy. This time it may commit suicide.
Even if Kamala Harris wins, there will be no return to the old balance. The sigh of relief will be short-lived. A split in what is defined as a single “West” still runs and is now contested between two irreconcilable tribes: the liberal constitutionalists and the nationalist crusaders. The former preserves the traditions of 20th-century multilateral treaties, democratic ethics, and the rule of law. The latter use themselves as warriors in an existential, civilizational struggle against moral decay through “awakening” and cultural decay in immigrant gangs.
Cemi Patenoch and Robert Genrictori have already been selected to oppose Starmer from the nationalist crusader camp, with the ballot offering a choice between. But does the Prime Minister understand that this is the struggle he faces, that he is defending a front that stretches across the Channel and the Atlantic?
Up to a point. A cagey start is the promised “reset” of relations with the EU. Britain's new defense deal has been agreed in principle, but the substance is far from over. While the destructive Brexit mode of diplomacy has long since disappeared, talk of economic cooperation has led to the shallow end of the negotiating pool of red lines barring a return to the Single Market border.
Starmer's reluctance to effect any political change around Europe is understandable, but his continental partners have found the ignorance from previous regimes disappointing.
When there are so many competing pressures on a government, the choice not to discuss difficult issues in public is a decision not to think about them privately. Labor remains stuck in a vague, aspirational phase of European policy.
This is consistent with a certain security in Starmer's view of Britain's future. He does not ignore global turmoil, wars on Europe's borders or the threat of authoritarian regimes and rising populism. He weaves them into his analysis, while keeping them somehow at a distance, as devices to interpret England as a lone beacon of political stability.
By adopting many of the premises of Boris Johnson's Brexit solution, Labor ended up with a weirdly hybrid, left-leaning, statist version of the Eurosceptic Singapore-on-Thames model. Britain will be a dynamic, free-trade, red-tape-reducing sovereign hub, big on social security and aligned with European rules for some industries.
Earlier this week, at an investment “summit” in London, the prime minister outlined his economic case in a speech. It subtly conveys without making headlines. He promised a Labor government with predictable moderation, in contrast to the savage, spasmodic rule of the Tories. Britain, he said, would return to the “stable, reliable, rule-abiding partner” it once was, and therefore a worthy place for investment.
It makes sense as a pitch for a room of corporate executives. This is consistent with everything Reeves says about the imperative pursuit of economic growth as a precondition for reforming the public realm and the need for private sector capital to deliver it.
Starmer's claims have a political dividend. Growth satisfies the appetite for rising living standards and decent services. It demonstrates that moderate, democratic politics work, thereby healing social divisions and neutralizing populism. “Growth is the best thing for a country to unite,” the Prime Minister said on Monday. “[Growth is] That 'great moderation' is the key ingredient we were used to before the financial collapse, but together, collectively, we now have to earn it again.
In conjuring a sense of the long climb before the epic bust of 2007-8, Starmer evoked a nostalgia common to many members of his liberal constitutional tribe. The shock of Brexit and Trump's seismic disruptions inevitably has a longing for political certainty as the old center ground collapses. But it is rare for a political leader to give such open voice to past consensus.
The Prime Minister knows that times have changed. He promoted intervention in markets, industrial strategy, and the rights of the most uncivilized workers at the turn of the millennium. But there is still something dry economy About it. By providing the foundations for long-term investment, a more secure workforce with higher wages and shorter NHS waiting lists will be less resentful and more amenable to recruitment by extremists.
It's not a bad theory. As a fellow liberal constitutionalist, I wish that were true. But I worry that it is not enough.
There is a good lesson about the limits of economic growth in the American experience, which remained strong throughout the Biden years without galvanizing people against fascist politics. Partly it is a supply and inflation problem. A lot of Trump voters don't feel much higher GDP in their pocketbooks. But many are gripped by paranoia and hyper-partisanship and refuse to believe in a healthy economy as long as there is a Democrat in the White House.
Britain is not so polarised. Still. But looking ahead, the Tories, Reform UK and a potentially campaigning chorus of anti-Labour press condemn any incremental improvements offered by Starmer as insufficient or non-existent. There will be balanced criticism from the far left. That too only if there is growth. Reeves' diligent promotion of Britain as a fertile ground for investment cannot protect the country from harvest-destroying storms from abroad.
This need not be a suggestion of desperation. Starmer has a theory for how Britain can curb anti-democratic trends. He is on the right side of the most important argument of our era. He also has a plan. But because it is incomplete, he absorbs it for receptive audiences in convention halls. What he lacks, and needs badly, is an emotional connection with a more hardened crowd that doesn't believe his kind of politics will ever work.
