The crisis in politics is about the ineffectiveness of government not lack of growth

The nationalist-right backlash will not be curbed easily

Those of a liberal outlook in Britain (I would guess about a third of the population) are worried. Deeply illiberal movements of the nationalist right are on the march, including Reform UK and Tommy Robinson’s more extreme followers. Mainstream political parties are either in collapse (Labour and the Conservatives) or unable to progress from a mediocre base (the Liberal Democrats). This is a pattern that is visible in most developed countries, and most demonstrably in America. Donald Trump’s regime there has confirmed liberals’ fears of modern conservative nationalism, rather than reassured them that things might not be so bad. As the nationalist agenda takes over our politics, people struggle to understand why this is all happening and what they should do about it.

A number of narratives are on offer. The nationalists themselves paint a picture of a silent majority of ordinary citizens rebelling against an “elite class” (to use the favoured terminology of one of their leading agitators, Matt Goodwin) who have trampled over their views while promoting series of polices that have disastrously undermined the British way of life. Well, there is certainly a backlash against the guiding philosophy of government - but to describe it as a majority is a big stretch. Reform polls about 30% currently; one analyst reckons its potential electoral support is 40% - enough to give it more than a good shot at forming a government (it actually has a decent shot on 30%, given its current distribution of support and our electoral system). But polling also shows that its policies are deeply unpopular with 50% or more of the country, and Nigel Farage, its leader, has massively negative approval ratings.

Another narrative, promoted by mainstream commentators, is that the rise of the nationalist right is fundamentally due to economics, following disappointing economic growth since the financial crash of 2007-09. Living standards have not advanced, taxes have risen and yet public services seem overloaded. All was well before the crash, when the economy was growing at about 2% and public services were being steadily improved, it is suggested. There is clearly frustration at large, which is helping to fuel public disillusionment, but this does not work as an explanation of the rise of the nationalist right. This is above all a reaction against pro-growth policies. Technology and globalisation have led to huge dislocations in labour markets, and hollowed-out many industrial towns. The backlash is particularly strong in left-behind places, also including many coastal locations suffering in changes to consumer tastes. These places were being left behind long before the financial crash, and many trace the roots of their problems back to the Thatcher government of the 1980s. It is not unique to Britain. Economic growth is not painless, as it requires less efficient industries to shrink, and a constant change to working methods. Growth tends to be concentrated regionally - and this seems especially true since the 1980s. America, which has a much better growth record than Britain (or the rest of Europe), has one of the biggest backlashes of all. Mr Trump’s appeal is to roll the clock back to better times, of manly jobs and stay-at-home wives looking after at least two children per family. Liberals may laugh at this, but the steady economic growth of the decades since the 1960s has left enormous damage in its wake. There has been an alarming rise in joblessness (not shown in official unemployment figures - as the non-workers are not seeking work), notably amongst working-age men, with attendant mental health problems, drug use and crime. This is largely invisible to much of the population, living in better-off places that have done well from the economic changes. The gap between the winners and losers is surely one of the drivers of the anger.

The phenomenon is much more complex than that, of course. Many comfortably-off older people are part of it - uncomfortable with the degree of cultural change, and especially high levels of immigration, which has transformed many towns and cities, both prosperous and not. The cultural and nationalistic focus has drawn many disparate strands together - and this gives the movement much of its power.

What to do? Can future economic growth bring jobs back to left-behind areas, or raise the wages of those with fewer educational qualifications? This looks most unlikely. Promising commercial growth areas are clean energy and pharmaceuticals. These may provide some jobs to replace obsolete ones (wind farms in place of oil rigs, for example), but the overall pattern resembles previous growth - some favoured geographical locations, and a moderate number of highly skilled jobs and few less skilled ones. Demand for public services, such as health and social care, is a growth area, but financial resources have to be transferred from more prosperous areas. Also these new jobs are often hard to recruit from local people, and drive demand for immigrant labour.

Can the backlash simply be weathered until it fades away, as norms change and more people move to prosperous areas, or obtain better educational standards? This is in fact what growth advocates are suggesting. Economic growth should broaden the electoral base of established parties, and perhaps allow them to forge a winning electoral coalition from the 60% or so who are at least partly repelled by the nationalist right. But that is hard to do when the easy gains of globalisation are gone, and demographics are limiting the size of the workforce. Immigration is losing its appeal as a growth solution, because of the difficulty of integration, and stress on public services. Integration is hard if immigrants can’t bring families - and it is the bringing in of families that places most stress on public services.

Can nationalist right supporters be assuaged with a degree of compromise? This seems to be the approach of many mainstream parties in Europe - such as in Denmark. Immigration restrictions are made harsher; more conservative values are espoused in public services. But this annoys a substantial liberal body of opinion, and is likely to make integration of minorities harder, driving demand for ever harsher policies. Already the conservatives are starting to demand deportations, including of people who had already been rights of permanent residence. It seems unlikely that compromise will assuage much of the already 30% who are supporting Reform, but it could persuade others not to join them. In any case, most illiberal nationalist right policies are not economically well-founded, and will make people poorer. America will find this under Mr Trump in the next two or three years. This is a big difference between now and the 1930s, when Fascist policies could be used to drive economic growth, in particular through Keynesian stimulus to raise levels of employment. There was more economic slack then, and industrial technology favoured the widespread creation of jobs at a variety of skill levels - including by expanding armed forces.

There is a deeper problem here. The nationalist right backlash is a sign of a wider political discontent with government. Too much goes wrong in government and little seems to change. Any number of scandals show this: the Post Office Horizon system; grooming gangs; contaminated blood; HS2; Grenfell Tower. Things go wrong; this is met by cover up and denial; remedial action is identified; little is actually done beyond creating an ever denser web of regulation. The courts are overloaded; the police are failing to tackle low-level crime; sewage spills into our rivers and beaches whenever it rains. Rory Stewart in his memoir Politics on the Edge describes the ineffectualness of national government from within (his own heroics excluded, of course). Ministers are either ineffectual, pursuing political careers without much thought about achieving anything, or downright mad (by which I mean totally disconnected from the real world, but driven by an ideological agenda), or, like Boris Johnson, both. Civil servants survive in this environment with their own versions of ineffectuality. And yet this national level of government is extremely powerful, and manages to suppress or starve any creativity or initiative coming from other levels of government. Things were bad enough before 2015, when Mr Stewart first took up ministerial responsibility; the nine years of Conservative rule after that must rank as one of the most chaotic and destructive in our history. Alas the Labour government has shown how hard it is to make this system work, especially when they failed to manage public expectations properly. It is not just the nationalist right who are angry and frustrated; we establishment-supporting liberals are too.

What needs to be done is to radically improve the effectiveness of government. Here I agree with many on the right. But whereas they think this can be done by sweeping away legal safeguards and populating the civil service with political appointees, I think the experience of Trump’s America is that this will simply lead to yet more incompetence and outright corruption. What is needed is something much more patient and effective. The current government has taken some small steps in the right direction. The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has developed an idea of mission-led government, which has promise, though its implementation is muddled. Housing is missing as an explicit mission; “growth” makes a poor mission objective in its own right. The government’s reform of local government in England shows some promise - but needs to be tied to electoral reform. This shows a caution and hesitancy that risks undermining the whole project. Next month’s Budget will be a critical test for me. If it marks the start serious tax reform, as suggested in my previous post, that will be a sign that things could get better. If it is yet another gimmicky fudge designed to fulfil short-term fiscal targets, we will know that the government’s hesitancy is terminal.

Alas it comes down to the New Testament saying: “First remove the beam from your own eye, before removing the speck from your brother’s.”