Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

[BovaryX]

There is an interesting article by Douglas Murray in the DM about the authoritarian, identity politics which have alienated Labour voters and triggered a paradigm shift in the political landscape. It covers some of the themes which Lang GC Pencils and others have been discussing in light of election result.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones...How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday

Yes Kittens although I know people who actually say out loud they would rather Syrians drowned than got to the UK. Though they are not working class nor affected by immigration.

I'm not sure what I can say about that without getting deleted, other than that I have no sympathy for that position at all.

On the issue of moving, there is a sociologist I think who talked about the concept of 'rootedness' being an underexamined factor.

Well-off professional class people tend to be less rooted but for those who are poorer or who have spent their whole lives in one place, whose relatives all live close by, or lack skills in demand elsewhere, it is far more unsettling or even threatening if you are involuntarily rooted in an area in such a way to see it change around you.

It is perhaps a little unfair for the more mobile to tell the more rooted how they should feel about change.

On the issue of moving, there is a sociologist I think who talked about the concept of 'rootedness' being an underexamined factor.

David Goodhart? He wrote a book called The Road to Somewhere which argues that Britain is broadly divided into two tribes, the somewheres and the anywheres:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/anywheres-vs-somewheres-split-made-brexit-inevitable

I thought some posters might like this speech by Tony Benn on Maastricht. It is an elegant, passionate defense of democracy which highlights the abdication of duty by the political class in outsourcing their decision making to Brussels. His predictions as to the consequences of this abdication are prescient

www.google.com/amp/s/whitewednesday.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/tony-benn-on-democracy-and-the-eu-20th-november-1991/amp/

GCAcademic that article is interesting - viewing people as either somewheres or anywheres.

Benn's Maastricht speech is very good indeed (I've read it before).

One of my first jobs out of university was negotiating single market legislation, which took me to meetings in Brussels on a regular basis. I won't go into details because I think it's still covered by the 30 year rule (just).

It has always left me scratching my head at the claims that the EU as it now is (it was the EC back then, the second E having been dropped as it moved from being just a trading body towards something else) was just a trading organisation. It was clear to anyone involved in those negotiations that what was being proposed was not just free trade within Europe, but higher trade barriers to the outside (not the crude issue of tarifs, but the subtler but more Draconian non-tarif barriers around health and safety, many of which were politically rather than scientifically driven - I used to attend these meetings with specialist scientists, as did the other member states).

The other thing was the extent to which it was driven from the top down by the Commission. I've sat in meetings where the scientific and trade experts from all the member states were unanimous that what was being proposed was crazy and couldn't work in practice, only to have the Commission chair overrule everyone.

The EU isn't an antidote to the nation state, it's just a bigger one, and one which is off shoring/outsourcing its own refugee crisis (camps on Lesbos/in Turkey, etc).

One of the things I've found interesting about the last 3 1/2 years is that Brexit has had the slightly paradoxical effect of making the EU much more open about federalism being the end game. (It's implicit in the Treaty of Rome, and is, I think, becoming more pressing with the instability of the Euro; if it's to continue, the Eurozone needs centralised control over fiscal as well as monetary policy). Ironically, I think it's Brexit that's brought this about, because they don't have to keep up the pretence that this is just a trading block to keep the Brits from getting too restive; either we'll leave (the overwhelmingly likely option), or have to return suitably chastened.

But make no mistake, it's going to be a very bumpy ride economically. The EU as a block is massively trade protectionist. The small corner of legislation I worked on sent New Zealand into a 15 year recession; talking to friends in other departments, that pattern was repeated round the world. We're about to be on the receiving end of finding ourselves as a third country.

This is by far the best thread on post-election analysis I’ve seen on mumsnet. Brilliant stuff
Absolutely agree. Sensibe, non hysterical analysis of different views. I thought those day were long gone ☺

Barbara, I have had similar professional experiences.

My concern was the paucity of democratic processes that allow those running the EU to respond to the concerns of its citizens. Not a problem post WW2 when cooperation was good, or even with the first wave of expansion. However I am not sure that central Euopean countries will be willing to accept the Franco-German leadership dominance into the longer term and there is a risk of major tensions between Eastern, Western and Southern members. It may be that in 10 years time we look in from the outside and feel we made the right decision. Equally a historical perspective may confirm we made the wrong one.

I dont have a clear view on which way it will go, which is why I did not vote. This did not stop me being branded a racist, bigot und so weiter, or indeed allow me an opportunity to express my views. I speak four European languages and have lived in three European countries. But still, questioning the London left wing middle class orthodoxy, even from a relatively informed position, is not allowed.

Well-off professional class people tend to be less rooted but for those who are poorer or who have spent their whole lives in one place, whose relatives all live close by, or lack skills in demand elsewhere, it is far more unsettling or even threatening if you are involuntarily rooted in an area in such a way to see it change around you
Yes. There is a world of difference between me voting remain because I want my children to have the opportunity to live and work in Europe and go on Erasmus like I did, my friends fretting about how theyre going to get their next an pair, and many the people I've worked with in the past who have worked in factories all their lives and suddenly find themselves surrounded at work by Eastern Europeans speaking their own language to each other until eventually they were let go, never to work again. They werent thick or racist. They were just defeated. That was new Labour's fault and has led to this, but the worst thing for me is that some of the people on the same side as me have shown themselves up as nasty, classist and sneering.

One of the things I've found interesting about the last 3 1/2 years is that Brexit has had the slightly paradoxical effect of making the EU much more open about federalism being the end game

Isn’t that fascinating? One of the things which has always struck me about certain pro EU arguments is the implicit assumption that the EU is immutable, the implications of membership are already known. But its impulse is expansionist and its bureaucracy inflexible which increases its inability to deal with myriad internal challenges. I have no doubt negotiations will be fraught with difficulties. Intransigence will be the modus operandi. Not least as Voltaire said Pour encourager les autres

However, in practice, there are all kinds of things that could simple free movement for all unjust. Because there is also a sort of right to the integrity of the local community, to keep the results of your own labour, to a relationship with place. Not to mention mundane things like how the community governs itself and so on.

These are fair point, but, this is all rather descending into blaming the EU for choices successive Westminster governments have made.

In the EU freedom of movement is a qualified right. Individual nations can remove non-contributing individuals after 90 days. Westminster chose not to do this.

More local governance has always been an option that Westminster failed to implement. I have touched on Labour's failure to support real devolution, the Tories are worse.

In fact every single perfectly reasonable complaint on this thread is a failure of Westminster not Europe. The chances of Westminster actually addressing these issues, while bogged down for decades in scrambling around for trade deals are extremely slim.

But isn’t that partly because many Asians from Uganda and Kenya had an upper middle class lifestyle? It must have been a shock to have gone from a villa in Kampala with a driver and a maid to anywhere in the UK in the 1970s
My dad was Asian from Kenya and you're exactly right. They were mostly government workers and civil servants. They had British passports and lived an upper middle class life with servants. My mother lived the same life in Mumbai. People who can't understand how Priti Patel, who was a refugee herself is how she is maybe think she was like a Syrian refugee fleeing a war zone. Many of my friends and family were expelled from East Africa. Many are quite right wing. Probably because they were expelled by a hard left regime.They made very successful lives for themselves but They were middle class in India and had the education and the means to move to Africa in the first place.Same as eu migrants now. The ones that move are the more resourceful from those countries in the main.

My dad was Asian from Kenya and you're exactly right

Hey, same here noodle!

Same background here. A female relative tells of how she cried and cried when she first came here. Because she had to do housework for the first time. They had lived in what, in the UK, would be classed as a mansion.

In fact every single perfectly reasonable complaint on this thread is a failure of Westminster not Europe. The chances of Westminster actually addressing these issues, while bogged down for decades in scrambling around for trade deals are extremely slim.

Well said.

I wish people would be tougher on Westminster instead of blindly accepting reasons like we can't afford to do this or we aren't allowed to do that.

It's funnybisntnit, how do many pictures of India and Africa are pictured of poverty. When I visited my grandmother in Mumbai, she lived in a flat with a cook and 2 servants! My 70 year old mother's Nanny died recently aged in her 90's. She lived with our family until then, looking after the children, Jacob Rees-Mogg style

Hey GC, noodle, how fabulous is this thread and to ‘meet’ each other like this! I love this forum, so many great women here. Are either of you from a mixed background? Did either of you have any problems with orthodoxy if you see what I mean?

Indeed. My best friend is Portuguese and she is baffled as to why we don’t remove non contributing individuals after 90 days. They certainly do there but successive British governments have chosen not to.

I have been a life long labour voter but could not vote for Corbyn as I don’t think he could run a bath let alone a country. I was hoping for a hung parliament but instead we have a conservative majority who will be keen to roll back the state even further. To be fair to them, they have never pretended to be different. Conservatism is about small state. What I am still struggling to get my head around is people in a dire situation eg like the ppl on bbc the other day living in a bed sit & dependent on food banks voting conservative because they wanted a change because their labour MP has done nothing for them. Genuinely who do they think has formed the government since 2010?

The conservatives have been in government since 2010 & could have made many changes to housing for example but choose not to. I don’t understand why people think they will suddenly throw money at the state? I don’t mean that sarcastically btw I mean it genuinely.

I think the following article from the Guardian is terribly relevant to this conversation; it's from 2016, and it's a pity that no-one in the Labour party seems to have paid attention. It seems incredibly prescient considering the result of last week's election:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/05/trump-brexit-education-gap-tearing-politics-apart

As a brief summary, the author, David Runciman, argues that the main divide in education is based on education, and that the education divide doesn't translate into a divide between ignorance and knowledge, but between different class interests. Being more educated doesn't mean that you are more right, but that you are more capable of making what are essentially self-serving arguments.

It's kind of easy to see how that works in terms of the election; middle-class Londoner Labour candidates argue that what they want is the best for the country - bearing in mind that quite often what they want is to dole out benefits to a grateful peasantry - and whilst the working classes of the midlands and the north may not be able to marshal arguments as effectively, they can still chose to go to the ballot box, and put a cross against the name of the Tory candidate.

It's so refreshing to find I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

My preferred option for Brexit would have been to remain in the EU but for the government to address all the causes for the vote to leave - ie listen to the people and make life better here. Ha! Naivety in a nutshell. They already can make life better within the EU, they just choose not to. They already can restrict immigration, they just choose not to. They already can improve public services, they just choose not to. What a mess.

DH and I were talking about Alan Johnson being angry with the Momentum guy and we thought there aren't really any politicians with gravitas, passion and experience. They all seem to be bubble-dwelling career politicians who have absolutely no idea what it's like to live payday to payday. What hope is there?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/meet-boriss-babies-theyre-young-fun-and-working-class-qr59rrhrp?shareToken=7bb7b762ae09c5b70e8de36490347fa2

Interesting article. Working class northern Tory MPs ON PURPOSE (plus, sigh, one keen on GRA reform). It does seem that the Tories had much more savvy in this campaign than we - let alone the oblivious Woke Twatterati cult - realised.

I was born in the 1970s on a council estate to working class parents and we were skint growing up. However I got out (grammar school, uni) as did my sisters. I & they are now middle class.

i absolutely do not want to dole out benefits to a grateful peasantry, I want working class people to have what I had - a chance! My parents wanted us to have a better life than they did (mum horrendous life when her mother died at 8 Abd her father remarried an alcoholic unable to bring up her children & leaving my mum to do it even though she was only 14, dad one of 9 whose father buggered off and left his mum)

My parents had shit poor childhoods with no chances and wanted us to have a better life. What I want to know is where ppl lost hope that their lives could improve? Growing up I don’t remember a sense of ‘this is how it is and you’re powerless’ . Is there any possibility of bringing back a belief that it is possible for things to change if you get given a chance? And of course to give people those chances?

BovaryX Noodle GC - white Caucasian here but with a history of being raised in non-white places. Women playing the "traditional" role of raising children, providing produce etc but still ruling the roost. There's no way they'd accept the shit that's going on here, even though there'd be a male chief of each village.

On the issue of moving, there is a sociologist I think who talked about the concept of 'rootedness' being an underexamined factor.

Almost certainly not the one you mean, but Joan C Williams is an American academic who speaks very well about the class differences in valuing rootedness as opposed to opportunity as it pertains to class in the US, but much of it also applies to the UK. She did an excellent presentation on this at the LSE.

www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/Videos-Podcasts/Why-did-Trump-win-Overcoming-Class-Cluelessness-in-America

The related book is also excellent.