The reactionary ratchet effect pulling British politics rightward
The forces opposed to the reactionary right need to stand for something clear, positive and understandable. They need to understand the right-wing propaganda machine. They need to understand the voracious appetite of the right-wing ideological project to tear down the last vestiges of the social contract between government and citizens. There needs to be a concerted critique of this in everyday language and in primary colours – the way the right talks of things such as “cancel culture” and “virtue signalling”.
No more talk of neoliberalism but instead talking of crony capitalism and corrupt capitalism and memorable phrases and soundbites which can carry over the airwaves and social media.
From these standpoints, an alternative political vision needs articulation – which does not yearn to return to the Britain of the 1970s or appease Thatcherism and its legacy, or cower at taking on the vested interests who have gained from the great disruption and enclosure of the past few decades.
That is, of course, easier said than done. But the right’s economic project has failed, as will its “culture war” project. It needs a politics of transformation, even revolution, or more accurately counter-revolution. But these revolutionary times demand a politics of disruption, upheaval and daring to take on the dinosaurs who roam the earth and think their debased, dehumanising vision is the future. The stakes are that high: literally about the future and survival of humanity.