Britain seems to have joined the rest of the democratic world in the volatility of its politics. Electorates are no longer armies, but crowds. Identities shaped by religion, class, region, ideology and tradition weaken. Conventional parties are hollowed out, and disoriented and angry voters turn to single-issue campaigns or insurgent populism. In every country this takes diverse forms shaped by political institutions and political cultures – Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in America, Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron in France, Beppe Grillo and the Five Star Movement in Italy, Nigel Farage’s Ukip and now Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
The trend, noticeable from the 1990s, was analysed in a now classic work by Peter Mair, Ruling the Void: the Hollowing of Western Democracy, which was published in 2013, two years after the author’s death. Elected governments had conceded powers to non-elected agencies such as the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and above all the EU. Politicians had become professionals, largely detached from civil society and operating increasingly within these international institutions, “safe from the demands of voters”. Citizens were decreasingly willing to join professionalised political parties financed by large donors or public funds, or to identify strongly with them.
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