With the rise of Jeremy Corbyn a mutant strain of populism has become an integral part of British politics. Commentary on the general election and its dramatic upshot has focused on Theresa May’s disastrous campaign and the hubris of her now departed senior advisers. But what finally defeated the Conservatives was that, along with practically everyone else, they underestimated the power of Corbyn’s message. As the advance of the far right has stalled in Europe and with Donald Trump adrift in Washington, the peaking of populism has been announced almost daily, especially by the Financial Times. The rise of a far-left version in Britain went largely unappreciated.
Corbyn’s campaign had more than a little in common with Trump’s experiment in engineering popular emotions and perceptions. The ecstatic mass rallies, the indifference to fact shown in the Labour leader’s repeated denials of his meetings with terrorists and of the reflexive anti-Semitism that pervades much of the movement he has created, the belief of his supporters that the media are conspiring against him and the poisonous Twitter abuse of his critics are clear parallels. But this is not a protest from despairing communities left to moulder in abandoned zones of economic desolation. It is populism for the middle classes, serving the material and psychological needs of the relatively affluent and the well-heeled.
Content from our partners
