Brexit: Ideology, Policy and the people left behind

1 – Introduction

The vote to leave the European Union didn’t occur on the 23rd June 2016, not really. Certainly, the democratic decision in the referendum occurred on that day, and we all know the result.

Rather, the referendum was slowly and, frankly, masterfully lost by the remain side years before the idea of a European referendum was even contemplated. Government after government, year after year, the pillars of our democracy (namely the workers and working class) have been taken for granted, ignored and stomped on.

Is it, thus, any real surprise that when the establishment class calls on you in a referendum to vote one way, you vote with the antiestablishment? That same establishment that has continually cheated and taken from you, crippled your public services and degraded you.

The British are a resilient and gritty people, but not without patience. And so, when given the chance to shake things up, a chance to vote against a political class that’s only taken from you – why wouldn’t you? Why would you believe the warnings of major economic upheaval and social strife from the same people who have ignored you for so long. The real reasons for Brexit lie with the onset of 70’s neoliberalism and Thatcherism, so let’s start there.

2 – The Thatcher and Major Years (1979-1997)

1979 was a seismic year in British politics. Even if it’s a cliché to say as such, I don’t think in this case it’s an understatement. The Unions were on strike and a Labour government, which has barley been able to cling on since that famous October 1974 election, was resoundingly voted out in favor of a class of politics that was not merely sweeping Britain, but the rest of the western world: namely, neoliberalism.

This flavor of ideology got a grip on the unions and didn’t let go, both literally and metaphorically, curbing power from the unions that had previously had the country at its knees by brutally suppressing workers protests.

This signaled the beginning of the end for the prospects of the worker in Britain, whose working and living standards up to then had seen a phenomenal post-war increase. War, for all it’s terrible atrocities, was a fantastic early 20th century success of industrial capitalism. The framework for industrial and service expansion (if less the economy) was laid for Atlee in 1945 as he swept to power, forming the NHS and investing heavily in public services, a legacy continued by the next Labour government Wilson and even, dare I say, to a lesser extent the post war conservatives.

This was to be turned on its head under Thatcher who, with the unions now under control, could enact that oh so famous tory policy: cut. The framework of industry, half a century in the making, was slashed, hitting the poorest the hardest and leaving swaves factory and industry workers, particularly in the North, unemployed. The welfare system supposed to cushion the fall from employment was slashed, partly to accommodate the corporate tax cuts afforded in this cull of public expenditure.

These same tax cuts were supposed to incentivize a new wave of private industry and investment. This, to be fair, did occur in those places that were already well-established metropolitan powerhouses (namely London and the newly trendy southern towns and cities, not the north).

As it was, therefore, those who had lost their jobs in the north stayed unemployed, got poorer, the unions had no power to help, but Thatcher's government was over seeing a growing economy, so why bother a change in policy?

Indeed, this economic growth allowed the established, aspiring middle classes and, of course, the wealthiest among us to reap large amounts of the benefits: it was truly a golden era for business, for the well off and, importantly as elections goes, industry and employment in the south. Consequently, the established metropolitan media loved her, gifting her (alongside what were in truth two lackluster Labour campaigns under Foot and Kinnock, of course with the forces of media against them) a further two majority governments. Of course, those working-class voters, especially in the midlands, the north and Scotland, recognized this establishment as fundamentally harmful to them and stayed true to Labour, even in the dark days of Foot and his meager 209 seats. They perceived then, as they do now, the political establishment as their enemy.

Post 1987 and after Thatcher's final election victory, a bitter battle of ideology and heart was well underway in the Labour Party. An established left had seen itself already once crushed by thatcher under Foot, while the center of the party had remained stagnant under Kinnock. The momentum was therefore with the right of the party and the central political ground. Still, Kinnock could hang on to 92 and with polls pointing towards a Labour victory and, importantly for the poorest, and end to over a decade of harsh tory cuts, harsh rule and weak unions. Finally, the pillars of society could become those pillars once more and replace the toxicity of corrupted and Thatcherite Britain. Indeed, Kinnocks opponent, a rather uninspiring and, let’s face it, dull John Major seemed a rather easy scalp (if there’s such a thing during such a bitter election).

So rang the 10 O’clock bell and the exit poll. David Dimbleby saying those words: the Tories short by 25. This was a bitter blow for Labour, made only worse by the result at the end of the night – a fourth consecutive tory majority. Labour was facing an identity crisis; traditionally a left-wing party with a socialist core, it was now seeing itself out of power for 17 years. The party saw the need to adapt.

After the right of the party saw John Smith as a suitable (if Kinnock esque) and fresh change, the polls began turning towards Labour and an election victory in 1997 was looking increasingly likely. During this fresh term of opposition, there was little the parliamentary party could do to stop a tory majority in the commons from keeping in place (and in some cases renewing) the Tory policies of old: in Labour and working class heartlands, the unions were crippled, workers' rights in tatters (for those lucky enough to still be employed) and council housing waiting lists beginning to seriously outstrip demand. The stage was set for a change and, at this time, the enemy of the people was very much clear.

Tragically, in 1994, John Smith died suddenly of a heart attack (his second after having one in 1988) and the circus of party-political uncertainty greeted the Labour Party once again. This was a leadership election the right of the party was going to pounce upon, after all the left of the party had clearly failed had they not. Four successive election defeats of the old guard clearly showed a shift in public attitude away from the left. The Soviet Union had fallen and, clearly, socialism had been shown to fail and it was time for new way of doing politics – a third way. These were the thoughts of a certain charismatic leadership hopeful, who had a vision for a different Labour party to previous years, a new Labour.

Indeed, Tony Blair seemed to have the backing he needed and eased to victory in the leadership contest. The party had moved right and, so it would become apparent, Thatcher's greatest success and come to fruition without her even being in power – she had forced the opposition to change.

Irrespective of this, the change had seemed to work. This could be attributed partially to a few factors. The prerogative reason being Blairs character; he was extremely well polished, eloquent and with the complete (near enough) backing of the parliamentary party. These combined factors all made him look an extremely electable figure.

Indeed, rather than appealing to traditional Labour voters in their heartlands, namely the Midlands and North who’s seats were seen as safe in any case; Blair’s third way approach through the Centre appealed to a more southern, middle class and even conservative voter, tired of 17 years of hard right Thatcherite Tory rule but not wanting to elected anyone seen even slightly left of center. In this regard, seeing as the heartland seats were surely tied down, the country being fatigued by Tory rule and swaves of more middle-class voters for the first time going to Labour, the stage was surely set for a Blair premiership.

Indeed, come the 1997 election, opinion polls were reading such that the writing was already on the wall for John Major and Labour swept to power with its first landslide majority since Attlee, and the biggest in its History. New Labour had been overwhelming endorsed and, as Blair said, they had been “elected as New Labour” and would indeed “govern as New Labour” (hindsight, in this regard, is a beautiful thing – the warning of what was to come was made by Blair himself!).

3 – Blair and New Labour (1997-2010)

Blair took office in 1997 with a commanding majority in the commons, truly a mandate for Labour legislation to break through and provide clear betterment to the lives of working people ravaged by years of Thatcherite rule; enslaved by years of no opportunity, unemployment and general despair. It sounds all rather apocalyptic I grant, but this truly was the reality for those working-class people whom had suffered (and occasionally even rioted) through 17 years of Tory majority rule.

Blair, in this regard, was certainly one step forward and two steps back. New legislation was passed to improve the lives of working people, this much is certainly true: the NHS was properly funded, new minimum wage legislation introduced, and progressive social measures passed, all clear inclinations that it was a Labour government in power. However, these measures were all rather subtle in their application, which is certainly acceptable (even to be applauded) when inheriting a country on the back of a previous Labour government or even a more centrist conservative one. However, the country wasn’t coming out of such a period – it was coming out of a particularly harsh period of Tory rule.

Blairs Labour, in this regard, were exercising a program of pragmatism when something more radical was arguably needed; something to give those who really needed that helping hand back up after Tory rule. This simply was not offered. If the working classes couldn’t rely on the Labour party, those who had traditionally always been their voice in government when they felt they had none, who could they rely on? And so is in evidence the beginning of the end for the political mainstream in attracting the more traditional working class. Here is where they began slipping even from their natural ally, or rather former ally. The conservatives had, of course, largely already given up on this task and it showed in their results, but Labour?

This subtle centrist pragmatism, then, could have easily been seen as a continuation of the 17 years of tory rule, with Blair seen as more of a ‘Thatcher-lite’ character. Nevertheless, come 2001 Blair achieved another landslide, though on a greatly reduced turnout compared to 97 (59% compared to 71%). As perhaps expected, the areas with the greatest deflation in turnout tended to be those more working class, traditional Labour heartlands. In these areas, the seats were always easily held by Labour – people may have been disenfranchised but certainly wouldn’t vote tory; rather they would show their dissatisfaction by simply not showing up.

Despite the lower turn out, Blair had still one a second landslide and as such the apathy was largely ignored: if you’re winning elections, why change a winning formula? As such, the New Labour model continued, backed by a cabinet who thought it had a nation behind it – a nation becoming increasingly resigned to the lack of genuine change, a nation increasingly looking elsewhere to finding solutions, or at least elsewhere to place blame. Indeed, with Blair taking an increasingly right leaning stance, being tougher on welfare and social housing, it was becoming increasingly less subtle and less difficult to see where the apathy was coming from: it really does come to something when the liberal democrats seem to be the most left leaning party in parliament. Then rolled round 2003 with America voting for action in Iraq and Blair firmly grabbing the hand of George Bush and going straight in with him.

Opposing the Iraq war would have been a real statement by Blair; it would send a very public message – he was the progressive that wasn’t afraid to stand up to America’s, frankly, atrociously stupid positions.

The protests following this decision were some of the largest the UK had ever seen with millions taking to the streets. An anti-war march wasn’t a new thing, but for it to be in response to a decision made by a majority Labour government, a supposedly progressive and fervently anti-war party, was unheard of and certainly not to be expected with even prominent tory figures (as well as much of the Labour backbenches) coming out against the decision.

Not only was this move outdatedly imperialistic and with heavy right leaning and capitalistic motives (namely, securing the security and pro-US government sentiment in the Middle East) but it was also incredibly monetarily costly for the government and the nation on the whole – money spent on military expenses and soldiers could otherwise have been spent on public services, the first real relief from tory austerity for a generation. Instead, those who needed this relief the most were invariably those who may have been connected to those deployed, and even killed, in Iraq and later Afghanistan. What more could the establishment take from them?

Come the 2005 election, a reduced Labour majority was the outcome and a third term for Blair. This time however, the Labour vote went down considerably (6 percentage points) with the Lib Dems and Tories both gaining. It was slowly beginning to unravel for Blair and New Labour, with their heartlands turning out less and less and becoming increasingly disillusioned while the established middle classes gave the government a bloody nose with the backlash from the Iraq war.

Nevertheless, Labour had been elected on a majority platform once more and, as before, took this in a rather tone-deaf manner as another endorsement of the thatcher-lite policies of the last decade.

Their lack of touch with the public soon came explicitly to the forefront with seriously declining approval ratings for Blair, mainly relating to his handling of military affairs in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

In fact, over the summer of 2006 many MPs, including usually supportive MPs, criticized Blair for not calling for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. In September of that year, Blair stated his intention to resign before the Trades Union Conference (TUC) held 10–13 September 2007. At a special party conference in Manchester on 24 June 2007, he formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordan Brown, who had been Chancellor under Blair's three ministries.

With the old out and the new in, there was at last a real hope for change that could now match the appetite that had been there since 1997. Brown, after all, had a majority Labour government behind him and 3 years of the term left; there was so much that could be achieved.

Having been a staunch ally of Blair, Brown of course didn’t choose this new road. The course was once more set for continuity. The flicker of hope for genuine change was extinguished and the stage was set for the 2008 financial crisis. Stocks crumbled, fortunes lost, and banks were in serious trouble.

And so they should’ve been! This, after all, was a crash of their own making. So naturally, it was only logical to bail them out and saddle, once more, the ordinary working public with the consequences. It only made sense to allow the bankers in their glass towers to watch the world below them burn as they have their lavish lives of luxury safeguarded by government redirected spending.

Since all of this sounds much like a tories wet dream, it underlines why I need to continually emphasize how this happened under a Labour government and how, in turn and as shall be explored later, it can be no surprise that the classic heartland Labour voters deserted the party in years to come.

The immediate consequences were made clear in the 2 years following the crash and leading up to the 2010 election: the deficit soared along with public debt and in campaigning in 2010, New Labour simply didn’t challenge the austerity narrative orchestrated by the tories and, in doing so, effectively gave the Tories an open goal and allowed the Lib Dems (hit by Clegg-mania) to scoop up yet more of the previously established (and prerogatively middle class) New Labour support.

As such, Labour polled appallingly in 2010, getting only 29% of the vote in an election that David Cameron’s Conservatives won the most seats on the way to a coalition government with the Lib Dems (in what was possibly the worst case of political suicide by any political party in recent times).

The New Labour project had ended following 13 years of majority rule. It’s legacy still yet to be seen, though it’s true legacy would not be fully seen for some time: but seen it would be, and it would end up being quite impossible to ignore.

4 – The Cameron-Clegg Clique (2010-2015)

It seems almost comical to say now, but in the run up to the 2010 election, Nick Clegg had generated much excitement surrounding him and his party, presenting himself as the progressive voice in the election: the real voice for radical change.

Indeed, come polling day, the Lib Dems achieved their highest proportion of the vote (23%) in their history (of course not including the old liberal party or the alliance with the SDP). In spite of this, the first past the post parliamentary electoral system, something the Lib Dems had been bitterly opposed to as a third party since their inception, came to bite them and in spite of gaining an extra percentage point in the popular vote, they actually ended up losing seats going from 62 seats to 57.

While of course a disappointment for Clegg and the Lib Dems, they were still in the position of king maker with both the Tories and Labour without an overall majority. However, and rather concerningly for Clegg, the only truly viable option in terms of numbers was to go with the Tories which, for a party that fought the election campaign on such a strong progressive message would surely be suicide. They couldn’t possibly go in with the tories could they?

Would the natural decision not be to simply refuse any coalition with either party and force another general election? After all, this would save face, boost Clegg’s personal credibility and give the Lib Dems a real driving force into the next election with a chance of a genuinely competitive result.

Of course, history is history and with some seduction from the tories regarding the state of the treasury and the menial promise of an AV referendum, the Lib Dems grasped the first chance of any power they’d had in nearly a century.

The once progressive and popular voice of Clegg and the Lib Dems had been turned almost overnight into the weak whipping dog of Cameron, holding little true power while cowardly propping up the austerity measures that so cruelly impacted the voters who thought they were voting for something truly refreshing and new. But not to worry! Clegg now had the title of deputy prime minister, so at least him and the Lib Dems could pretend they were relevant once more, even if it was at the cost of people’s lives and an AV referendum that they were crushed in.

Thus, then, from the outside at least it seemed that not only were the tories back in power with a junior coalition partner that proclaims to be a set of centre-left progressives who were more than willing to not merely tolerate but vote through such heinous policies as the bedroom tax, large corporate tax cuts, a slashing of NHS and public service budgets and welfare ‘reform’ that quite literally killed people.

These polices, as seen since Thatcher, were overwhelmingly impacting poorer, more traditionally working-class areas. It was a kick in the teeth slightly too far and these years of coalition finally saw the rumblings of discontent in these neglected areas of society bubbling to the surface. UKIP were on the rise.

The working class in swaves, having seen not only Labour but now the Lib Dems abandon them in favour of third-way establishmentism, were beginning to listen to the populist right and immigration-based scare mongering as a new, suddenly viable solution to the near half century of continued upheaval.

History has a curious way of repeating itself and, indeed, in this regard, this defection of working-class support to UKIP is entirely predictable. A vote for the Tories gave them nothing, a vote for Labour was giving them less and less and a vote for the Lib Dems gave them the Tories: why not vote for the man who drinks pints down the local and tells you exactly who you should be blaming.

UKIP, and Farage in particular, were very good at this. They knew they were outsiders and, in what was a growing era of anti-establishment sentiment, this was their great advantage and was step one in growing support. Step two was giving people somewhere to direct their anger and for UKIP this wasn’t merely at the three major parties but (and as touched upon earlier) also at immigration, as a newly viable means to push the truly right populist ideology of the party.

Indeed, following the 2010 election defeat of Labour and Gordan Brown’s resignation as leader, Ed Miliband was elected the new leader. This, to many, was something of an uninspiring choice: predictable and frankly rather corporate (the New Labour way). If the 2010 election should have shown Labour anything, it was that New Labour had it’s time and that it was time for a new direction, a direction to get that new UKIP support base back to Labour.

I ought to be clear here in stating that I’m not equating Ed Miliband to Tony Blair. I think he was better than that (I quite liked him); but he still lay in the fabric of New Labour and this was ultimately the failure of the Party when they elected him as leader. Even so, some positive local election results (combined with the tories and particularly the Lib Dems unpopularity in government with their austerity measures) meant that Labour could be confident going into the 2014 European elections.

These elections, it turned out, would be the first political earthquake warning of Brexit and should have been the point at which the major parties (particularly Labour) kicked back into gear and stopped the tide of unrest. The results of these elections were as follows:

Vote Share (%) (± Changes with 2009)

Seats (/73)

UKIP

26.6 (+10.6)

24 (+11)

Labour

24.4 (+9.2)

20 (+7)

The Conservatives

23.1 (-3.8)

19 (-7)

Greens

6.9 (-0.9)

3 (+1)

Liberal Democrats

6.6 (-6.7)

1 (-10)

The explicit take away here is just how well UKIP managed to do, ending the two-party monopoly on the EU elections and becoming the outright winner of the election on a huge increase in their vote share. This, of course, only tells half the story and was, in fact, a predictably good result for UKIP given the growing uncertain and disgruntled political climate. The other major takeaways were the fact that Labour had also, relatively speaking, done rather well, with a nine-point increase in their share of the vote.

This, however, rather than being regard as an outright victory in the same manner as the UKIP result (as it, sadly, largely was) can be more realistically accounted for. Firstly, Labour’s 2009 EU Election was simply disastrous: a real prelude and indicator to where they’d end up in 2010, namely, out of government. As such, growing from such a small vote share as a major party looking to present itself as new and fresh in opposition isn’t overtly difficult.

Secondly, the argument for tactical voting can be made. Those on the progressive wing of politics simply didn’t want to see UKIP win the most votes and, since Labour were both the clearest opposition to UKIP’s EU position (the Lib Dems pro-European position wasn’t in the public eye so much in these days) and the most viable option as a major party, it was logical that voters with pro-European and progressive beliefs would vote for them.

This is also clear looking at the vote shares of the other parties, with the Greens and the Lib Dems both losing votes, particularly the Lib Dems who were simply decimated in this election with their vote share sliced effectively in half and them left with only one MEP. This brings us to the third reason; Lib Dem voters needed a new home. They felt betrayed by what was now 4 years in coalition with the tories and, as such, were more than willing to lend their vote to Labour.

In fact, despite the apparent good result for Labour, the news from the heartlands was concerning, with much of the traditional northern working class Labour vote now explicitly going to UKIP. However, there was a reluctance of Labour to pay attention to this since in wealthy, southern, metropolitan areas, Labour were flying and as such their vote, on the surface at least, appeared to be holding. There was an illusion that the focus should now be on this new metropolitan support with the heartlands expendable to the campaign: still able to be taken for granted, so to speak. If ever there was an election to tell Labour to wake up and rethink, it was this one.

The course was rather held steady and preparations were being made by all parties for the 2015 General Election. While we’ve been focusing on Labour here, it’s worth looking at the Conservative Party and how their own base had been feeding UKIP support.

Euroscepticism run’s deep in the tory party and certainly isn’t anything particularly new. Indeed, the party’s division on Europe under successive leaders in the Blair landslide years were a contributing factor to how poorly the Conservative’s electoral performance was in those days. As such, the new prominence of UKIP was becoming an issue for the Tory leadership with many concerned they could lose much of their traditional Eurosceptic vote to UKIP and, by extension, lose the election as a result.

Consequently, David Cameron did the typically Tory undertaking of putting party and power above country: he made a manifesto promise to hold an EU membership referendum. This was a move, as he full well knew, that would do serious damage to the country should it not go his way and, as such, is a prerogative example in practice to demonstrate where the tories real loyalties lie – with power, not country. But hey, votes not lost are votes gained, right?

This, in practice, only did little to home the tide of UKIP support. Why? Because a great deal of those voting UKIP were simply not voting based on Europe! In was on the premise that the major parties were giving them nothing to vote for, on the premise that in voting UKIP they had nothing to lose. Of course, in any large contingency of voters, there will be radicals: genuinely racist, xenophobic individuals who would use UKIP as entering the mainstream as a means to legitimize their vile views. Sadly, the rest of those voting UKIP to give the two main parties a kick up the arse were willing to pay that price. Consequently, the seeds of the leave campaign were simply growing and growing before a referendum was even called.

Labour’s own manifesto, as touched upon, once more offered little for disaffected voters to get excited about, with another ‘pragmatic’ and largely once more third-way approach. If ever there was an election for a truly progressive voice to be leading the Labour party into an election, it was 2015: the UKIP wave could have been limited, the traditional Labour vote finally offered something and a referendum not called as a result.

Irrespective, the campaign ran its course, the people voted and by midday on May 8th, the writing was on the wall: a tory majority:

Vote Share (%) (± Changes with 2010)

Seats (/650) (± Changes with 2010)

The Conservatives

36.8 (+0.7)

330 (+24)

Labour

30.4 (+1.4)

232 (-26)

UKIP

12.6 (+9.5)

1 (+1)

Liberal Democrats

7.9 (-15.1)

8 (-49)

SNP

4.7 (+3.1)

56 (+50)

Greens

3.8 (+2.7)

1 (+0)

Prerogative things to note here include Labour’s relative stagnation in terms of seat numbers (a slight decline, mainly due to the remarkable strength of the SNP following the 2014 independence referendum) and vote share (a minor increase) on a once more uninspiring, third-way ticket. Secondly, the extent of the Lib Dem collapse as a result of coalition with the tories and the sheer increase in the UKIP vote which, in key Labour-Tory marginals, was able to hand the tories a majority on a net negative Tory-Labour swing (don’t you just love first past the post politics?).

Regardless, the result was clear and the immediate consequence even more so: a tory majority meant a Referendum on EU Membership scheduled to take place in 2016. A referendum that, looking at the discontent at the major parties in terms of relative vote share and the strength of UKIP not merely in the EU elections but in the general election, could one not have surely predicted the political earthquake that was imminent? Hindsight is a beautiful thing of course.

5 – ‘Chaos with Ed Miliband’ (2016)

In what has now become a rather amusing tweet in hindsight, David Cameron famously tweeted on the day of the 2015 election that the choice was clear: stability with him, or chaos with Ed Miliband. Oh, how many of us now long for that ‘chaos’ with Miliband.

Come 2016, the plans for the full referendum were already in full swing and the campaigns were getting underway. The remain campaign went for the approach of pragmatism, stating the black and white facts of what leaving the European union would do to Britain in terms of the economy, social issues and even the state of the British union itself. This was the pragmatism come to be expected from the establishment politics of the last 20 or 30 years and, as such, the remain campaign had lost before they’d even really had a chance to begin.

Contrast this with the leave campaign who were able to brilliantly use the techniques that had seen UKIP gain so much ground in recent years: whip up fear and nationalist sentiment. Afterall, the remain campaign was made up of suits that had been failing the working classes for years, of course they were going to be negative about Britain; they’re project fear! They don’t believe in Britain! They don’t believe in you!

This was all that was really needed. An anti-establishment message on a stage as great as this was incredibly attractive to those who had be so long left in the political gutter.

I remember the 24th June 2016 very well, it happened to be the day of my last GCSE exam – a physics paper at 9:30 in the morning. Before I’d even entered the exam room, Leave had won, David Cameron had resigned, and the shadow cabinet was following. Analysts were calling it a political earthquake, simply not what was being expected. However, it could so easily have been precited even a decade earlier – hate had been allowed to be relegitimized; the antiestablishment finally given something to cheer and both of these because of a negative third way and right wing approach of economic pragmatism, leaving too many in the dirt for too long.

There has always been genuine Euroscepticism in the UK, but enough to win a referendum outright? No. The remained of that leave vote owes itself to Blair, to Brown, to Clegg, to Major, to Thatcher and, frankly (and hopefully no longer paradoxically) the pro-European centrist politics that didn’t merely dominate the UK at the turn of the century, but the rest of Europe as well. Thus, is it any great surprise that the populist, Eurosceptic right is now gaining such heavy ground in the rest of mainland Europe? Whether it be the Five-star movement of Italy, the AfD of Germany or the National Front of France, it is clear that centrist politics is losing; that people want something to cheer for once more and that they need something genuine to be offered.

Our own experiences have shown that the hard right have no interest in this beyond using that support to propel themselves and their harmful, xenophobic policies into power. The hope must come from elsewhere. The change will come, and it will come from a resurgent Left. There is no other way.

George Colwell

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