Political realignment: the rise of the new right
Both at home and internationally, politics is in flux. Mainstream legacy parties struggle as challengers gain ground, while the traditional left/right divide comes under strain. Those running state institutions seek to retain authority under the banner of ‘expertise’, but face revolts from citizens alienated by political elites and their presumed right to rule indefinitely. Living through such a historic shift can be discombobulating. But three new books help untangle what is happening.
In The Great Realignment: Why the New Right is Here to Stay, political commentator Stephen Davies argues that forces on the new right are ‘challenging the status quo everywhere’. Drawing on current trends as well as analysis of past realignments that he characterises as when a ‘sea change’ occurs in the nature of political divisions and ‘an issue that politics used to centre around fades away and a new one appears’, he argues we are moving from an era defined by economic divisions towards one whose central conflict is between national identity and sovereignty versus an essentially post-national cosmopolitanism.
Moralistic panics over ‘populism’, meanwhile, are challenged by Professor Frank Furedi’s In Defence of Populism. Taking aim at portrayals of populism as inherently irrational, extremist or far-right, Furedi argues that such disdain reflects ‘poorly concealed contempt towards the idea of popular sovereignty’. Populism, he contends, is not a specific ideology but a broad disposition towards public life, stressing ordinary citizens having a genuine voice in political decision-making. Yet what does that mean for populist parties whose substantive views vary enormously between countries, but which require coherent political programmes to win power? And as seemingly populist forces themselves become embroiled in deep-seated and often vicious disputes with each other – for example over ethnonationalism or remigration – can the populist spirit survive these new ideologically-driven divisions?
The Rise of Reform: The Inside Story of Britain’s Political Disruptors, by veteran Westminster journalist Nick Tyrone, offers an insight into the shallow attachment to ideological coherence. Interviews with activists and voters suggest a simple logic behind Reform UK’s appeal: ‘We gave the Tories and Labour a go, they failed miserably, why not give Farage a go?’ Tyrone, a self-described liberal Remainer, is no natural ally of Reform, though he has previously predicted that Nigel Farage will become Britain’s next prime minister. But how will the instability of an interregnum between political eras, and the emergence of rival disruptor parties, affect the Faragist phenomenon?
More broadly, if we are witnessing deep-seated realignment, how will it disrupt the ideological and electoral alliances that have structured Western politics for decades? With populist parties in many countries struggling to move beyond the support of roughly a third of voters, what must new-right movements do to overcome establishment hostility, tactical alliances and regulatory barriers? Can they overcome their own contradictions and write today’s realignment into the history books? Have Western politics changed for good?
