Populism and Nationalism

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for giving us this opportunity to examine our own consciences and careers. I say that because the rise of populism and nationalism is the result of the failure of conventional politics—and all of us are of course involved in conventional politics. To the extent that populism and nationalism have become powerful in this country, it is in some measure a result of our own failures.

The words of this Motion are directed to the wrong target. It is not populism and nationalism that pose the main threat to the liberal international order. They are the symptoms rather than the disease. The way in which that order is working is provoking the resentment and hostility within many countries that poses the real danger. In his column in the Sunday Times last Sunday, Dominic Lawson wrote that,

“misery is a measurement of the difference between expectations and reality”,

which is a very good aphorism. Since the 2008 financial crisis, that misery index has risen to dangerous heights because the political parties and conventional politics in so many western countries have failed.

Some of the reasons for this are common to a number of countries, including this one. The handling of that financial crisis and what has happened since is obviously one. The banks were bailed out, which was absolutely necessary to prevent an economic breakdown, but no bankers have gone to jail or been held personally responsible. Meanwhile, other sectors of the economy have experienced closures and the attendant job losses, and many people have had their lives thrown into chaos. This has done much to discredit conventional politics and business leaders, and thus to fuel the rise of nationalism and populism.

Another reason common to many countries has been the handling of the combined effects of globalisation and technological advance. While some sections of society have benefited beyond the dreams of avarice, others have lost out badly—none more so than relatively unskilled men and their families. I believe that their problems have not received the priority they deserve in political debate and political programmes. It is no wonder, therefore, that they turned in large numbers to Donald Trump in the United States and are turning in large numbers to UKIP in this country.

Other factors are particular to some countries and regions. For instance, the way the eurozone has functioned has had the opposite effect from the one intended. Far from bringing the people of the eurozone closer together, its workings have driven them further apart and led to a rise in nationalism in a number of countries in northern and southern Europe.

While these developments have been working through the system, conventional political parties, of which many of us in this House are members, have paid little heed to the anger boiling up around us. The most obvious example in this country is the length of time it took us to focus on the concerns surrounding immigration. We failed to explain how the country benefits from immigration and why it needs it, and to tackle the social tensions and deep-seated social fears that it created. It was a double failure: a failure to explain and a failure to act.

I shall give another example of how in this House and in another place our priorities have sometimes diverged from those of the electorate and given rise to anger. While so many government programmes that touch on the lives of ordinary people have been cut or subjected to strict spending limits, the aid programme, to which the noble Lord referred, has been privileged to a unique and unprecedented degree. It is guaranteed a share of GDP, and those who run it are legally obliged to spend up to the limit. This is absolutely the reverse of the way every other programme works. I am not against aid—I am in favour of it—but it is no wonder that privileging the aid budget in a way that no other budget is privileged causes anger and resentment among people who are not prejudiced, not lacking in compassion and not unreasonable, when they compare that with what is happening in the NHS and social welfare.

My conclusion is not that there has been an underlying shift in the standards and values of electorates across the western world. It is rather that Governments and Parliaments have in too many cases, including in this country, failed to take sufficient account of legitimate public concerns. This has left the way open for populists and nationalists, and we must all ask ourselves how much we as individuals are to blame.