Populism and Nationalism

Baroness Stroud Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for calling this debate. It is impossible to do justice to this hugely important topic in five minutes so I am going to focus on just one aspect of it, the development of populism, and ask where this threat has come from and why. If we can answer the question of why, we can go some way towards taking the steps to address the issue.

If we look up a definition of populism we will find it defined as,

“support for the concerns of ordinary people”,

or,

“the quality of appealing to, or being aimed at, ordinary people”.

Supporting and addressing the concerns of ordinary people surely has to be the desire and responsibility of every politician and leader, yet when we see the rise of populism around us we should ask ourselves how effective we have been.

Across Europe, populist parties’ average share of the vote in national and European parliamentary elections has more than doubled since the 1960s, from around 5% to 13%, at the expense of centre parties. Since the 1960s populist parties’ share of seats has tripled, from nearly 4% to nearly 13%. In most recent polling, Marine Le Pen’s Front National party is at 26.5%, a lead of 1.5% over former Prime Minister Fillon.

Ordinary people are voting for and identifying with parties that are communicating in a way that taps into their major concerns, enabling them to feel as though they have been heard. This is a challenge to us as mainstream parties and to the liberal international order. Why are we not meeting that need? In a joint piece of work undertaken recently by the Legatum Institute and the Centre for Social Justice—I refer to my entry in the Members’ register of interests—called 48:52 Healing a Divided Nation, we looked at what some identify as populism and at what motivated some of the 52% to vote the way they did in the Brexit vote. The story of 48:52 is not just a story of the rise of populism. The decision to leave the European Union was a bold and unequivocal statement for millions of people who wanted to change the political, social and economic status quo. It was a moment in time for them, a rational choice, when those who had not felt heard by the establishment expressed their desire to take back control—control of their wages and of their public services.

As we have sought to research and analyse the underlying issues, a number of well-known themes have emerged, such as concern about immigration, a desire for sovereignty and a sense of community alienation. However, there are also some more deeply embedded themes. Whole swathes of British society are concerned about: their wages and their job security—the impact of globalisation and technological changes to the nature of employment itself; the security of their home and access to housing; and pressure on public services, particularly education and health. This is the deeper malaise that the Prime Minister identified when she made her speech on the doorstep of No.10, and which she has kept referring to ever since. In my view, these are some of the deep social issues that lie at the heart of the rise of populism. In light of this, it is perhaps no surprise that the vote disregarded the dire warnings of the establishment, including the then Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Bank of England, the World Bank, the IMF and President Obama. Their threats and warnings showed that the establishment understood little of the lives of the 52%.

There is one other factor at play here in the rise of populism. When those who feel that the establishment does not understand their concerns look for leadership to our great institutions, we need to be aware of what they have seen. Instead of seeing a leadership that is there to take responsibility and to serve, they have looked at the finance sector and seen the banking crisis; looked at the media and seen the hacking scandal; looked at politicians and seen the expenses scandal; and even looked at top sports men and women and seen the doping and bribery scandals. There is a challenge to the liberal order, but it is one that should lead us to address the social issues that have been highlighted by the rise of populism and to ensure that the historic institutions of this nation are led with integrity for the benefit of the many, not just the few.