Arrogant Lib Dems are reverting to their Whig origins as the party of oligarchy
“I will do whatever it takes to stop Brexit.” From that pledge by Jo Swinson, in her first hour as leader of the Liberal Democrats, we know what “liberalism” now means. It means rejecting the democratically expressed wishes of the majority in a referendum. It means seeking to implement the preferences of a defeated establishment minority at the expense of the majority will of the electorate.
There is absolutely no moral or qualitative difference between repudiating the result of the 2016 EU referendum and blocking the outcome of the 1945 general election, or the 1979 election, or any other legally recorded consequence of a government going to the country at a moment of historic significance. You either accept the democratic verdict produced by universal suffrage, or you don’t.
If you do not, there may be persuasive philosophical reasons why you think mass democracy is a bad idea. In that case, you have a perfect right to advance that view; but do not simultaneously feign adherence to the current system and, above all, do not insult the public’s intelligence by calling yourself a “liberal”.
The Liberal Democrats’ notorious “B******s to Brexit” slogan means “B******s to the Voters” or “B******s to Democracy”. That is the ineluctable logic of that outright rejection of the outcome of the largest electoral consultation in British history. On the day after the referendum some Lib Dems were already demanding a re-run. The Liberals are reverting to their Whig origins as the party of privileged oligarchy.
Jo Swinson’s accession to the leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party was hailed by Timothy Garton Ash, in a Guardian column, as offering the chance of a fightback for liberal Britain: “The great unrepresented liberal Britain, that is, that people around the world admire and miss.” And he ended his column with a similar tribute to “the true, the great, the unrepresented liberal Britain”.
Note the drumbeat repetition of “unrepresented”. Where, exactly, in Britain does Garton Ash imagine liberalism is unrepresented? In Parliament, where the long-term colonization of even the Conservative Party by liberals has deprived the government of a majority on issues such as Brexit? In academe, where the monopoly power of intolerant liberalism has no-platformed free speech and thought out of existence?
In the Civil Service, where liberalism is now a monoculture? In local authorities, where PC prescriptions are ubiquitous? In corporate culture, where quotas, equality and diversity now preoccupy boards as much as the accountancy bottom line? Above all, in every forum of power, influence and wealth where the faintest hint of sympathy for Brexit would provoke derision and exclusion – where, precisely, is liberalism unrepresented?
The attempt to impose a “victim” characterization on liberalism, the rampantly dominant culture in contemporary society, is a classic example of the delusory behaviour of the Brexit-disoriented classes. It is on a par with the antics of Alan Duncan, resigning as a minister in order to demand an emergency Commons debate to enable the House to express No Confidence in Boris Johnson before he had even been elected Tory leader – a proposal too extravagant for even Speaker Bercow to countenance it.
An interesting aspect of Duncan’s ploy is that a no-confidence vote would not have been binding, but it would have sent a message to the Queen that Johnson did not command a Commons majority, putting her in the embarrassing position of potentially having to refuse his appointment – and this through the machinations of a faction that has tirelessly denounced any use of the legitimate power of prorogation of parliament as “dragging the Queen into politics”.
The frequent ignoring of constitutional precedent and the bizarre innovations we have seen in parliamentary procedure over the past year are further testimony to the extreme lengths to which Remainers are prepared to go to obstruct the public will. In many cases their conduct and language have become unbalanced. They are suffering from BAD (Brexit Anxiety Disorder).
That attribution is not simply a gibe directed at extreme Remainers, it reflects the diagnosis of a clinical condition. Dr Philip Corr, professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at the University of London, and Dr Simon Stuart, a clinical psychologist, were quoted last August by POLITICO as having identified extreme Remainers as exhibiting symptoms no different from patients suffering from chronic anxiety caused by loss of control and insecurity.
Because the leadership of the Remain faction is composed of mainly richer, professional, highly educated people, its loss of control over the direction of the country – due to the referendum result – is “psychologically very disturbing”, according to Professor Corr, and “has been long known to undermine psychological stability – including the ability to reason objectively”.
Or, to phrase it more demotically, the Remainiacs have lost the plot. The elites no longer regard the constitutional settlement of the 20th century – the “end-of-history” resolution of political conflict by awarding all adults of both sexes an individual vote so that nobody would be excluded from decision making on public policy – in the way their parents did.
That level playing field has become disrupted by molehills of special interest groups. The elites see themselves as having concluded an implicit Faustian bargain with those at the bottom of the social heap by buying them off with benefits in return for a free hand in directing public policy on issues such as EU membership. The insurgency of the masses in Sunderland and innumerable other “left-behind” communities was seen by the elites as ingrate presumptuousness, much as a board of Poor Law guardians would have regarded a revolt by inmates in the workhouse.
The ultimate diagnosis of the establishment’s disorder is a lethal case of Entitlement. That is what inspires well-off, highly educated, well-travelled, well-connected, influentially placed, self-conscious “liberals” to respond with near-frenzy to the impertinently asserted aspirations of the less educated, totally uninfluential – save through the ballot box – masses. It furnishes a fascinating insight into the mindset of the ruling elites: it is as if the 1832 Reform Act had never been passed.
That is the serious fault-line running through the heart of British society today. It is not, per se, about wealth distribution, or material inequality, though such issues are peripherally relevant. It is about the malign reality that, behind all the Brexit gobbledegook, the political clichés and media cheerleading, a minority elite is unfalteringly convinced of its unchallengeable right to rule the country and direct the destinies of all its inhabitants.
Although that elite is no longer a closed caste and is differently constituted from the ruling class in, say, the 16th century, its ambition to control the nation is no less steely and is actually more insidious because it has assumed the guise of “liberalism”. A brief review of the thousands of unguarded remarks, “tweets”, speeches, interviews, broadcasts and slogans uttered by fanatical Remainers will easily establish how “liberal” their instincts are.
Which brings us back, inevitably, to Jo Swinson: “I will do whatever it takes to stop Brexit.”