There is a problem with the common account of Brexit as a phenomenon driven by the rising up of “neglected communities” against the London-centric establishment that put them in that state. It’s that it ignores the extent to which communities in this country have actually broken down. I’m sure that plenty of Liberal Democrats might think that local organisations, pressure groups, housing associations are still central parts of life in this country, but we have to remember that we are a poor representative sample of the country at large (through volunteering and activism, and even simply through our interest in politics at all, we are far more likely to be engaged with what is going on in our local area, and the local associations involved in decision making there).
The reality is that the trend towards anti-establishment politics has occurred on the laptops and in the homes of voters, not in church halls or function rooms. Despite our best efforts, the significance of the communal in the sphere of the political remains a latent, but ultimately unrealised dream. It is not that active local communities, engaged in the political process, collectively voted in bulk for Brexit last June, but rather that disgruntled voters do not have access to genuine, worthwhile communal associations that in the past fostered trust and strengthened communities, in turn making them feel empowered and engaged in the national political process. Voters as individuals felt distant from Westminster, not as communities. As Lib Dems, we ought to be disturbed and willing to reembrace a radical localism if we are serious about combatting radical anti-system politics.
Where can we draw ideas from? I can’t pretend to know the solutions, but I believe we need to reopen debate on how best to “do localism” in future. We need to recognise that there is strong evidence that invigorated community groups, and empowered local institutions lead to happier, more cohesive societies and revives faith in the political system nationally. Communitarian thinkers like Robert Putnam, and modern sociologists like Mike Savage, describe how “social capital” is fostered and enhanced by strong local communities. A debate inside this party about how we can reaffirm and enhance our historic commitment to empowering communities and reinvigorating local politics, followed by our adopting a worthwhile set of policies on actually realising this, would go a long way towards helping us win and shape Britain in both the short and long term.
Theresa May’s government thinks the remedy for the frustration behind Brexit is through a new commitment to the state. Big, national statist policies might help her image on certain issues, but it will not reverse the trend that has detached voters from communities and in turn from the sphere of the political. As a party, we ought to be the party of the 48%, but we also ought to be serious about helping the 52% find faith in the system again. We can only achieve this if we find a new and restructured model for British politics that first rebuilds, then empowers communities, and which has as its organising principle a bottom-up approach to power. So let’s have an open and honest debate about our party’s commitment to localism that takes stock of what has worked well in the past, and embraces a new agenda for the future that we can put at the centre of a powerfully liberal and radical manifesto at the next election.
* Guy Russo was the Parliamentary Candidate in Enfield North at the General Election and is an Ex-President of the Queen Mary University of London Liberal Democrats.
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5 Comments
The picture is more complicated than the disempowered voting Leave. As this BBC report shows, a variety of the left-behind voted Remain. This includes a higher proportion of Black and minority ethnic voters in Leave areas. And we know, statistically, that on many indicators BME citizens are among the most disenfrancised in the wider sense. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38762034
I believe very much in localism, but in reality we can too readily accept those who are empowered by it – for example in local decisionmaking – as being representative of the community. Too often those that embrace localism that we Liberals offer are not the most left-behind and disempowered, and nor are they representative of all sections of society, including by ethnicity. Therefore localism should be extending out in two ways, to deepen empowerment and to widen the stratum of those who participate, and for those arms to meet in the middle.
On a different note, I’m disappointed that the party does not have any policy working groups on race equality. We are seriously missing a trick here by ignoring the need to develop policies to combat racial inequality in society.
This is a useful piece.
I agree with Tony; this raises the important issue of localism. I also agree with Lester, that it is not a simple explanation of the leave vote, though it may help to explain the difficulty in the referendum campaign of engaging with people about the truths and falsehoods. The localism act of the coalition was a step in the right direction but without local resources and the starving of local government, it has not been very effective. Similarly Cameron’s idea of the big society sounded good but is of little practical consequence because as Guy says, people no longer engage in communal meetings or discuss local issues together and less people have the time to participate constructively.
In Education this government is steering us further away from localism; I have heard recently that one of the problems with the NHS is its over-centralised policy-making and management. The Education system is being driven into the same mold of a national service without adequate local communication or democratic input. The argument about post-code lotteries is diverting us from the real concern about a disconnection between government services and the people. As a local councillor for 13 years, I found that people even find the County Council (as opposed to the district council) remote. This country really does need to sort out what issues need to be decided at what level in our governing system, with less decided by Whitehall.
Guy has a point about councillors and activists perhaps over-estimating the importance of local organisations (meeting without a quorum in a village hall near you!) in the local community. What I find heartening though, as a parent, is the community fabric is often very strong outside formal local institutions with women in particular supporting each other around childcare in particular. Because it is outside the formal economy no-one much notices, but it is Liberalism in action.
Lester – wasn’t there some polling that showed that voters with an African heritage were amongst the most likely of any group to vote Remain? Fascinating to speculate about that in a London Borough like Southwark where 19% of the population were born in Africa. In my old ward that figure would certainly be a lot higher.
Hi Ruth, Ashcroft Polls calculated that 27% of Black and 33% of Asian people voted Brexit, so both groups were clearly more pro-Remain than the population at large. People who voted for Brexit were more likely to dislike multiculturalism and immigration, and more likely to identify as English rather than British – all indicators that this cohort were not BAME. Having said all that, Runnymede Trust research found that Remain support was quite soft among BAME groups, due to perceptions of Europe that are not common in the White British population, namely seeing mainland Europe as being plagued by racism, concern over the far right, historical views over colonialism and experience of difficulty moving across Europe’s internal borders despite freedom of movement.
So even though BAME communities voted Remain quite heavily, the Remain camp could have done a lot better at targeting and selling the case to these communities. It might have increased BAME turnout, but we’ll never know. Our own Liberal Remain campaign was every bit as dismal in this regard as the national cross-party campaign.