Coronavirus and the future
The future after Coronavirus is dangerously in the balance. While there are opportunities for an end to populism and cynical politics, the fear remains that they become even more embedded. I want to show that the threat of such a slide is real and that we should waste no time in understanding what faces us.
The impact of the virus in the longer term is economic. If we assume the worst case, full working will not be possible until a vaccine is discovered, in 12-18 months. Even though many restrictions would have been relaxed by then, there would still have to be a strategy of using on-off triggers to alternate periods of lockdown and economic activity. This is explained in the report by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team [1]. It would be the only way to prevent a large-scale reoccurrence of the outbreak. The economic implications of this cannot be anything other than dire. There will be horrendous job losses globally and in the UK. Even if we avoid the worst case scenario, the economic damage already done has been immense. The US Senate has just approved a deal worth $2 trillion. The UK has promised a £350 billion bailout for businesses. There is certain to be a recession in this country and probably there will be in the world as a whole.
The optimistic view is that such a shock to our preconceived ideas is an opportunity. Why not rethink the whole thing? As I shall argue, that eventuality has already been predicted and will be obstructed. The forces that have brought us to where we are have not gone away.
In his excellent article How populist leaders exploit pandemics [2], Jeremy Cliffe explains:
"The political genius of populism, and the root of much of its appeal, is that it manages to reconcile individualist and collectivist political instincts through a sleight of hand described by Jan-Werner Müller, a philosopher and the author of What is Populism?, as the “populist logic”. Think of it as a storytelling technique, a way of fitting things into a certain narrative about the world."
Our government, especially with Dominic Cummings advising, is populist. It is using storytelling to build popular support. The narrative, as Cliffe goes on to describe, always involves the same ingredients. There are always "others". People who stand outside the core supporters and are cast as enemies. Thanks to Brexit, Remainers belong to this group, as do the EU, judges, parliament, the civil service and so on. "The people" are then guided to define themselves as the authentic opposition to the "others". Appeals are made to their patriotism, their pride in our glorious past, their sense of being British. The goal is to govern without opposition. In this way the government can provide cover for its real business of accumulating power and wealth for an invisible elite. It is not necessary to have a majority to do this. With our FPTP system, 40% of the electorate will do. It works by convincing the 40% they have common cause with their government and that the government is fighting on their behalf. The "others" are taken to represent an existential threat.
Many years of cultivating a sufficiently dumbed-down electorate is a pre-requisite. The media and other institutions play an important role in making politics a sideshow on the fringes of entertainment. In the end, people get used to politicians who habitually lie and make false promises. They assume that politicians will always be like this and always have been. They are not entirely fooled by the lies and false promises, rather they are discouraged from taking any real interest. It becomes easy then to bend the narrative still further until slogans will work. Once "the people" have been deprived of any logical means to understand politics, slogans can work directly at the emotional level. "Take back control" because we want to feel a sense of powerfulness. "Get Brexit done", because we are sick of hearing the word "Brexit". Once political debate has been sunk to these levels, it becomes possible for a leader such as Johnson to be elected, because he is "a bit quirky". To maintain control the government has to provide nudges to the narrative. It does this using provocations, such as the proroguing of parliament.
None of this changes with Coronavirus. The goal of the government will be the same. It will act on behalf of the interests of an invisible elite who want to extend their control and increase their wealth. Irrespective of the enormous damage a no-deal Brexit will cause, the goal of this government is almost certainly to engineer such an outcome. It has always wanted this outcome because, for ideological and practical reasons, it prefers a deregulated, low tax playground where it can do whatever it likes. To achieve this goal it will need to win popular consent in the face of terrible economic conditions. The narrative of us versus them will have to amplified to full volume.
This is beginning to happen. Raab has already stated that there will be no extension to the transition period. Then we had the reprehensible decision of the government to avoid the EU scheme for the procurement of personal protective equipment. Forget all the email nonsense. To have joined would have conceded infinitesimally to the EU. Better to lose a few lives than that. Moreover, why not double down on this by insisting we source British manufactures such as Dyson? The cynicism with which elements are forced into the populist narrative is deliberate and calculated.
For more evidence of what is coming our way consider the herd immunity controversy. I have written about this in another bog post [3]. There is no doubt in my mind that Cummings and Vallance considered spreading the virus through the population as a means to resume economic activity ahead of our competitors. The subsequent backtracking only happened when they realised how this action would overwhelm the NHS. The grotesque miscalculation was soon dispensed with in a few news cycles. It was evidently not the time to be pointing fingers.
For a government intent on forcing through a no-deal Brexit, Coronavirus will provide ample cover. While we focus on the terrible stories emerging from the NHS front-line, negotiations with the EU have stalled. There is absolutely no chance of a meaningful deal before December. All the government has to do is wait. No-one is paying attention. Furthermore, the Russia report will be forgotten. So will the investigations into Jennifer Arcuri. It can scarcely be described as helpful that Labour have chosen this volatile period in our history to plod through their pointlessly long leadership contest. The government have enough going their way without Labour giving them a free pass.
At the end of Cliffe's article there is a glimmer of hope. The only way to resist what is happening is to provide a compelling counter-narrative. We have seen some truly amazing things. NHS workers risking their lives. Communities pulling together. Channel 4 News providing the kind of journalism that looked to be all but extinct. The counter-narrative would need to tell the story of an alternative Britain. One that does well by cooperating with its neighbours to hold firm against the demonstrably real threats we humans face whether it be through climate change or pandemics or a pressing need to rebuild our NHS and social services.
[1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
[2] https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/03/how-populist-leaders-exploit-pandemics
[3] https://martinagombar.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus.html
What will happen next?
In spite of the astonishment of news outlets each time Coronavirus cases rise by a "record amount", the virus obeys simple mathematical rules. The curve is different for each country but it never fails to follow a steep up-phase followed by a down-phase. In countries where preparations have been poor, the peak number of cases overloads the health service of that country. Spain and Italy have suffered very badly. The UK and the US look set to follow. In most cases governments have been forced to impose social distancing and other measures to prevent or minimise overloads. In the US, in what could prove to be a national disaster, Trump has preferred to talk of full Easter congregations.The impact of the virus in the longer term is economic. If we assume the worst case, full working will not be possible until a vaccine is discovered, in 12-18 months. Even though many restrictions would have been relaxed by then, there would still have to be a strategy of using on-off triggers to alternate periods of lockdown and economic activity. This is explained in the report by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team [1]. It would be the only way to prevent a large-scale reoccurrence of the outbreak. The economic implications of this cannot be anything other than dire. There will be horrendous job losses globally and in the UK. Even if we avoid the worst case scenario, the economic damage already done has been immense. The US Senate has just approved a deal worth $2 trillion. The UK has promised a £350 billion bailout for businesses. There is certain to be a recession in this country and probably there will be in the world as a whole.
The political fallout
Such a dislocation of everyday lives, experienced in all parts of the globe simultaneously, calls into question many things. How is it possible for right-wing, normally conservative governments, to divert enormous resources into business and subsidies when it suits them but not as their preferred course of action when faced with every day, year-on-year, social degradation and inequalities of wealth? In a more basic sense the question arises: how do economies really work? What is money? And from a political standpoint: how are we controlled, who owns that power and how is it maintained? Coronavirus, temporarily at least, provides a sudden clearing of the mists that normally conceal these things. Money, for example, is clearly not a fixed entity. If it were, what with every country trying to borrow at the same time, it would surely run out. The fact that money does not run out tells us something about its true nature. Our commonplace notions of how things work are being challenged.The optimistic view is that such a shock to our preconceived ideas is an opportunity. Why not rethink the whole thing? As I shall argue, that eventuality has already been predicted and will be obstructed. The forces that have brought us to where we are have not gone away.
In his excellent article How populist leaders exploit pandemics [2], Jeremy Cliffe explains:
"The political genius of populism, and the root of much of its appeal, is that it manages to reconcile individualist and collectivist political instincts through a sleight of hand described by Jan-Werner Müller, a philosopher and the author of What is Populism?, as the “populist logic”. Think of it as a storytelling technique, a way of fitting things into a certain narrative about the world."
Our government, especially with Dominic Cummings advising, is populist. It is using storytelling to build popular support. The narrative, as Cliffe goes on to describe, always involves the same ingredients. There are always "others". People who stand outside the core supporters and are cast as enemies. Thanks to Brexit, Remainers belong to this group, as do the EU, judges, parliament, the civil service and so on. "The people" are then guided to define themselves as the authentic opposition to the "others". Appeals are made to their patriotism, their pride in our glorious past, their sense of being British. The goal is to govern without opposition. In this way the government can provide cover for its real business of accumulating power and wealth for an invisible elite. It is not necessary to have a majority to do this. With our FPTP system, 40% of the electorate will do. It works by convincing the 40% they have common cause with their government and that the government is fighting on their behalf. The "others" are taken to represent an existential threat.
Many years of cultivating a sufficiently dumbed-down electorate is a pre-requisite. The media and other institutions play an important role in making politics a sideshow on the fringes of entertainment. In the end, people get used to politicians who habitually lie and make false promises. They assume that politicians will always be like this and always have been. They are not entirely fooled by the lies and false promises, rather they are discouraged from taking any real interest. It becomes easy then to bend the narrative still further until slogans will work. Once "the people" have been deprived of any logical means to understand politics, slogans can work directly at the emotional level. "Take back control" because we want to feel a sense of powerfulness. "Get Brexit done", because we are sick of hearing the word "Brexit". Once political debate has been sunk to these levels, it becomes possible for a leader such as Johnson to be elected, because he is "a bit quirky". To maintain control the government has to provide nudges to the narrative. It does this using provocations, such as the proroguing of parliament.
None of this changes with Coronavirus. The goal of the government will be the same. It will act on behalf of the interests of an invisible elite who want to extend their control and increase their wealth. Irrespective of the enormous damage a no-deal Brexit will cause, the goal of this government is almost certainly to engineer such an outcome. It has always wanted this outcome because, for ideological and practical reasons, it prefers a deregulated, low tax playground where it can do whatever it likes. To achieve this goal it will need to win popular consent in the face of terrible economic conditions. The narrative of us versus them will have to amplified to full volume.
This is beginning to happen. Raab has already stated that there will be no extension to the transition period. Then we had the reprehensible decision of the government to avoid the EU scheme for the procurement of personal protective equipment. Forget all the email nonsense. To have joined would have conceded infinitesimally to the EU. Better to lose a few lives than that. Moreover, why not double down on this by insisting we source British manufactures such as Dyson? The cynicism with which elements are forced into the populist narrative is deliberate and calculated.
For more evidence of what is coming our way consider the herd immunity controversy. I have written about this in another bog post [3]. There is no doubt in my mind that Cummings and Vallance considered spreading the virus through the population as a means to resume economic activity ahead of our competitors. The subsequent backtracking only happened when they realised how this action would overwhelm the NHS. The grotesque miscalculation was soon dispensed with in a few news cycles. It was evidently not the time to be pointing fingers.
For a government intent on forcing through a no-deal Brexit, Coronavirus will provide ample cover. While we focus on the terrible stories emerging from the NHS front-line, negotiations with the EU have stalled. There is absolutely no chance of a meaningful deal before December. All the government has to do is wait. No-one is paying attention. Furthermore, the Russia report will be forgotten. So will the investigations into Jennifer Arcuri. It can scarcely be described as helpful that Labour have chosen this volatile period in our history to plod through their pointlessly long leadership contest. The government have enough going their way without Labour giving them a free pass.
At the end of Cliffe's article there is a glimmer of hope. The only way to resist what is happening is to provide a compelling counter-narrative. We have seen some truly amazing things. NHS workers risking their lives. Communities pulling together. Channel 4 News providing the kind of journalism that looked to be all but extinct. The counter-narrative would need to tell the story of an alternative Britain. One that does well by cooperating with its neighbours to hold firm against the demonstrably real threats we humans face whether it be through climate change or pandemics or a pressing need to rebuild our NHS and social services.
[1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
[2] https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2020/03/how-populist-leaders-exploit-pandemics
[3] https://martinagombar.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus.html
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