There is a vivid quality that sometimes comes to the evening light in January. A hint of optimism in the dusk that rumours of warmth in the far distance. That light was in the air tonight. It felt as though change was coming.
The country is at an inflection point. Leaving aside the bewildered clingers-on, the old-age-pensioners in the room, the Rory Stewarts and James O’Briens and Emily Maitlisses of the world, we can all I think sense that something is dying, and that something unknown is in the process of being born. This Parliament has the feeling of an entire political framework teetering on a precipice – not just in the sense that we have a Government comprising people who are manifestly ill-equipped to govern in every conceivable way, but in the sense that an entire regime is about to be upended.
Harvey Mansfield describes a ‘regime’ as an order within which a certain ‘some’ rule over the ‘many’. This ‘some’ imbue the constitutional framework with its values and preferences, and this then informs how the ‘many’ will find themselves governed. In order for a regime to endure, the values of the ‘some’ and the ‘many’ have to be roughly aligned – or, failing that, at the very least the ‘some’ must have a plausible account as to why their rule is indispensable, so that the ‘many’ will accept them out of fear of the alternative.
We have for the last several decades been living in an age of misalignment of values. But for a long time the regime has been able to sustain itself through the ‘some’ portraying themselves as possessing the necessary competence to be indispensable. We are now reaching a point at which this is no longer possible. This is partly a problem of sheer appearances – it is difficult to portray oneself as an efficient technocrat when one is patently ineffectual at everything one does. But it is chiefly because the gap between what government says can be achieved and what is actually happening is yawning so wide that it is becoming impossible to ignore.
A recent illustration of this phenomenon went unremarked-on towards the end of last week when the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, stood up to deliver a speech in the Locarno Suite at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in which he attempted to lay out “the future of the U.K.’s foreign policy“.
Lammy is a strange and, at times, oddly sympathetic figure – a man who it is difficult to pigeonhole. Unusually for a Labour politician in the modern era he is willing to stick up for traditional family values – the importance of fathers and even the usefulness of corporal punishment – and, more unusually still, to speak with open admiration about Margaret Thatcher (which he, incidentally, did again in this Locarno Suite speech). He is in some ways the classic example of a man of immigrant background who is considerably more socially conservative than the modal voter. This gives him a slightly eccentric and surprising streak that, for all that he has a tendency towards ill-advised outbursts, at least makes him seem like a three-dimensional human being – a rarity in Labour circles.
But he is no intellectual titan, and his speech singularly fails to do what it sets out to do, which is to lay out a “strategy”. The strategy it purports to describe is the stuff of daft fantasy. It postulates a world which does not exist. It is a wheeze that is designed to impress the people whose opinions Lammy takes seriously – namely, other progressives. And its contents only serve to strengthen the fin de siècle mood that is lying across the land like a blanket.
To parse the Locarno Suite speech, one has to first cut away some undergrowth. Starmer’s Cabinet is, with bloody-minded insistence, still clinging to the story that it is here with a ‘Plan for Change’, and Ministers seem to be under the impression that merely saying these words and others like it will in itself, in the end, amount to such a project. And so it is that, even in a speech ostensibly about grand strategy in respect of foreign policy, Lammy still manages to crowbar in some lines about “fixing the foundations”, “economic stability”, “the priorities of hard-working people”, a “decade of national renewal”, and so on – even (not the first subject one would normally associate with foreign policy) “restoring the NHS”.
But once these tangled weeds have been cleared away, it is possible to discern a solid form: the strategy that Lammy sets out is what he calls “progressive realism”. This, he tells us, was the vision of Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary in the period immediately after the Second World War, namely:
A strategy that was both progressive and realist. That took the world as it is [sic]. Whilst working for the world that we want [sic] to see.
Setting to one side the rules of grammar and syntax, not to mention the time-space continuum, for a moment, the idea here is that Bevin managed to combine both hard-nosed pragmatism (acquiring a nuclear deterrent and entering into a transatlantic alliance) with an internationalist, cosmopolitan commitment to the progressive ideals embodied in the United Nations. He in other words managed to reconcile the competing imperatives of what Lammy calls “realism” and the desire to make the world a better place. And Lammy believes that he can do the same thing. “I want us to be looking at how we can get to a more progressive 2035,” he declares. “And that means confronting some hard truths, about the state of the country, about the state of the world, and the need for reform.” It means, in summary:
Taking the world as it is not as we wish it to be. Advancing progressive ends by realist means.
The idea, then, is the foreign policy variant of cakeism – a grand squaring of circles, in which both the national interest and progressive goals are made to align. We have to “shape 2035” while at the same time committing ourselves to hard-nosed, tough-minded decisions about increased defence spending, “relearning the Cold War manual”, engaging in “consistent deterrence” and so on. We have to develop a “modern industrial strategy” while also “show[ing] the world what a more progressive 2035 can be like” through “driv[ing] the clean energy transition”. We can in short align our own goals with those of the globe itself – securing both the much-vaunted “national renewal” and leading the world to a better future all at the same time.
Never mind that what Lammy is really talking about here – “enabl[ing] and empow[ering] change at home and through a long-term international strategy” – is better described as ‘idealism’ (the alignment of domestic and foreign policy goals) rather than ‘realism’ (the idea that states act rationally in their self interest, which he seems to confuse with basic pragmatism). What is interesting about the vision which he puts before us is its almost lunatic disconnection from, ironically, reality itself.
This is true across two dimensions. The first is sheer implausibility. Lammy made a great deal of fuss about the “power and potential” of the U.K. in his speech – and was bullish about the Government’s plans to “unlock growth”, “seize the opportunities coming into view”, “mainstream AI”, “deliver for hard-working people” and so on. It did not seem to occur to him that, almost at the very moment he was uttering the words, his colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was becoming embroiled in crisis as government borrowing costs rocketed up to their highest level in decades. This follows on from Reeves’s disastrous Budget, which seems to have manufactured a recession out of a combination of tax rises, profligate spending and sheer bad vibes. In short: the country is on a hiding to bankruptcy and Labour is squeezing the Hemingwayan distance between ‘gradually’ and ‘suddenly’ with alarming alacrity.
And it also didn’t seem to occur to Lammy that even as he was trumpeting the “clean energy transition” as a means of demonstrating global leadership, the country was coming perilously close to experiencing blackouts as a result of its increasing reliance on, well, unreliable renewable sources of energy. Setting aside the issue of reliability, the “clean energy transition” which Britain is purportedly leading on has in any case pushed industrial electricity costs here to the highest in the world. And this of course ties the issue together with the problem of economic fragility: there is simply no way to “unlock growth” or “deliver for hard-working people” if energy prices are so high. One dreads to imagine the suppressed chortles and sniggers in the foreign ministries at the world at the prospect of the U.K. leading anybody anywhere in respect of energy policy – it would be an act of kindness to say the idea is not credible.
“Progressive realism”, then, is a strategy inhabiting a universe where it is possible to simply say that certain things are desirable and then realise them. This is not, unfortunately (though I think it is probably very fortunate indeed) the universe we in fact inhabit. We rather inhabit a world where progressive goals actually conflict with reality and trade-offs have to be made. Lammy does not appear to understand this, or does but blithely ignores the consequences.
The second dimension of unreality running through Lammy’s speech, though, is in a sense even worse, and this is that – even if we lived in the Bizarro World in which Labour actually had a ‘Plan for Change’ and we had the national wherewithal to achieve it – no other country in the world is remotely interesting in our “leadership”. Lammy’s sentiments might have made a sort of sense during the years of fluffy pre-Iraq New Labour exuberance or, perhaps, during Obama’s initial period of sunny optimism. But his speech was in fact delivered in the context of an almost worldwide rejection of all of its predicates – globalism, progressivism, environmental alarmism, multilateralism and so on. There is barely a government left standing anywhere in the world which is interested in signalling a full-throated commitment to such values, and those that are – in France, Germany, Canada and so on – are in the process of collapse. The world has, in short, turned and left Lammy standing: ‘everybody’s changing and he just feels the same’.
“Progressive realism” is not, in summary, a strategy – it is a vision that cannot be realised and which nobody would want even if it could. But in this it serves as nice little illustration of the broader trends in British Government – namely, towards illusion, self-deception and sheer silliness. To repeat: the ‘some’ who rule the ‘many’ in this country long ago abandoned the values which the ‘many’ still largely hold dear. They were for a time able to behave as though this didn’t matter because they at least were able to portray themselves as heavyweights. But they are now no longer capable of even gesturing towards seriousness; they are made of gossamer.
Lammy unintentionally made all of this explicit when, at the very end of his speech, he reeled off a list of pivotal leaders at pivotal moments in the U.K.’s recent political history: Bevin in 1946, Wilson in the 1960s, Thatcher in the 1980s and Blair in the 2000s. He seemed to be imagining, or trying to conjure in the listener’s mind, a future world in which ‘Starmer [or, perhaps, Lammy] in the 2020s’ was being mentioned in similar lists. But setting aside the substance of policy and focusing purely on personal capability, the comparison can only have struck his audience as both laughable and tragic all at once. To come back to the beginning: an entire regime – an entire ordering framework through which a certain ‘some’ rule the ‘many’ – is about to be upended. The gap between what it purports to be capable of doing, and what is actually happening, is simply yawning too wide. Something is dying. Something else is in the process of being born.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. You can subscribe to his Substack – News From Uncibal – here.
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If you don’t follow David McG’s Substack, “News from Uncibal” you should. One of THE best commentators on the death of Britain.
https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/
Daniel Jupp’s “Jupplandia” also ace. He wrote the in-deep investigative book, “The Gates of Hell”, looking at the Philanthropath Gates’ endless corruption; his Substack a wondrous outpouring of articulate anger at the shysters running the UK.
https://jupplandia.substack.com/
Thank you – I’ve been a traveller to Uncibal for a while, but Jupplandia is terra nova.
Am also a fan of Richard Lyon’s State of Britain:
https://richardlyon.substack.com/
Sorry, but he’s a buffoon, completely and utterly ill equipped to be a foreign secretary
Just another diversity hire that I have no such sympathies for
He would be challenged to be a village idiot.
I was born just after the war and I have always been interested in politics – Communism in my teens, Thatcher in my 30s and anti Blair/Cameron – but in all the time there were a lot of good politicians around with experience of life and full of ideas – good and bad. Now we have a complete desert of good strategists or indeed any politician with a modicum of understanding of what requires to be done.
I blame the education system, apathetic parenting and social media for the ‘airheads’ that we have not got in power over us. I support the author’s last sentence “Something else is in the process of being born” – Trump and Reform maybe?
When Labour were elected they were happy to let us know that they had two complimentary aims. Destroy the Tories once and for all, and ensure at least a two term Labour government. So, the repeated use of the year 2035 in Lammy’s speech suggests that the two term goal is still very much in their rather battered playbook.
Their problem is, and as the article demonstrates, just saying something doesn’t make it so. Never mind ten years, Labour will be lucky to last 10 months. The’ve as much chance of seeing out ten years as Erling Haarland has of playing the next ten years at Manchester City – despite his shiny new long term contract.
Both Labour, and Haarland’s career at City, will end exactly as Hemingway predicted all things do.
“Their problem is, and as the article demonstrates, just saying something doesn’t make it so.”
True – unless they’ve cottoned on to election rigging. Look at how Andrew Bridgen was wiped out – without so much as a whimper from the MSM.
They hated Bridgen for doing a better job at covering the vax scandal than they did.
“Labour will be lucky to last 10 months.”
Unless they already have a foolproof means of cancelling any future elections.
Funnily enough aren’t they already testing the waters on this one?
A pertinent dissection of the madness of the reality and delusion of the forward thinking of Lammy and all of his fellow Lemmings.
That this Government is going to come up against the Behemoth that is the Trump Administration from Monday , is going to reveal how totally invested in Wrong Policies is this Government . Starmer is doomed !
Bring it on!
Politics of schizoid contradictions – “clean energy transition” and highest industrial energy cost in the world to unlock the “power and potential of the UK.”
Words, words, words. Political deranged ramblling.
“Progressive realism”, then, is a strategy inhabiting a universe where it is possible to simply say that certain things are desirable and then realise them
In other words, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Lammy may have the will, but the way is an altogether different kettle of fish. Lammy and his colleagues are so out of their depth that it’s tragic. Tragic for us that is.
Putting aside whether Lammy could even change a lightbulb, why should the government of the UK be aiming to change the world? That something needs to change within the UK is increasingly apparent, but the idea of, say, China (economy down to 5% growth) is looking on saying, ‘oh yes, we need to be more like the UK!’ is quite amusing.
The “regime” just can’t seem to adjust to the idea that they are governing an impoverished (by their own policies) country that has no influence over the rest of the world.
It is far easier to play on the world stage than deal with the pressing problems at home, especially those they have created. Note that Two Tier has not been here yet again.
One thing I have never understood: just what the hell does “progressive” mean?
Progressing towards what?
Totally insane, bigoted, racist, oppressive ideas are regularly proclaimed to be “progressive” by people on the left.
“Progressive” is the lying self-advertisement the marxo-fascist advocates of the total-control state apply to themselves.
I agree with your description.
The fatal conceit (©️ F Hayek): ignoring the vast amount of dispersed knowledge and unpredictable, spontaneous, emergent order.
The conceited believe they can know every small detail in a vast system such as to be able to see the future, determine best outcome, and plan and control progress towards it.
it is the primary failing of the Socialist.
Hayek was talking about the market economy, but his wisdom equally applies beyond the economic.
Here is my strategy:
Thus, all politicians and relevant Civil Servants should have to pass exams in The Economy (not Mickey Mouse Economics, that means you Rachel), Warfare and Law.
Trade is two-way. If we don’t import from China what are we trading for our exports – what do we get in exchange? Are we gifting stuff to China?
How has this strange brain-worm infected so many people – if we are reliant on Country X for something, they are reliant on us for what we give in exchange, be that goods or Pounds.
Exports are a cost. Imports are what makes us wealthier. As a wise man said, imports are Christmas Day, exports are the January credit card bill.
I blame the schools.
Not sure about your? thesis, but yes, avoiding reliance on China would make us poorer, we would have to pay more elsewhere, or produce our own, likely to be much more expensive … but that is the cost of security of supply.
Insurance costs more than not buying it, but people do buy it.
The second dimension of unreality running through Lammy’s speech, though, is in a sense even worse, and this is that … no other country in the world is remotely interesting in our “leadership”.
Not only our leadership but also USA’s leadership. Granted, we used to have an empire and be required to enforce decisions affecting a large number of countries but those days are long gone – and, interestingly enough, the end of the British Empire was largely desired and brought about by US President Roosevelt charging us every penny for every assistance provided in WWII, resulting in enormous debt which was only finally paid off not that long ago. (I only learned recently that USA equally provided masses of material to the Russians during the war without charging them one cent.)
The result was, of course, the establishment of today’s US Empire which now rules the world – more or less.
The point is that whereas the Western world has been for ever taught to hold USA in high esteem, the rest of the world is very tired of being threatened, bullied, placed under sanctions and/or invaded.
The US attempt to ‘divide and conquer’ Russia has led the country under Putin’s leadership to become an economic super-power and one of the world’s strongest military forces.
Having lost in Ukraine, USA is now turning its aggressions towards China (with a possible intermediate ‘scuffle’ in the Middle East) but the world has grown truly tired of this ‘Playground bully’, and more and more nations are joining BRICS, a strong economic counterpart to USA and EU, where the main condition of joining is simply that you never sanctioned another country!
So UK may never join BRICS but I really think it is time we stopped, firstly, playing the obedient servant to USA and, secondly, behaving as though we should be dictating anything to anyone outside our own country.
I firmly believe each country in the world should solve its own problems and UK could, in the meantime, prioritize its tax payer income to support the British tax payer alone. Britain’s foreign policy should be to develop good relations with all countries, which will always result in economical benefit, and stay out of all wars!
I cannot fault your reasoning.
You can’t have good relations with all countries.
In particular, the Chinese Communist regime is hostile.
The EU is also clearly hostile.
Any islamist regime is also guaranteed to be an enemy.
Thanks to our support for Ukraine, Russia is also hostile – whether you agreed with the policy or not.
In a dangerous world we need the friendship of the USA, Canada and Australia…even if you don’t like some of their policies.
Russia has friendly relationships with all countries that want friendly relationships with it.
In what way is China hostile? China welcomes the massive amount of business it does internationally. You may criticize the Chinese regime but the point I am making is that that is a problem (if so considered) of the Chinese people, not of Lammy or any external country.
You divide the world into good and bad, friendly and unfriendly, but people are essentially the same everywhere: they all yearn for good health, economic stability and to be able to enjoy life.
How about USA? How friendly is USA? For example, they blew up the Nord Stream pipeline belonging to their ally, Germany.
How democratic is USA, given that you must be able to fund a presidential campaign with a few hundred million dollars, and with the common sense assumption that your funders will subsequently want to influence your policies?
And USA has an amazing history of violence, up to and including the present day, which our media always succeeds in presenting as somehow being necessary or acceptable. Here is Noam Chomsky in 2003 providing a good summary of the crimes of US Presidents since Eisenhower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXtgq0Nhsc. If you have more time, here is Jeffrey Sachs at the Cambridge Student Union discussion, where he famously called Benjamin Netanyahu a deep, dark son-of-a-bitch (at 43m49s) for convincing USA to fight all his wars in Libya, Iraq, Syria, …, and now probably Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bl6_MAhg_4.
I agree the EU is hostile but individual nations are not. A large percentage of countries in the world is Islamist but why do you presume they are enemies?
The point I am trying to make is that it is not our task to criticize other nations. If a country is Islamic, what right do I have to challenge that? What right do I have to demand they change? I say let them sort themselves out.
We can have friendly relationships with any country if we help that country in any way possible without placing conditions of change. Let them change themselves, if they wish it.
Restoring the NHS in the context of foreign policy might be prioritising the indigenous population over foreigners. I suspect that is a policy more likely to apply in cloudcuckooland.
Lammy obviously believes in 6 impossible things before breakfast. Quite appropriate that the quote comes from the Red Queen.
A serious politician ought to be interested in shaping 2025 in 2025 and not 2035, if only because the former is possible while the latter isn’t. If something is done now, it ought to have some real benefit now, not a hypothetical one someone claims to believe will manifest itself ten years from now. “2035” is a distraction, it basically means “Don’t look too closely at what we’re doing now, great stuff will come of it in ten years, I promise!”
Should Lammy still be foreign secretary in 2035, I strongly suspect he’ll be “shaping 2045” by then, ie, still advocate stuff that’s detrimental now while promising nebulous benefits in ten years time.
When Trump says “Jump,” Starmer and Lammy et al, will respond ” how high”