As the scale of Reform\u2019s success in the British local elections became clear, the Reform Member of Parliament Danny Kruger noted, \u201cWhat is happening is seismic\u2026The public have decided they don\u2019t want the failed consensus of the last 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
What is this \u201cfailed consensus\u201d? Here is my take: what the voters have announced this week \u2013 in the most unambiguous terms since the Brexit vote \u2013 is that they\u2019re calling time on the idea that we have to prioritize other people and other things over what is in the interests of ordinary working British people. The public will no longer allow a discredited, globalist notion of treating national self-interest as a second-order priority \u2013 which has found its most devoted proponent in Keir Starmer \u2013 to be foisted upon them.<\/p>\n
This notion has become the guiding philosophy of much of the bureaucratic class. It found perhaps its most infamous expression in the words of the former Cabinet Secretary Gus O\u2019Donnell when he said, in the context of immigration policy and the economy, \u201cI think it\u2019s my job to maximize global welfare, not national welfare.\u201d Such an approach was always putting two fingers up to the people paying Lord O\u2019Donnell\u2019s wages. It has now clearly failed. The public simply won\u2019t put up with it any longer.<\/p>\n
\nCall it populism, the politics of national preference or anything else you like<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Commentators have sought various framings to describe what has happened in British politics since the Brexit vote. To some it is of course simply grubby populism or an unfortunate political awakening by the great unwashed. Others have described what has happened as a backlash against the elites, though I\u2019m not sure that is quite right when most people see business and tech elites \u2013 the Elon Musks and James Dysons of this world \u2013 as deserving of nothing other than respect.<\/p>\n
During the Brexit campaign, Michael Gove astutely captured the mood when he said \u201cpeople in this country have had enough of experts.\u201d But, in my view, straightforward hostility to experts is not quite the right framing for our current moment. Not least when people are waking up to the realization that many of the country\u2019s senior mandarins have only the shallowest of expertise in the areas over which they exert such vast control.<\/p>\n
Theresa May\u2019s distinction between \u201ccitizen of nowhere and citizens of somewhere\u201d is helpful. Everything we have seen over the 22 months of misrule by Keir Starmer stems from the preference he stated in 2023 for Davos over Britain. People want a politics grounded in home, not a Prime Minister in it for a leaders\u2019 family photo and a chilled glass of Chasselas.<\/p>\n
What all these framings capture is a sense that an elite class, claiming an expertise they often don\u2019t possess, and a moral high ground they do not deserve, has tried to tell us little people how things should be done. By making reference to spurious and outdated frameworks they often barely understand \u2013 whether international law or human rights \u2013 they have tried to dictate, in always the most supercilious of tones, that this is simply the way things must be. Rather than level with the public, and point out the range of options open to us on any given issue and the trade-offs involved, they have sought to present only one acceptable outcome.<\/p>\n
An asylum policy that would require us to derogate or withdraw from international treaties or require the repeal of domestic legislation is not even presented as an available option. Such is the fear in the governing class that the public, if given a choice, might make the wrong one.<\/p>\n
But the public have realized we do not need to prioritize economic immigrants posing as asylum seekers over women\u2019s safety. We do not need to prostrate ourselves at the feet of shouty activists, whether Greta Thunberg or pro-Gaza mobs. We do not need to nod solemnly when the perpetually offended take exception to something in our culture.<\/p>\n
We do not need to indulge outrageous demands for reparations from foreign countries. Nor fold in the face of international courts advising us to give away our own sovereign territory. We do not need to prize other concerns over our own interests \u2013 whether blind adherence to a rigid framework of international law that most serious geopolitical observers agree has become outdated, or an amorphous notion of our \u2018international reputation\u2019.<\/p>\n
Put simply, we can put Britain first, and we do not need to feel any embarrassment about doing so. Indeed, it is only by doing so that this country survives in any meaningful, coherent, successful form and able to therefore continue to make a positive economic, cultural, and intellectual contribution to the world.<\/p>\n
Call it populism, the politics of national preference or anything else you like. The electoral thumping delivered on May 7 shows Brits just want their own country to be put first. It\u2019s extraordinary that it\u2019s taken so many in the political class so very long to realize that simple truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the scale of Reform\u2019s success in the British local elections became clear, the Reform Member of Parliament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,260772,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-950625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-coffee-house","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116550839125061126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}