Globalization after the EU referendum: Part 1

After the EU referendum, Tony Blair’s claim that contemporary politics is ultimately about understanding and responding to the challenges of globalization has a new profundity to it. While different analyses have put slightly different spins on the divisions between those voting for leave and remain, what seems most deeply true is that those who voted leave generally feel as though they have been left behind over the past 30 years, and that they have not benefited from the GDP growth politicians so proudly proclaim.

The below graphic, from Lord Ashcroft’s poll analysis on Conservative Home, shows the alarming split on how the two different voting blocs view the social and economic changes of the past 30 years. While some of these are not explicitly linked to globalisation (feminism, social liberalism, the green movement), taken as a whole I would argue they indicate a hostility to the modern world that is at least part based on a rejection of globalisation.*

There’s an economic basis for this scepticism. For a long time, politicians have looked to boost national growth figures by capitalising on the financial sector and urban areas, almost entirely neglecting sectors such as industry and agriculture. High growth sectors — which tend to produce few jobs, and be located in existing areas of tech expertise — are rightly heralded and promoted, but the emphasis on these sectors emphasises and increases the disconnect between economic policy and the economies of vast swathes of England.

In many of these places the economy has not improved despite of the supposed benefits of global connectivity, complex financial structures, and, yes, migration. Living standards have often stagnated or fallen, a decline exacerbated by the closure of Labour funding mechanisms for deprived areas and years of austerity. Resentment in a lot of these area isn’t new (think of the expenses scandal, or the 2005 election) or entirely misguided, though malevolent media outlets have ruthlessly exploited and manipulated it. And while a lot of blame has been laid at Jeremy Corbyn’s door for the referendum result, these are not just working class labour strongholds; they are Tory towns in East Anglia, the midlands, the south-west. Places David Cameron’s modernisation project didn’t reach.

Not only is the country in a lamentable state, but the left is seemingly in self-destruct mode once more. Faced with an absent government and the unravelling lies of the Leave campaign, members of the shadow cabinet have decided to use the pretext of Corbyn’s lukewarm EU campaigning to launch a coup. When Labour should be pushing for retained access to the single market, free movement, legislation to ensure EU-level regulation on the environment, workers’ rights, social rights; when they should be leading the fight against the embolded far-right and the xenophobia and fascism creeping into the mainstream, instead the party decides to embark on a futile and divisive leadership challenge.

But at some point, the Labour Party and the left more broadly need to engage in a much deeper structural problem than who is the leader. The problem is this: how can the left engage with its traditional base and create coalitions for the future in the context of globalization? Can globalization be directed towards progressive ends at all? And how do we start convincing voters who think they have been on the wrong end of it, and whose perception of these problems is primarily through the lens of the reactionary press, of the benefits? The answers of the 1990’s will no longer be sufficient, and nor will an outright rejection of globalization. Without a new answer to this question, the left not only surrenders power to the right for another generation, it also potentially loses its pre-eminent vehicle of social change in the Labour Party.

I’m going to write a couple of posts about this — first, looking at the task of campaigning or convincing (the immediate task for the left), and second, looking at the task of governing in a way that spreads the benefits of globalization and quells discontent.

*This obviously isn’t true for all Leavers, such as Hannanite hyper-capitalist liberals or some left-wing voters. But the arguments that brought the win for Leave were immigration, ‘taking our country back’, and a hatred of elites.