Introduction

BRITAIN’S VOTE TO leave the European Union and the election of President Trump have sent shock waves through the democracies of Western Europe and have emboldened far right parties in Germany, France, Austria and the Netherlands. However, both France and the Netherlands have rejected far right politics with their respective elections of Emanuel Macron and Mark Rutte.

The striking and worrying similarities between the Trump and Brexit campaigns are a chilling reminder of how old ideas are being repackaged for modern times. History tells us about nationalism, however economic it is dressed up to be – authoritarianism, nativism, racism, xenophobia and religious intolerance (especially in the form of Islam) – and the consequences for countries and continents.

The political and press frenzy over Prime Minister Theresa May’s future has tended to distract from the reality that a significant section of the Conservative party has embraced a cheap patriotism that is the enemy of what a modern Britain should be striving for. Personalities may change, but the right of the Conservative party doesn’t. We ignore this basic fact at our peril.

Brexit is about the identity crisis that Britain has grappled with for over 70 years, and the question of Britain’s role in the modern world, or the lack of one. It is about the failure of the right of the Conservative party and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) leadership to remove the shackles of the past and put behind them the nostalgia, sentiment and delusional mindset that refuses to accept that Britain no longer rules the waves or controls an empire and does not have a ‘special’ relationship with the United States – while also failing to see the significance continental Europe has for Britain in the 21st century.

The story on offer for Brexit, and for Trump, argues that all our ills are the fault of migrants, refugees, Muslims and Eastern European benefits tourists, who are simultaneously stealing all our jobs. In Britain, the story is further adorned by a barely concealed hostility to foreigners, especially the French and Germans, the supposed ringleaders in the EU’s drive towards a federal state.

The story is rounded off with a generous helping of insidious nationalism (mainly English), a dash of isolationism and a hint of racism to come if Brexit succeeds.

These cheap patriots leading Brexit are consumed with a misplaced sense of history and are diminishing Britain in the eyes of the world.

Much of the developed world is experiencing political upheaval and in some cases radical political change. While there may be little agreement on where this is heading, there is compelling evidence about some of the causes: a deep disillusionment and anger with traditional politics; electorates freed from the patterns of previous voting; and growing anxieties about the inability of politicians and political parties to tackle the problems and challenges of our changing world. In this fragile anti-austerity environment, new parties are emerging and minority parties are gaining strength and enjoying varying degrees of success and popularity.

These are the politics of a turbulent, disgruntled and restless world. The EU, one of the most important political projects in history, faces threats, such as terrorism, migrants and narrow nationalism, that are reshaping the narrative.

We live in troubled times. In the wake of a remarkable political year, the winds of political change sweeping through western democracies have intensified, gaining momentum in 2017 and posing new challenges to the politics of social democracy and international solidarity.

Political certainties are being shredded with no end in sight.

It is of deep concern that 63 million people voted for Trump and 17.4 million people voted for Brexit. Trump’s victory, exploiting Rust Belt resentment and racism in the US, is of crucial political significance: his authoritarianism threatens to destabilise the world order.

President Trump’s tweets his support of the break-up of the EU, a view shared by Marie Le Pen of the National Front (who lost the election in France), the Alt-Right party in Germany and the far right Geert Wilders heading up NEXIT in the Netherlands (who also lost the election). Does Theresa May want to encourage the extremes of Europe’s political right alongside Trump, and embrace them as new political allies? This is the ‘new’ populism of the right.

The EU referendum campaign was a sad but spectacular reminder of the fragile, volatile and uncertain nature of our democracy and politics. The shallowness of our democracy has been laid bare. This campaign was a damning indictment of what is wrong in Britain and goes to the core of our political turmoil.

The UK is not alone in facing these challenges. Throughout Europe and the US, profound social, economic, demographic and technological changes are taking place, holding out the prospect of epic consequences for our politics, constitutional structures, democracies and governance. For some, this offers an overdue shake-up of traditional political and establishment elites and the chance to talk about making everything ‘great’ again, taking our country back and making ‘immigration’ the real concern. For others, however, there are concerns about a retreat into a darker place where respect for tolerance, difference, inclusion, internationalism and multiculturalism is replaced by authoritarianism, populism, isolationism and a trickle-down form of racism and nationalism. A new battle of ideas is certainly under way but with little consensus as to where we might end up. To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of Britain.

This book attempts to find out what is going on and to work out why our governance, democracy and politics are at risk. Its title is based on Political Action Committee (PAC), a lobbying and major funding group in the US, founded in 1988 to promote corporate interests, socially conservative causes and candidates who support ‘limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families and national sovereignty and security’. These super PACs act as shadow political parties, accept unlimited donations from billionaire corporations and use the money to buy advertising, most of it negative and of the extreme right. This PAC, called Citizens United, also won a now infamous victory in the US Supreme Court where they argued a case on the legal concept of ‘corporate personhood’, so that corporations could receive the same protections as individuals. This opened the floodgates to corporations building power over the political process, massively corrupting the already fragile democracy in the US and intensifying the marketisation of politics by spending obscene levels of finance.

This power came at the expense of people and is a symptom of the longstanding threat posed to US democracy by the rich and powerful on the right of US politics. The US Supreme Court, the most political court in any western democracy, changed how money could be spent in elections in what is widely regarded as the most regressive piece of legislation in post-war America and a major assault on the rights of the people that confirms the triumph of the market over democracy. This book is intended as a reminder of the power of money and the market in our democracies. It expresses the alternative view that citizens, not corporations or companies, should decide who governs. It makes a plea for the reinvention of our politics, the strengthening of our democracy through effective and responsive governance based on an enhanced and respected role for the citizen. The election of Donald Trump and the arrival of Brexit have added urgency to this idea. Our politics, democracy and governance are holding Britain back.