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Identity – Sentiment, Nostalgia, Emotion and the Lure of Greatness

IDENTITY IS COMPLEX political concept. People have multiple identities which cover every conceivable aspect of life. These can range from being a passionate football supporter devoted to one club, to a life-long member of a political party, to being proud of your country and a loyal patriot. The mind is an incredible repository of lived experiences, memories, real or imaginary, dreams and harsh realities generated by circumstances which change over time and can shape moods, generate feelings and influence behaviour, and totally frame how you live and how you think.

The 21st century has seen significant changes in politics which reflect the qualities, beliefs and shifting identities of voters and a move away from broad based politics to a much more focused way of registering likes and dislikes, and making statements of how people feel at different moments in time. The electorate is fragile, volatile and less influenced by the enduring thoughts of the two traditional parties in the UK and the US. They are now more influenced by nationality and economic conditions.

The fears, anger and pain that people experience often curdle into grudge, grievance and resentment politics: The most base part of this would have to be described as ‘F*** You Politics!’, derived from a sense of:

‘We might not believe what’s on offer, but we need to register our anger and despair as to what the future holds.’

The Trump and Brexit campaigns acted as a hook for concerns oft people feel that have been ignored.

Embracing the Past

Many people don’t see a future for themselves and become trapped in nostalgia and the sense that better times have slipped away. This reflects the ‘Rust Belt’ phenomenon of the US and the UK and the backlash experienced in Brexit and the US presidential campaign. On the darker side, both campaigns allowed these cries for help to become caught up in a ‘them and us’ scenario where the plight of the left-behind is blamed on something or someone. This is where populism becomes ugly. Race, immigration, xenophobia, nativism and religious intolerance are a poisonous cocktail.

A shared sense of identity can create the basis of national cohesion and solidarity. The EU referendum campaign didn’t have that feel about it, nor did the Scottish referendum held in 2014. Referendums are proving to be a remarkably divisive way of agreeing matters of public policy. While a sense of national identity in each of the four countries within the UK looks set to become more important, there seems little chance that a unity of shared purpose and ambition can be realised. It could be argued that identity has always driven politics, but the nature of this has changed dramatically. Britain’s failure, up to now, to understand the complex dynamic of identity will lead to further constitutional upheaval, a diminishing sense of solidarity and security, and a declining sense of national purpose. Populism highlights the challenges of identity as it cuts through ideas of a simple class based analysis and seeks to shape our politics and democracy in different ways.

Sentiment and Emotion

The politics of nostalgia, sentiment and emotion – linked to identity and age – played an important role in Brexit. Vast numbers of Leave voters are real patriots, care about their country and are proud of Britain’s past. Hard Brexiteers offered a false return to the triumphs of the past, with all Britain’s lost grandeur and success, if only we could leave the EU, which was characterised as the great millstone around our necks, preventing us from being great again. This was designed to exploit the sincere emotions of millions of people. The emotional blackmail deployed by the hard Brexiteers is a statement about the failings of Britain, not the EU. Analysis of the EU referendum result suggests this was mainly an issue in England. This is a powerful and difficult issue to deal with. It would be easy to dismiss the lure of the past as nothing more than soft sentiment of the ‘little Englander’ mentality, that shouldn’t be taken seriously. This would be a mistake.

Respect the People

For Labour, the dilemma is simple but challenging. First the referendum result was democratic, so, to use Jeremy Corbyn’s words, we must ‘respect the result’. That might suggest we don’t need to agree with the result or accept it. Respect is the important point. Emotions were stirred up around a false prospectus. How do we address people’s concerns while seeking to remain in the EU? How do we argue without arrogance or elitism that people’s concerns have been abused by the right and other hard Brexiteers?

We need to have a strategy over the next two years to derail and ultimately destroy Brexit, while at the same time facing up to the pain people are experiencing and addressing their economic needs. In the US and the UK respectively, 63 million voted for Trump and 17.4 million voted to leave the EU. In Britain we need a much bigger and more inspired political strategy that starts to phase out the EU as the problem and instead focus on the real problem – the right wing of the Conservative party, austerity, market excesses and neoliberal economics, and Britain itself: this includes, ‘those left behind’. Remaining in the EU must be part of a wider political campaign.

Britain seems to have given up talking about the future. This plays in to the game plan of those who want to evoke memories of the past and exploit them. The majority of people who voted Leave are, unlike the Tory right and other hard Brexiteers, not racists or xenophobes or economic nationalists. They are real patriots who need a vision to call their own and a future for their families; they need to feel part of a positive movement that looks forward to better economic times ahead.

The present time offers an opportunity for Brexit and populism to be defeated. Labour must recognise that patriotism and identity politics are a challenge, not a threat.

We might mock, ‘winning our country back’ and ‘making Britain great again’, but why is it that progressive parties in Britain have allowed such sentiments to gain such currency? This is a wake-up call for the political left who dismiss identity politics as a distraction from class politics. People need a sense of now, a sense of future and less need to dig into their past for comfort and security. Britain is a country with more memories than dreams. What is the British dream?

Trump and the hard Brexiteers made a great deal of economic arguments. Both offered great deals but nothing will be delivered. Their politics ensure that their priorities are elsewhere.

This raises the important question of why people can be persuaded to vote against their own economic interests by the political right. Trump made offered the ‘left-behinds’ a new deal. After his victory, he promised to slash corporation taxes, cut income tax for the wealthy, deregulate Wall Street, regardless of the 2008 crisis, and filled his cabinet with billionaires and multi-millionaires. In addition, if his efforts to replace Obamacare with Trumpcare succeed, another 20 million people will have no health care insurance. Most of them voted for Trump.

This parallels the situation in Britain. Brexit is an illusion, a fraud that will not benefit working people and will only hasten the day when more aggressive free market policies widen inequalities and put ideology first.

Social Democrats, Liberals and Socialists have created a vacuum in Britain and the US, and in many countries in Western Europe, which has been filled by populism, the rise of the right and the hollowing out of our public and social realms. Trump and the hard Brexiteers are beneficiaries of the lack of a public narrative or philosophy which offers an alternative to the madness which is unfolding in the US and the UK.