“This is a book about how a healthy democracy should connect people to each other and to the place they call home. It is the toxic politics that reverses and disrupts this process. It’s about the failures at the heart of democracy…” says Rafael Behr. His project was conceived and written following a heart attack that almost caused him at the age of 45.
He writes during a period of turmoil. Across Europe and the US, populists on the right and left, often under the guise of nationalism, are on the rise. UK politics over the last decade has been a rollercoaster, with both main parties succumbing to sectarian takeovers. Meanwhile, the world beyond fortress Europe seems to be disintegrating, and looming ever larger over our comfortable lives are the potentially existential threats of global warming and mass migration.
In recent years, the center has become an increasingly lonely outpost. Politicians, never held in high public esteem, now rank lower than ever. Democracy, says Behr, is in danger of being “fracked” by hypercynicism, causing many sane and decent people to disengage.
Although not without strongly held opinions, the author is firmly a creature of the center. A distinguished political commentator for the Guardian (and formerly the Observer), he writes with elegance and honesty and his judgments are balanced. A voice of reason in an otherwise polarized world. This is partly a memoir. Born and raised in Finchley (Margaret Thatcher’s constituency), he is the son of a Jewish family who immigrated to the UK via Lithuania and South Africa. As a young journalist at the turn of the century, he cut his teeth as a correspondent for the Financial Times in Moscow, where he had a first-hand view of a dysfunctional society in which democracy is an alien concept.
His only request is that rational and sane people should not disengage from the political process
He writes amusingly and perceptively about what he calls “Brexit Bolsheviks” and “grievance miners”. He also writes about “outrage inflation”: the impact of social media on contemporary political discourse. The manufactured outrage, a phenomenon hitherto confined to the tabloids, has now begun to infect liberal outlets. “In the media of the 21st century, the intensity with which an opinion is expressed has come to serve as an indicator of its value in a debate. The more ardent the sentiment, the more attention-worthy it is… A handful of online fulminators will be enough to reach the threshold of newsworthy outrage.”
One issue the author does not address in any detail is the insidious rise of so-called dog-whistle politics, in which political parties pit themselves against each other, focusing on issues they hope will incite fear and hatred. among the righteous Like most political diseases of this kind, it began in America and was brought to these shores by Lynton Crosby, an Australian. Until recently, dog whistling was largely the preserve of the Conservative party, but the recent Labor campaign alleging that Rishi Sunak is soft on pedophiles suggests the disease is infectious. It’s hard to think of anything more likely to drive decent people away from politics.
It is common for books of this nature to conclude with a wish list of measures that, in the author’s eyes, are essential to a better world: proportional representation, a wealth tax, a new centrist political party, etc. Behr does none of that. Instead, it offers “perspectives.” His only request is that rational, sane people should not disengage from the political process, leaving it to the extremes of the right and left. “There is no harm in holding strong beliefs. The danger comes when opinions are so strongly held that criticism is interpreted as betrayal and reasonable defiance denounced as heresy.”
“British democracy has many flaws,” he says, “but it’s not a farce… Complacency is dangerous, but there’s also the risk of drifting away from the center, drifting in pursuit of white radicals towards the left and right who despise incremental reform and reject moderate improvement as not equivalent to any. For them, the destination is less important than the thrill of the journey.” Or, to put it another way, be careful what you wish for.
Chris Mullin is a former Labor Minister. His latest volume of diaries, Did’t You Use to Be Chris Mullin? will be published by Biteback on May 11th
Politics: A Survivor’s Guide: How to Stay Engaged Without Getting Infuriated by Rafael Behr is published by Atlantic (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com. Shipping charges may apply
