Populism needs to find a new voice to succeed

Listening to the concerns of ordinary people is good politics. Why have our leaders forgotten how?

Two years ago, the old world order was blown apart by a new populist energy. Now, though? That energy is seriously running out of steam. In Britain, Brexiteers look sapped and chaotic. In the United States, the ordinary man’s clamour against the system has curdled into a bitter culture war. Across the West, “populism” has become a toxic term, used to label everything from antiislam parties in Germany to “mass manipulators” like Donald Trump.

The universal consensus is that populism is a backward-looking, destabilising force. Americans trace it back to the sockless, pseudointellectual farmers of the 19th-century Midwest – a conspiratorial bunch who railed against “Jewish capitalism” and insisted that Sir Francis Bacon wrote William Shakespeare’s works. In Europe, critics point to populism’s repeated collapse into self-destructive “big man” tyranny, harking back to the likes of Robespierre, who used the wrath of “le peuple” as a galvanising force to crush his enemies, but ended up shot in the jaw, sneered at by those who once adored him.

But this all jars with the basic meaning of populism: “support for the concerns of ordinary people”, as the dictionary puts it. Surely we need more, not less, of this in government? Our leaders lack an emotional connection with those they serve. “The people” have become pins on a board in the battle for the centre ground, or embarrassing droops on poverty graphs. Even Theresa May’s catchphrase for ordinary struggles – “burning injustices” – is inflamed with the cringeworthy self-righteousness of the ruling class. Worst of all is the dismissive view politicians take of the people they represent: as dangerous and ignorant on everything from British independence to border control. The world, apparently, would collapse if these fools were listened to.

Populists urgently need to find cleverer ways to challenge this. For a start, they need to rebut the lie that the will of the people threatens the good of the nation. Actually, good policymaking is about listening to voters. Why not bring more research wonks, economists and analysts into the grassroots’ tent? Populists should not reject experts, but encourage them to think in a populist way.

Take immigration: liberal policymakers see themselves as rational in the face of xenophobic voters. But they are oblivious to their own short-sighted use of data (waxing lyrical that migrants are twice as likely to start their own business as British natives, but never asking how we might encourage Britons to become more entrepreneurial) and curiously fond of dehumanising platitudes (“they do the jobs we don’t want to do”).

Actually listening to people when they say “enough is enough” would lead to vastly better policymaking. Regional quotas, for example, would prevent towns transforming beyond recognition. Mandatory private health insurance could alleviate pressures on the NHS. A migrant surtax that goes straight into a skills development fund for born-and-bred Britons could help our structural unemployment woes.

Populists also need to get much better at expressing how people yearn to “take back control” of their own lives. In Britain, anti-establishment figures have become so bogged down in the battle for a hard Brexit that they are dismally failing to articulate the powerlessness of modern existence. Instead, they should focus on the flawed thinking that has raised a new generation in a loving gush of gold stars and lowered grade boundaries at school, who now find themselves stacking shelves at Amazon. They should be exploring how tech innovation clusters and transport investment could transform Britain’s forsaken former industrial towns. They should be campaigning for individuals to retain ownership of their online data, which is fast becoming the “new oil”.

Populists also need to be wary of falling too readily for the seductive power of “saviours”. Do unconventional politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees-mogg really hold all the answers? Do Trump fans really believe the man does not make horrific mistakes? It is dangerous to pin all hope on a single figure.

But we should be equally sceptical about the likes of Theresa May and Sajid Javid. They need to deliver more than jigs on stage and heart-warming back stories to convince us they’ve grasped the hunger for change.