We’re repeating the mistakes that once pitched the world into disaster

Strutting politicians of Left and Right seem not to have learned from history. But maybe the people have…

Marxist economics, which failed so spectacularly everywhere it was tried, and collapsed into ignominy only 25 years ago. The Corbynite incarnation even includes a return to Stalinist purges of party dissidents with an added touch of Maoist Cultural Revolution thrown in: the heretics who represent what Labour used to stand for must publicly confess their guilt and apologise to the Great Leader for their criticism of him. Has nobody learnt anything? Maybe the magical belief in the power of historical knowledge is just intellectual vanity: people repeat the hideous errors of the past because there is something basic to human nature that pushes them toward these dreadful outcomes. Perhaps popular discontent will always seek the simplest – and the most vindictive – solution on offer.

Are we about to repeat the

20th century, with ideological illusions orchestrated by populist demagogues of the Left and Right? With the most powerful countries on earth being led disastrously into conflict (or a cynical carve-up of global influence) by men who appear oblivious to the dangers of their vainglorious strutting? How can this be happening again when we know how it ended the last time?

Then again, perhaps this is just a lot of empty noise. Donald Trump may have been elected on an isolationist mandate but he would appear to have been pulled back into mainstream Republican foreign policy by precisely that power nexus of military and security interests which he won office by denouncing. His speech in Poland, which was obviously written by somebody who has a much larger vocabulary than Mr Trump, was a model of Nato reassurance and even suggested that the United States might be prepared to lead the free world rather than withdraw from it.

Then there is protectionism, which the inter-war years should have demonstrated beyond doubt is not only the greatest threat to economic progress but creates the conditions for all-out global conflict. Free trade has been the great liberator of the developing world and the most stunning mechanism of wealthproliferation in history. But one of its most important enemies is the European Union cartel which insists on imposing trade restrictions (resulting in tortuously long negotiations) on non-member states and is now apparently prepared to inflict punitive tariff conditions on the UK simply as a warning to anybody else who might be thinking of leaving.

Note that it is prepared to do this even if those conditions are clearly detrimental to its own members. And that is why the story might end more happily.

The bluster from the EU apparat about the “impossibility” of frictionless trade with the UK will eventually come bang up against the hard realities of European life. Countries with 40 per cent youth unemployment will not be overjoyed at the prospect of taking an economic hit for the team in order to teach the UK a lesson. If protectionism has found a happy home in Brussels, it will not be a welcome guest at the table in Spain, Italy or Greece. (Or even Germany, whose car manufacturers are deeply interested in these matters.) When the governments of those states come up for re-election, there will be some tough talking about restrictive trade barriers. In the end, protectionist arrogance is a luxury that elected politicians can indulge only so far – which is just one reason why the EU is

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion so ambivalent about democratic accountability.

In truth, the designers of the EU project got the whole question of democracy wrong: they were, and still are, engaged quite consciously in an effort to dismantle nationhood and the parochial idea of all-powerful elected governments. Because they equated the nation state with nationalism of the most malignant kind, they were determined to replace it with a benign management system that could never be swept up in popular fury. In all the philosophical excitement they failed to see that strong democratic institutions are the best protection against mass hysteria and the abuse of rights – including the right to prosperity.

So what about our own Marxist revival? Is that for real: a genuine shift in the political landscape on a generational basis? Well, here are some thoughts to consider. The most important (because most unexpected) increase in Labour votes came from adults aged between 30 and 50. A large proportion of these people were told explicitly by their Labour candidates that it was safe to vote for them because there was absolutely no chance of Mr Corbyn becoming prime minister. They were, again quite explicitly, encouraged to vote Labour in order to mitigate the effects of what was expected to be a Tory landslide. Are they really followers of the Corbynite faith?

As the Left’s grip hardens, there is less evidence of mass enthusiasm for it. John McDonnell famously called for a “million” people to take to the streets on July 1 to demand another election. Reliable estimates put the turnout for that demonstration at 10-15,000. History may be waiting to repeat itself but at least this time, more people know what to watch for.

‘There has been a bizarre resurgence in, of all things, Marxist economics, which failed so spectacularly before’