The EconomistFebruary 3rd 2018 Leaders 13(^2) vacuum of ideas. The politician whom we nicknamed “Ther-
esa Maybe” a year ago still cannot decide what to do about Brit-
ain’s housing shortage, the crisisin care for the elderly or the
slow decline of the National Health Service.
Most deafening is her silence on Brexit. This was once
passed off as a clever tactic to keep Britain’s negotiating strat-
egy under wraps. But with less than a year left to reach a deal, it
is clear that the real purpose of her secrecy is to disguise the fact
that there is no strategy. Mrs May’s “red lines”, which include
leaving the European Union’scustomsunion and maintaining
an invisible Irish border, are mutually inconsistent. On trade,
she wants a solution that somehow combines continuity for
business with reclaiming control over regulations—and she
seems to expect the EUto draw up the blueprint.
But ousting Mrs May might make Brexit little better, and per-
haps much worse. Brexit’s internal contradictions could not be
squared by any prime minister, though another might be more
frank about them. As the government’s own analysis showed
this week, the more Britain sets out to reclaim sovereignty the
more it will dent prosperity. Leave did not win its majority on
the basisthat Britons would be poorer. Nor would any prime
minister be able to force a have-cake-and-eat-it deal on the EU,
whose economy is sixtimes the size ofBritain’s.
The Tories are still right to suspect thatanother leader might
make a better job of Brexit than Mrs May. But they would prob-
ably pick someone even less suitable. Under party rules, its
MPs would shortlisttwo candidates: probably one proponent
of “soft” Brexit (remainingin the customsunion and perhaps
the single market) and one of the “hard” variety (leaving both
arrangements and even walking out of the talks). The party’s
members, who back hard Brexit by three to one, would then
decide—so the chances are the winner would be a hardliner
such as Boris Johnson, the chaotic foreign secretary, or Jacob
Rees-Mogg, a neo-Victorian backbench novelty (see Bagehot).
Under Mrs May, Britain is on course to leave the EUin 2019
without anything much in place bar a transition agreement to
buy a couple more years of talks. The Tories will surely oust
her at that point if they do not do so now. But it is conceivable
that bythen they would be readier to pick a sensible successor.
The reality of a hard Brexit’s consequences—for the economy,
the Irish border, the regulation of medicines and much else—is
slowly dawning. Labour is creeping towards a softer position,
giving the Tories space to do the same. A new generation of
would-be Conservative leaders might be less willing than
their elders to enact a policy that would harm the economy,
and with it their party’s electoral prospects. Mrs May’s is a
failed premiership that must end. But only when she can be re-
placed by someone who would not fare even worse. 7
T
HE European Union must
feel as if it has seen off the
populist horde. Economic
growth is at its strongest in a dec-
ade. Emmanuel Macron has de-
feated the National Front and is
transforming France. Although
just 41% ofcitizens trust the EU,
that is more than trust their national governments—and is fully
ten pointsup on the lows afterthe financial crisis.
Yet populism is not vanquished (see page 18). Insurgents are
in office in Poland, Hungary and Austria and won last week’s
vote in the Czech Republic. In Italy the Five Star Movement
could sniff power in next month’s elections. In the years to
come the influence of populist parties is likely to grow.
Rather than declare victory and return to politics as usual,
the establishmentneeds to learn from populists. That means
adopting the best of what they offer and discarding the rest.The far-from-medium is the message
There is plenty to discard. Hardline populists pursue an an-
tagonistic politics, imagining society to be simplistically split
between people and elites that have sold them out. They claim
a direct connection between politician and citizen that leaves
little room for an independent judiciary or free press, for asser-
tive minorities or for facts that contradict voters’ gut feelings.
But though populism has included plenty of demagogic
swindlers, it also contains reformers and democrats. The Euro-
pean revolutionaries who animated opposition to absolute
monarchy in 1848 bore populist traits. So did the late 19th- andearly 20th-centurystatesmen who laid the foundations of
Western welfare states, and anti-regime movements behind
the Iron Curtain, such as Solidarity, in the 1980s. In the right
hands, and distilled from their poisonous ingredients, popu-
lists’ habits can be useful even to their opponents.
Populists vividly communicate ordinary voters’ discon-
tent. A lot of populism is driven by rage at a political establish-
ment that is guilty ofcrass selfishness: moving from the public
sector to lucrative posts in private business, scratching each
other’s backs, applying open competition to working-class
jobs while shielding their own from threat. Recent history is lit-
tered with examples of mainstream politicians failing to con-
front emotive political issues in public, including even Angela
Merkel in her handling of Germany’s refugee crisis. Instead
they either hide oremploy technocraticarguments, with the
subtext thatthere is “no alternative”.
Communication is empty unless it heeds voters’ concerns.
Where grievancesare justified, they deserve attention and
remedy. Today supportfor full-blown populistsis often bound
up with the dislocation of globalisation, including rapid indus-
trial change, massimmigration, shiftingsocial values and a de-
clining sense of community. To ignore those issues for fear of
raising theirsalience will only cede them to the rabble-rousers.
That requirespolitical enterprise. Populistsare structural in-
novators. This was true in the past when, for example, the sear-
ing inequalities of the late 19th-century “Gilded Age” spawned
new Marxist parties and the agrarian-populist People’s Party
in America. And it is true today, evident in the Five Star Move-
ment, founded in 2009, and the far-right Alternative for Ger-
many party, founded in 2013. Their opponents, by contrast, car-European populismThreat and opportunity
Voting intention
Selected European populist parties, %2009 11 13 15 180204060AfDFive Star MovementFideszHow to learn from the populists1