Can left wing populism beat Reform?

0:00Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting, to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This is a Global Player original podcast. Britain is shattered. We're giving up on traditional politicians. We're giving up on belief in our institutions.

0:39We're giving up believing even that the cost of living will ever improve. Those are the findings of a new piece of work by the polling company More In Common. And it raises serious questions for what mainstream parties must do if they want to bring the public with them. because the party that is clearly on the rise in the UK at the moment is reform. So is conventional politics dead, Labour, Conservative? And if you want to beat populism of the right, do you now need to have a populism of the left? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:18The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. and it is a truism to say politics has become more divided and people have become angrier and there's polarisation and we've seen it in america and we're seeing it in britain and it has sort of been quantified in a major piece of polling research done by more in common which is a sort of anatomy of Britain today and our attitudes and the tribes that we fall into. Some of the headlines of this report will really make you pause to take breath. 87 % of people asked say they have little or no trust in politicians, i.e. not just one type of politician, but politicians per se.

2:10There's a question about who you would ask to watch your bag, which party leader you'd ask to watch your bag. And none of the current leaders even come out of that well. 36 % say that the Covid pandemic was exaggerated to control people. So that is more than one in three, more than a third of this country believes what we were told about the pandemic was not as real as the government was making out. and it asks questions, and we're going to embed the link so that you can have a go at finding out which tribe you are, where you sit. It asks questions not on the left to right axis, but more in terms of where you sit on social issues, what you prioritise, what you think is important, where you think the country is heading.

3:01And it comes back with some pretty depressing stats, actually. one of the most depressing is the number of people who think that they are stuck in a cost-of-living spiral that will not end. And so I guess we were talking about this earlier. You might talk about shattered Britain or broken Britain, or you might say, this country's fucked, isn't it? And you might mean something completely different to what the person next to you means, even though they thoroughly agree. So we're going to talk to Luke Trill now from More In Common, who's put this work together, is looking sort of both radiant and shattered.

3:38And I guess, I mean, I want to star there, Luke, because I guess some of it is about language, isn't it? Some of it is about the narrative that once people start talking to their neighbour about how terrible the country is, then everyone wants to join in how terrible the country is, even though they might be talking at odds with each other. Yeah, completely. And, you know, we've known for a while from our focus group research and polling that we've done that there is just this pervasive sense that the country is on the wrong track, that something is going quite wrong for the country, even if on lots of other headline figures we might be doing quite well, people's perceptions, people's view is the country isn't working for me.

4:19But what's interesting, and as the report shows, is when you actually dig into that, when you start to chat to people, is people actually have quite different reasons for thinking that the country is on the wrong track, quite different reasons for thinking that it's not going in the direction that they thought it should go or they thought it would be going. So we're kind of united by this sense of, I think, what we call in the report sort of malaise about the state of the country. But we don't necessarily have a shared diagnosis and nor, and I think this is the really important part of the diagnosis, you might assume that there's a left-wing diagnosis and there's a right-wing diagnosis.

4:59Actually, there's not even that. There are multiple axes, multiple points where different groups who might agree on one cause of the problems then totally disagree on another area. So we describe it a bit more like a kaleidoscope where different people come together on certain issues and then disagree on others. And the report is trying to get under the skin of that and provide, I guess, a new political and social map of Britain that then hopefully other people can use to try and get us out of the mess. And let us try and disentangle the various bits of what that map looks like in a moment. I suppose there has never been an occasion since opinion polling began where if you ask the questions, do you think politicians are wonderful?

5:39You'd get a majority saying yes. But equally. A corollary of what we've got today is the extent to which people think politicians are shit and have an untrustworthy and unable, you know, untrustworthy is not new, but unable to do anything. that will make things better. Nearly 90%, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that is staggering. That's exactly it. So, like, actually, a degree of cynicism in politicians, probably quite healthy, right? Quite normal. I think what is different and what comes out of this report is that people no longer think politicians even have the answers to get us out of the mess that we're in.

6:18And one of the sort of key divides, actually, that the report uncovers is there is a group of people, still the majority, who say, what we need to do is improve our institutions we need to make them better but there's another group and it's now around two in five who are more likely to say no I'm not into that preserving and improving I'd just like to see them burn that's the actual poll question that we use in there and that is quite bad because they're convinced that politicians have to use that phrase lost control and actually that's one of the themes that comes out throughout of the report this sense that government can't do the things we thought it should be able to do, which is get me a GP appointment, make sure my bills aren't too high, control the border, deal with things like climate change.

7:02You list a whole variety of different things that government can't cope with. The change in attitudes towards government, towards politicians. I mean, Emily, kind of in that introduction, briefly mentioned COVID. Did a lot change with COVID, where people suddenly, were very rule obeying in this country and now I feel you sold us a pup on vaccines, you sold us a pup on school closures, you didn't care for people in the way... Why on vaccines? We're not vaccine sceptic in this country. Well, there's more vaccine scepticism than there was. We've had the first case of someone dying of measles in Liverpool and you just think, Christ, does this all come back from the measures that were taken in 2020?

7:44I think it is definitely partly that And when there's one of the new tribes that we identify, which is very much shaped by the pandemic and this experience, there are younger group who sort of say, well, I missed out on the best years of my life. And during that time, politicians were partying or they were giving contracts to people that they shouldn't have been. It's made them really angry and made them much more likely to say, actually, in their own words, I want to find my own truth going forward, which leads them down some of that conspiracy thinking. So I definitely think that's part of it.

8:14But there's a wider thing. And actually, the main reason we redid this segmentation and redid this mapping is because it's not just our relationship with politicians that's changed. It's how we socialise. It's where we get our information from. It's how we work as well. The whole sort of actual social makeup of Britain has changed because of the pandemic. And that's really affecting public attitudes. There is a bright spot, though, that whilst trust in politicians is very low. one of the things which jumps out of the pot is how high trust in scientists remains. In fact, every one of the tribes that we're going to talk about says that they still trust in science, which might sound like a low baseline, but actually compared to some of the other countries we work in where science has become very politicised, it's a good foundation.

9:03And trust in neighbours is very high, which I guess if you were a politician, you'd think I have to root everything we do in community and in local work because that's how the message is spread, right? Yeah, absolutely. So people have these sort of negative images of what we call kind of the vertical, the relationship between people, institutions. But the horizontal with one another is much stronger than that. And actually, we have a word cloud in the report. We ask people, describe Britain in a word, top word is broken, shambles, mess. We ask people to describe their local area and they say quiet, good, nice.

9:38So there's a big disconnect there. And I think if there is a sort of takeaway for politicians and other institutions that want to get us out of them, it's got to start from building up. Can I ask you something that I think is central to where this takes us, which is disillusionment with institutions and the mainstream parties. parties. Now, we've talked quite a lot over the last year about the rise of reform. Do you think that this becomes a battle between right-wing populism and left-wing populism, ultimately? Do the mainstream parties just fade into the background and leave the populist parties to battle this one out?

10:18If the mainstream parties don't show that they can provide an answer to the problems I think that is what will happen you will see the let's burn it all down sentiment grow you see it particularly grow on the right but you'll see it grow on the left as well people saying the established structures aren't working and one of the things you know and this is an area where left and right doesn't divide people there is instead just more people on both wings both the traditional wings saying I want to roll the dice I want to roll the dice and something else because yeah it might be a risk it might end up being worse not better but actually it's difficult to see how it can be worse than what we've got now and i think the challenge for the mainstream is to show government can do what people want from government we've spoken for a few minutes now about the sort of in you know about the some of the features of the report and we keep referring to these seven tribes probably a good idea for you to spell out go for it go for it come on who are who are the seven tribes and where do we fit no no not where do we it but just list the uh seven tribes so these seven tribes are we have a set of questions which aren't based on demographics they're not based on partisan beliefs they're based on kind of upstream values social psychology things like model foundations attitudes to authoritarianism something that's called need for chaos and it brings out these seven groups and so they are the first group is progressive activists they are the most kind of liberal left-leaning group very motivated by social justice issues tend to think globally rather than locally and also tend to be outliers on lots of social issues particularly immigration.

11:54There's a group we call the incrementalist left. They share a lot of the values of progressive activists. They're about 20 % of the population. Progressive activists are a bit smaller around 12%. But the incrementalist left aren't as political and they're more in favour of kind of gradual change. They're actually quite conflict averse. They tend to step out of... They don't tweet about politics. They don't tweet about politics, but they have tended to vote for Labour. The exception was 2019 when they tied between Labour and the Conservatives, in part because some of the incrementalists left didn't like Corbyn, some wanted Brexit done.

12:29Established Liberals, which is a sort of comfortable, optimistic group. We sort of think of the sort of blue wall of Britain, more economically right in that they believe in individual agency, but also quite socially liberal. Traditionally, lots of them voted for the Conservatives, but at the last election, more went to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The Skeptical Scrollers, they are a group that I was referring to earlier, who'd been really shaped by the pandemic, very online. And I think traditionally you'd call them politically disengaged because they're the group least likely to vote. But actually, they're sharing a lot of political content on things like TikTok and other outlets.

13:08So they're actually quite engaged just in a new way more likely to think the social contract is broken more likely to as i say want to find their own truth rooted patriots are i guess the group probably we've talked about most previously which is the group we tend to think of as sort of red voters feel slightly overlooked worried about being left behind but also and this is quite important quite risk averse don't want to throw everything up in the air would rather things got better incrementally. Did vote Conservative, again, shifted away at the last election. They've got traditional Conservatives who, of all the groups, most do what it says on the tin, economically right-leaning, socially right-leaning, quite sceptical about change, but actually quite optimistic about Britain's future because they're very proud to be British.

13:58And then you have the final group that we call dissenting disruptors. This is the group who is most unhappy with the status quo, most uncomfortable with multiculturalism, really feel that they've been overlooked, that elites don't respect them. There is a core of that group who you might call the sort of radical right, who are very online. So that group is about 20%. They're about 5 % of them, the more radical group who actually fundamentally is starting to challenge some democratic norms. The bulk of them, the sort of remaining 15%, are just deeply unhappy and really want change. And where does this take you?

14:36Like once you've worked out the tribes and once you've worked out the messages that people are giving you and you have got your ear to the country's pulse more than many people, Luke, in the sense that you run around the country and you actually listen to people the whole time. I mean, where do you go with this? What does it tell you is going to happen here next? Well, the prize traditionally in electoral politics has been for the party that can build the broadest coalition of those segments. So we're able to look back at people's voting history and find that Keir Starmer is very broad, almost wins across the segments.

15:12In fact, part of the reason he's got into some difficulties now is he was winning everyone from the progressive activists, some of whom drifted away to the left. People were voting, not Tory. Exactly. But then Boris Johnson also wins this big coalition of the segments. And I guess part of it is how do you identify the areas which the segments share in common, which is, again, this trust in their neighbours, support for the NHS, most still supporting shared democratic norms. How do you build on that? I think the danger is that outliers in particular groups get seen as representing the whole of that group so that that sort of smaller group of dissenting disruptors is seen as all of reform voters and every other party thinks you have to chase after that very small slither.

16:00and ditto, you know, similar mistakes have sometimes, or misconceptions should be made on the left, that the most progressive of progressive activists represent the left and you've got to chase after them and actually it's about realising that you've got to build these broad coalitions and I think there's challenges for all the parties including reform, actually, who are doing very well with dissenting disruptors but actually the rooted patriots who they would need if they would want to win don't like Donald Trump, worried about fraud on Ukraine, worried about upheaval, Same with traditional conservatives.

16:32So there are risks and opportunities for all parties. We saw in last year's general election the lowest share for the two main parties since the two main parties were fighting general elections. Are you saying that as a result of this, that that is actually going to continue? and so the idea of two tribes is gone of Labour and Conservative and we are now these seven tribes and it will manifest itself in reform and it will manifest itself in the Greens, it will manifest itself in a far-left party with Zarathustra and Corbyn, whatever. The reason we called the report Shattered Britain was a sort of double meaning.

17:12One was that we have fragmented and British politics is more fragmented than at any time in recent history, but also shattered in that we are, to use the British version of it, exhausted with the division and divides in politics. It is hard to see at the moment how you glue that back together. Again, that said, there have been other times in our history when actually governments have kind of shown that they can get on top of things and you actually end up bringing people back together. So I don't like doing crystal ball. For the moment, we are very divided. I certainly think that that left-right axis is much less useful than it ever has been, that you've got to start engaging with.

17:51Do people think our solutions are complex or simple? That's one of the divides. Do people believe in agency or structural factors? Do they believe that we should roll the dice or play it safe? They're the new dividing lines that I think politicians have to lean into. You know, actually a big one is around speech. is it the most important thing that we have free speech at all costs or is it more important that we prevent people from getting offended or worse even if that means restricting speech these are the new fault lines does it cut across class yeah it does so demographics come out of the model they don't go into it so established liberals are more likely to be affluent and well off it's part of you know i guess it informs their kind of comfort but the least likely to say they're struggling dissenting disruptors most likely to be on benefits or in receipt of some government benefits.

18:44So they are there. But the interesting thing is you will find people from each of the segments across class as well. And as class, I think, has become a less useful tool for analysing politics, I think these segments get it in a different way that shows you actually people, whether they're upper class or from working class backgrounds, really want to throw the chessboard up in the air. And that might be more important than their material circumstance. Well, fascinating. And just to say that if you want to do the quiz and work out where you are, who you are, where you fit in, on the programme notes for the podcast, you will be able to click on the link.

19:24And, mate, that's just one thing. Come. You said his ear is on the pulse of the nation. Maybe finger? Come to me for medical. I mean, if a doctor came towards me with his ear on my wrist, I'd start losing face in the National Health Service. I was thinking of that clip in the Dominic Cummings film where he's listening to the tarmac. Oh, yeah. Do you remember? Yeah, yeah, no, no. Uncivil War or whatever it's called. I quite like the ear thing. I think it's closer than... He's got his ear to the ground, ear to the pulse, whatever. Whatever. Anyway, lovely to have you with us. Thank you. Thank you.

19:56Thank you.

20:02Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger-than-life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com. Way fair, every style, every home. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Amos podcast. Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us.

20:43Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real. That's why Klarna stands out. Klarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money with flexible ways to pay, cash back that builds automatically, everything in one place, and support that makes everyday decisions feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more.

21:23California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license and MLS number 1353190. Clown a balance account required to be eligible for cashback points. Limitations, terms and conditions apply. This is The News Agents. Well, you've heard, I guess, a little bit from Luke already about the shape of the country in terms of where those divides come from. not left and right so much, but cultural questions, social questions, how we respond to information, how we respond to institutions. And we're going to talk now to Zach Polanski, who's running to be the leader of the Green Party, currently the deputy leader and a member of the London Assembly.

22:04And I guess one of the questions, Zach, is the Greens have the same number of MPs in Westminster as reform, and yet the conversation is very heavily dominated by reform now. and very little by what the Green Party is doing. I want to quote you a Labour minister who said in May, speaking of The Guardian, I think we're extraordinarily fortunate that the Green Party are shit. If they had any kind of charismatic or populist leadership, we'd be eight to ten points further down in the polls. Do you agree with that analysis? Well, I've got things to say about the Labour minister, but I'll take the question on directly.

22:38I think it's really true that the Green Party has not cut through in the way that we should. We know we have a deeply unequal society where poor people are poorer than they've ever been before. Since COVID, there's more billionaires in this country. And whilst their wealth has doubled, our assets have been stripped away. So people are rightly feeling angry. But I don't think the solutions that reform offer are going to deal with any of that anger. In fact, they will fuel it and they will make it worse. Nigel Farage is a millionaire who is pretending to serve the working class communities, but actually all of his policies are serving billionaires.

23:08We know in this country from this new research that people want to see a wealth tax. They want to see corporations who are destroying our environment, our democracy and our communities pay their fair share. And the Green Party have all the solutions to those things. I think what we've done in the past is we've been too technical. We've been very based in research and science, and that should absolutely stay. But you can't sell research and science to a country. People don't listen to spreadsheets and graphs. We need more emotive storytelling. And I think Farage is the master at that. So what's your story?

23:38It's a really, really good question. So I think it's about what the green future looks like. and far too often we talk about what we don't want, the kind of dystopian Britain that's full of wildfires and floods. And I think we need to be talking about what cleaner air looks like, what public sector jobs that are building and investing in renewable homes, insulating homes, what it looks like to have beautiful green public spaces, to have arts and culture that's actually invested in by the public sector where we can have working-class communities growing up being able to tell their own stories. I think there's a really powerful story to tell in this country and I think the Green Party have been telling it, but we've not had the diversity of messengers to cut through so that people really hear it and can see themselves represented in that story, which is key.

24:17So that's so interesting because you said that you in the past have been too technical, too scientific, but look at reform. They are brilliant in the way that they're communicating this stuff. So you need to be more populist like reform are, but just offering a different way of doing it. So I'll caveat this with I despise Nigel Farage's politics. Yeah, but you're admiring the way he's selling the message. Absolutely. The communication style. I don't think anyone can defy that. He's number one in the polls. Before he was even an MP, he caused what I would say is one of the most catastrophic transformations to this country.

24:47But you've got to give it to him. He caused it. He made it happen by being bold, by being out there and selling the message. Now, Reform have GB News. They have a 24-7 propaganda machine. They have deep pockets so they can tell their stories in that way. But that's not enough for me and the Green Party to just complain about it. We've got to be in the mix. And I think the way we do that is by being in communities. So in this leadership campaign, I'm talking about going around the country, as I've been doing for years, and being in those communities, helping them lift up their voices and their stories and telling that story through social media.

25:15But I just wonder whether, look, you know, one of the great things about populism, and you can see it with Trump in America or with Farage here, is you say, here is a complex problem. We've got a really simple solution to it. Are you prepared to do that? Are you prepared to do that? Yeah, I think we need to reclaim the word populism. So to compare it, I think it's the same as reclaiming patriotism. I don't think there's anything patriotic about Nigel Farage and his vision for Britain. I think a patriotic vision is care for your communities, care for the people in this country who are suffering the worst and care to say that everybody should pay their fair share.

25:44And populism, I think, is ultimately about saying that working class communities, plus for precariat. And all I mean by that is the clues in the title, people living precarious lives. So they're only one day away. Why would you say precariat then? I mean, like, what's the point of using a word like precariat? Well, because I'm not the news agent, so I'm not talking, I think, to the mass public. So I think your audience will understand what I mean. yeah true i shouldn't hang on that's it that was patronizing to yeah yeah but what i mean by that essentially is that many people are only one day of sickness or one unfortunate circumstance from losing their job from not being able to pay the rent of a mortgage so i think it's not about dividing communities it's recognizing that this is about the 99 versus the one percent so to take your challenge emily because that's fair enough rather than talking about precarious i do talk about the 99 versus the one percent the one percent of a small elite who are controlling our democracy, controlling our politics and off the number of media.