The democratic recession does not begin when a far-right party takes office. It begins when a centrist party crushes hope in democracy. When Keir Starmer’s government takes a chainsaw to people’s aspirations for a fairer, greener, kinder country, he cuts off not just faith in the Labour party but faith in politics itself. The almost inevitable result, as countries from the US to the Netherlands, Argentina to Austria, Italy to Sweden show, is to let the far right in.
So what’s the game? Why adopt policies that could scarcely be better calculated to prevent your re-election? Why stick to outdated fiscal rules when projections suggest they’ll make almost everyone worse off, especially those in poverty? Why impose devastating attacks on wellbeing, such as sustaining the two-child benefit cap, freezing local housing allowance and cutting disability benefits?
