The left needs to stand its ground to survive - and to win

History shows us that giving ground to your opponents doesn't work: you need to stand firm, however difficult the circumstances

When I sometimes feel depressed, I look back to the Mont Pelèrin Society for inspiration.

This may seem like an odd choice. They were the early neoliberals, who gathered in the tranquil Swiss village of Mont Pelèrin in 1947: we’re talking the likes of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper. They were extremely depressed. Laissez-faire economics had been discredited by the Great Depression, and the resulting rise of fascism and the genocidal inferno of World War II. Soviet-style Communism was on the march, and in Western societies, state intervention was all the rage.

“The central values of civilization are in danger,” they decreed in a statement, describing a crisis “fostered by a decline of belief in private property and the competitive market.”

Things would only get worse from their perspective. By the early 1970s, the world hd retreated even further from their philosophy. They had a choice: stand firm, wait for the winds to shift, actively intervene as best they could to bring a change in the political weather - or to start compromising, giving in and legitimising the positions of their opponents. They chose the former, setting up think tanks and doing detailed academic work. As Friedman put it, prophetically:

Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

In the 1970s, the so-called ‘post-war consensus’ fell into crisis. The calamitous US intervention in Vietnam spurred on crisis, hastening the collapse of the so-called Bretton Woods monetary system. The oil shock drove on inflationary pressures. Stagflation - stagnating economic growth and rising prices - became the norm. Social crises accelerated. This was the great opportunity of the neoliberals: well, the rest is the history you have lived.

There are two striking differences. One is not favourable to us. The philosophy of the neoliberals coincided with the class interests of big business and the rich. This wasn’t lost on the latter, who bankrolled them, not least their think tanks. They had powerful friends in the mainstream media and of course the British Conservatives and US Republicans. We lack such resources.

But they had a significant disadvantage in comparison. Their economic philosophy was extremely unpopular. Even when their policies were implemented, they generally attracted a sense of resignation rather than enthusiasm. Today, the polling in, say, Britain or the US consistently shows high levels of support for leftwing economic philosophy. That also means - thanks to new media - we can raise funds and resources, which is what made, say, Bernie Sanders’ candidacy viable in a way that may have proven impossible before the internet.

Today, the threat doesn’t come from market fundamentalists, but rather proto-fascism. The direction of travel is towards the far right, and an increasingly radicalised far right at that. Buttressing their support, in particular, is backlash against various minorities, not least migrants.

Now, some on the left have clearly adopted a strategy. Certain US influencers in particular are leaning in support of the New Right’s critiques, clearly believing they will win a hearing from the MAGA base. They may well do, but not in the way they may imagine. They may will some applause, but the appreciation will come from receiving affirmation for their existing views and prejudices from would-be opponents. They will see this, rightly, as indicative of their emerging hegemony, and the fragmentation of their opponents. “Even X agrees with us!” they will cry: this should be of no comfort to anyone claiming to be on the left.

We need to be honest. If you’re on the left, the political atmosphere is going to get very difficult. That form of authoritarianism will seek to marginalise and intimidate the left in a variety of ways. Some on the left will crumble.

Well, I know a bit about losing faith. Having backed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign in 2015, and voted for him in his second leadership bid in 2016, I began to lose faith as the polling tanked, fearing an electoral wipe-out which would be used to discredit the left forever, and publicly suggested someone else on the left replace him.

Instead, I was saved by Theresa May, to whom I will be forever grateful. She called a snap general election in the spring of 2017, believing she would crush Labour forever: they were losing by elections in heartland seats, and the polling for the Official Opposition was catastrophic.

Instead, Labour’s voted surged from its 30% in the previous election two years earlier to 40%, just two points behind the government, and the Tories lost their majority. Why? Because when the left’s key policies were front and centre - public ownership, taxing the rich, scrapping tuition fees, and so on - much of the electorate was inspired by the prospectus. Labour shifted the conversation away from the terrain of the right - such as immigration. Instead, they picked battles which were fertile grounds for the left.

No, as we were often reminded, Labour did not win that election. Well, sure, but it had been clobbered two years earlier, and then Corbyn’s opponents plunged Labour into civil war, with Labour MPs lining up in public to viciously denounce their own leader, combined with Tory prime minister Theresa May commanding apparent near total loyalty from her MPs, while the British media savaged the Labour Opposition. And yet still they made dramatic progress - and even Corbyn’s opponents in the aftermath of the election conceded that was down to the policies.

What the left needs to do now is stand its ground. It needs to pick battles. It needs to particularly focus on picking battles which go with the grain of public opinion on economic justice. That means picking fights with deeply unpopular elites. Right-wing populism has stolen the garbs of the left here, claiming to be on the side of the ‘people’ against ‘the elites’, which in practise backing policies which shovel more wealth into the bank accounts of the few at the expense of the many. They are tapping into real popular fury which exists, and harnessing it for reactionary ends. The left needs to redirect that fury at the right targets.

That doesn’t mean abandoning our defence of minorities - far from it. It’s simply to say that if those fights are our central focus, then we will lose and minorities will suffer as a consequence. We focus our energy on the battle lines the right do not want, forcing them to fight on our terrain. If voters go to polling stations thinking about migrants, rather than tax dodging poverty paying bosses, we are likely to lose.

If we start promoting the idea that our opponents ‘have a point’, we will simply embolden and strengthen them. If we retreat in our struggles with elites, then the authoritarian right will cynically present us as the pawns of elites.

The truth is the New Right will promote policies which benefit the elites at the expense of many who voted for Trump et al. That’s where we come in.

A gruesome few years beckons, no doubt. But stand firm, don’t give an inch, remain resolute, don’t underestimate our potential popular support. Yes, the cowards will flinch: let them.

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