Burn it down vs build it up

Winning the argument on the key dividing line in politics

Saturday’s far right march through London led by Tommy Robinson was the culmination of a summer in which parts of the press, alongside a depressing number of commentators and politicians, have been trying to foment violent protest (26 police officers were injured, four seriously).

There has been relentless coverage of mostly very small protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, and plenty of talk about civil wars. That hasn’t happened, and was never going to, but there has been a worrying change in temperature that is particularly unsettling for those from minority groups.

From the perspective of those on the right looking to win elections it’s not helpful either, as they are radicalising themselves away from majority UK public opinion. The party backed by Robinson and his star turn Elon Musk - Advance UK - is an asterisk in opinion polls (Musk’s approval rating here is -52%). If it did start to win support, it would come predominantly from Reform, fracturing their vote.

Nigel Farage’s party are also being dragged rightwards, as we saw at their conference where the anti-vaxxer Aseem Malhotra featured on the main stage, despite extremely high and sustained support for vaccines in the UK. He was followed by Lucy Connolly, a person that only 18% of people think politicians should be associating themselves with.

But just because most voters continue to oppose violent protest and vaccine scepticism it doesn’t mean they are remotely happy with the status quo. The idea that Britain is broken, or at least in a very bad state, is held by a big majority. And no amount of factchecking, or columns on how things are actually not so bad in comparison with the past, is going to change that.

The government are, of course, aware of this, which is why we’re getting lots of messaging about going further and faster in their efforts to change Britain. Ultimately, though, they want to do so by improving our current institutions and services rather than burning them down and starting again. This is becoming the key dividing line in British politics, and indeed across democracies worldwide: between a centre that wants to build on what we have and radical parties of right and left that are willing to take much bigger risks, whether constitutionally, as I discussed in my last post, or economically.

Brits don’t tend to be keen on taking big risks, so this is a winnable argument. It has to involve delivering noticeable benefits like a reduction in petty crime, lower NHS waiting lists and higher wages. No narrative can win without some evidence of genuine change. But there is also need to think about how positive changes are framed. More radical parties will continue to argue Britain is broken, regardless of any material improvements and, as last year’s Trump campaign showed, this can be effective.

So in this post I want to look at how voters think about different kinds of risk, where change will make the most difference to public opinion, and how the government can adjust their policy choices and the framing of them to gain the greatest benefit. Apart from anything else that involves being much clearer on the risks to “burning it all down” than they’re being at the moment.