From a vantage point in Eastern-Central Europe, British politics seems to be following a well-trodden path. The breaking of political conventions and standards; the propensity to cover up lies with more lies; and the incursions upon independent institutions of the state – all look extremely familiar. The scandal surrounding Dominic Cummings’ excursions to Durham and Barnard Castle should not be regarded as a normal political crisis. This has not involved an (elected) politician being found to have broken the rules and then trying to cover his tracks. Rather it appears to be a consciously exploited scandal, used to help the government cross a democratic Rubicon and tighten its grip on power. In order to counter this offensive, the left will have to realise how the rules of the game have changed and that simply concentrating on exposing the lies and inconsistencies of Johnson, Cummings and his like will not have much effect.  

The Conservative Party, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, is moving Britain in a right-wing authoritarian direction. In the process of preparing and carrying through this project, it has looked to other countries which have followed a similar course, including the Fidesz government in Hungary and the PiS administration in Poland. It was the Conservative Party that stood almost alone with Fidesz and PiS in the European Parliament as they breached the rule of law in their countries; and the Tories are members of the same small European parliamentary caucus as PiS. The Hungarian President, Viktor Orban, has praised Johnson as being “one of the bravest European politicians”, with the then senior Downing Street advisor, Tim Montgomerie, returning the complements by saying that there had been an “an awful lot of interesting early thinking on the limits of liberalism” coming out of Hungary.

Both Fidesz and PiS have won successive elections and remain the most popular parties in their countries. They were able to rise to power in conditions where the neo-liberal transition to capitalism had created large social inequalities, areas of poverty and derelict public services. Concurrently, support for the centre-left social democratic parties, which had followed neo-liberal Blairite programmes whilst in government, had collapsed. Both Fidesz and PiS took advantage of this opportunity by promising to redress their countries’ social injustices, take power from foreign and domestic unelected elites, and hand power back to the ‘people’.

Once elected, these  governments have tried to cross the constitutional limits on power, destabilise the rule of law and take over the independent institutions of the state (such as the courts and media). Furthermore, they have sought to divide society between those who support it and the rest. Those who are against the government are denigrated as belonging to a corrupt elite or as unacceptable minorities such as the LGBT+ community, refugees or those deemed to have been connected to the ‘Communist’ system. There is decreasing room for pluralistic political debate and no need for ruling politicians to even pretend that they are playing by the rules or telling the truth. Finally, these right-wing nationalist governments have co-opted many of the far-right’s policies and slogans, which over time has helped to increase racism and prejudice in society and build support for extremist parties and movements.

These, and similar administrations around the world, should not be regarded as rogue administrations or outsiders who have taken over healthy liberal democracies. Rather, they are examples of how the social liberal phase of neo-liberalism has run its course and is being replaced by a more openly authoritarian and nationalist form of political rule. Non-democratic liberalism is being traded for illiberal democracy, where the democratic majority gained at the ballot box is used to implement reforms that erode many of the system’s previous checks and balances.

Returning to the situation in the Britain, it is not the case that British politics was without its lies and scandals before the arrival of Johnson and Cummings. Over the past few decades a series of outrages have been revealed within all of the country’s leading institutions – e.g. parliament (cash for questions), banking (corruption and the financial crisis), media (phone hacking), police (undercover operations), army (war crime cover ups) and Royalty (Prince Andrew). Ever since Tony Blair took the country into the catastrophic second Iraq War, through a web of lies about weapons of mass destruction, trust in the words of politicians and experts has been broken. A decade of austerity, following the financial crisis, increased the already large social inequalities and exclusions in the country, leading to a rise in dissatisfaction with and distrust in the political system. 

It was in these conditions that Johnson and Cummings made their decisive mark on British politics, in the successful Leave campaign during the Brexit referendum. They managed to present Brexit as being in the interests of ordinary people and that they would ‘take back control’ from the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. A toxic mix of faux anti-elitism and authentic racism, combined with infamous lies such as giving the NHS £300m a week, produced the greatest political shock in modern British history. The divide of British politics into two opposing camps, the launching of a cultural war that cut through economic interests; raising of racial tensions and hostility to immigrants; and the blatant propensity to lie were taken to a whole new level in British politics. And once Johnson was appointed Prime Minister, so the government began to encroach upon the country’s democratic standards, such as suspending parliament in the midst of the Brexit debate and trying to ban selected journalists from press briefings at Number 10. 

The Conservative Party’s brutality and disregard for human life have been exposed by the government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis, leading to tens of thousands of people needlessly losing their lives. Meanwhile those leading the government have used the crisis as an opportunity not only to prepare a new round of economic austerity measures but to take control of the political levers of the state. The aim of the Cummings scandal is to create a disruption which can then be exploited. That the actions of Cummings were so blatantly against the government’s own guidelines is of little concern. That they have helped to further break down social distancing in the midst of a pandemic, is perhaps a bonus for a party led by an ideological interpretation of ‘herd immunity’. That large sections of society are outraged and angry with the government, helps the Tories to consolidate British politics into two competing blocs. And that Cummings so clearly fabricated the truth and lied without shame, is a signal of who is now in charge and how they will govern. The subsequent dropping of Emily Maitlis from presenting Newsnight after her critical editorial opening and the rogue tweet by the Civil Service during Cummings’ press conference, are signs of future conflicts to come. 

What do the experiences of Hungary and Poland tell us about the possibilities of defeating this move towards authoritarianism? First the good news. It will be much harder for the Tory government to win the sustained support of the working class electorate. This is firstly because the Conservatives are associated with over a decade of austerity measures and the current economic crisis will mean it will intensify this neo-liberal course. This is unlike the situation in Central and Eastern Europe, where these right-wing populist parties have governed during a period of sustained economic growth and have managed to provide some elements of progressive social redistribution. Furthermore, the left and trade union movement is much stronger and organised in Britain, meaning that it has the possibility to lead a genuine social movement against the government and not allow it to be confined to a relatively privileged minority of society, as it has been in Poland and especially, Hungary. If the left and trade unions can focus on the dangers to health and living standards that the government poses, and build a broad alliance against its abuses of power, so it will have the opportunity to push back against the Tory administration. 

But now for the bad news. The ‘populist’ strategy of the Tory government involves deliberately breaking democratic conventions and disregarding the established practices of the British political system. This means that opposing this government through exposing how they are not playing by the rulebook or lying to the public will have little effect. This is both because this government will cover up lies with even more blatant ones and also that large sections of the population have become disillusioned with the very system upon which these rules were founded. So, for example, when Kaczyński claims that refugees would bring infectious diseases to Poland or Orban claims that the pre-war fascist Horthy regime in Hungary didn’t collaborate with the Nazis, the accuracy of what they say is of little importance. This of course does not mean that the opposition in Britain should not point out the government’s inconsistencies, but that it must not play into the hands of the Tories and become tainted as a movement that defends the status quo.  

This poses a difficulty for the Labour Party under the leadership of Keir Starmer and its strategy of being a constructive opposition to the government. Starmer’s greatest asset, as a lawyer, is methodically pulling apart the inconsistencies of the government, which has played particularly well in an empty parliamentary chamber against the hapless Johnson. The strategy of the Labour Party seems to be to stand back and allow the government to implode. The problem with this approach is that with an 80 seat majority and no elections for more than 4 years, the Tories will not particularly care about their standing in the opinion polls at the moment.

The Labour leadership may think that it is playing clever politics by holding back on opposing the disastrous easing of the lockdown, the opening of schools and not even joining other opposition parties in calling for Cummings to be sacked. This may stave off some media attacks for a while and Labour will certainly be praised by the voices of the establishment for being reasonable and responsible. But it will do little to build the kind of mass social movement that is necessary to fight a populist government. Rather, Labour has to move from forensic to brave politics, recognising that this is a political fight and not a polite debate, in order to try and prevent the Tories from doing irreparable damage to British society and its democratic system.