There is a lively discussion in Britain at the moment about democracy, going well beyond the immediate issue that provoked it, namely, the prospect of British withdrawal from the European Union and the significance of the referendum that precipitated the current crisis. Everybody appears to concur with the idea that we are, indeed, at a point of crisis in our political life, although opinions differ as to the nature of the problem. I am not impressed generally speaking by the usefulness of Facebook as a source of political wisdom, but today I came across a piece that did make me think.
The comedian Russell Brand, often identified with a thoroughly whacky take on our political life, posted a piece that I did find very thought-provoking. He was responding to the very emotional speech in which Prime Minister May announced her resignation. This was quite uncharacteristic of a woman who has been lampooned in the press as the “Maybot” (a variation of robot.) She has weathered a storm of criticism, some of it vituperative in the extreme, as a result of her handing of the EU question, and endured without apparent emotion the resignation of a record number of her Cabinet colleagues. At the time of writing she appears to face a pretty comprehensive melt-down of the party she was elected to lead. All this she has survived without any apparent emotional trauma. The moment of her resignation, however, brought her close to collapse into tears.
Brand’s observant comment was that this episode has been revelatory of the key problem of British politics. There has been an almost complete evacuation of any emotional dimension, and issues have been reduced to questions of the calculation of party advantage and the arithmetic of securing a majority for some parliamentary resolution or another. Not only has the “Maybot” been robotic in her responses to the dire situation of our society. This has been typical of almost the entire political class. This is in stark contrast to the electorate, which I have never seen so moved to passion by the issues–one way or the other.
The episode that has been pointed to as quintessentially capturing this crisis was Theresa May’s visit to the wreckage of the Grenfell Tower (a high-rise residential block that was destroyed by fire with the loss of many lives.) Film of her visit to the site reveals no sign of any emotional response to this horrible situation on her part. She might have been visiting the opening of a new manufacturing facility.
The response of the British public to the challenge of our future relationship to the EU, for better or worse, has been driven by highly emotional factors. People do feel very strongly about the question, although for clearly opposed reasons, if only that in many cases it has been a sense of grievance that their existential concerns are being ignored by the political elite that is preoccupied with other and distant matters. A large section of the voting public simply feel ignored, and that their political leaders don’t actually care about that, immersed as they are in their own ideological and political world. People want politics to matter once again, and for their leaders to actually indicate that they care about the experience of the ordinary citizen. It seems to me that Brand is right, and that until our political representatives can recover their essential humanity, we will remain in a state of political crisis, and indeed this will only grow worse.
Incidentally, I will not be posting during the coming week. Every few years I arrange a brief period of “artistic retreat”, in which I rent a small place deep in the country and cut myself off there with nothing but my art materials. In the past (and I have done this on three previous occasions) the experience has been immensely beneficial and I have returned with renewed energy and vision. On this occasion I will be spending the week in a small lodge near Buxton, in the Peak District National Park. There will be not TV, no radio, no newspapers and no other people–and no internet. Look out for me next week-end.