WEBVTT - Democracy's Midlife Crisis 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.836 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show 0:00:23.876 --> 0:00:26.876 where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:27.276 --> 0:00:30.836 I'm Noah Feldman. Since four in the morning on the 0:00:30.916 --> 0:00:33.796 day after Donald Trump was elected, it's been clear to 0:00:33.876 --> 0:00:37.476 me that democracy in the United States is facing a 0:00:37.596 --> 0:00:40.636 kind of stress test. In the months that follow that 0:00:41.036 --> 0:00:44.036 bregsit kicked in and we discovered that the United States 0:00:44.116 --> 0:00:47.676 is not alone in this regard. Indeed, those who care 0:00:47.716 --> 0:00:51.156 a lot about democracy worldwide have worried that everywhere in 0:00:51.196 --> 0:00:56.076 the globe democracy is in retreat, under attack, and under pressure. 0:00:57.196 --> 0:01:01.076 To discuss these challenges that democracy faces today, I'm joined 0:01:01.076 --> 0:01:05.316 by David Runsman, who's professor of Politics at Cambridge University. 0:01:05.836 --> 0:01:09.356 He's the author of two highly relevant books, one called 0:01:09.436 --> 0:01:12.716 How Democracy Ends, published in the United States in twenty 0:01:12.916 --> 0:01:16.756 and eighteen, and the other Where Power Stops The Making 0:01:16.796 --> 0:01:19.796 and Unmaking of Presidents and Prime Ministers, which is coming 0:01:19.796 --> 0:01:23.916 out in two and nineteen. Professor Runsman is also the 0:01:23.956 --> 0:01:27.596 host of the Talking Politics podcast produced by the London 0:01:27.636 --> 0:01:30.836 Review of Books. David, thank you so much for joining me. 0:01:30.996 --> 0:01:35.116 Thank you very much. You've written a fascinating book called 0:01:35.356 --> 0:01:40.156 How Democracy Ends, in which you characterize democracy is having 0:01:40.236 --> 0:01:45.556 hit a midlife crisis. I am somewhere in midlife myself. 0:01:45.636 --> 0:01:48.156 I don't know if you count yourself in that same 0:01:48.476 --> 0:01:51.996 category of life, But tell us something about why you 0:01:52.036 --> 0:01:54.116 think democracy is hitting a midlife crisis and what you 0:01:54.196 --> 0:01:57.356 think a midlife crisis looks like. So I think, full disclosure, 0:01:57.396 --> 0:02:00.596 I am. And people always say to me that presumably 0:02:00.596 --> 0:02:04.076 I'm writing about myself and I'm just transposing it onto democracy, 0:02:04.116 --> 0:02:06.716 and I don't think I am. But the reason I 0:02:06.836 --> 0:02:10.116 characterized it like that is I do think we're in 0:02:10.156 --> 0:02:13.676 the middle of this story, particularly in the older democracy. 0:02:13.756 --> 0:02:16.316 So I don't think it's a midlife crisis in Hungary 0:02:17.356 --> 0:02:20.796 because that democracy is too young. But the democracies that 0:02:20.836 --> 0:02:24.156 are really well established since the Second World War are, 0:02:24.196 --> 0:02:26.876 in political terms, in a kind of middle age. And 0:02:27.036 --> 0:02:31.876 my feeling about a midlife crisis is that it's characteristic 0:02:31.956 --> 0:02:34.316 is a desire to change and at the same time 0:02:34.356 --> 0:02:38.036 a real resistance to change because we're comfortable, because we're 0:02:38.036 --> 0:02:41.636 well off, because we're prosperous, because we're settled in our ways. 0:02:41.916 --> 0:02:44.436 Because actually a lot of what we are angry about 0:02:44.436 --> 0:02:47.636 we're also deeply familiar with and it's that kind of 0:02:47.716 --> 0:02:50.436 quality to our democracies, and by our I mean mine 0:02:50.476 --> 0:02:54.756 and yours, I mean particularly Brexit democracy and Trump democracy. 0:02:55.316 --> 0:02:57.076 There is a lot of acting out going on here, 0:02:57.116 --> 0:02:59.476 but it's middle aged acting out. It's not wild young 0:02:59.516 --> 0:03:03.436 person acting out. It's that desire for something new, something 0:03:03.516 --> 0:03:09.836 maybe exciting, along with a really deep reluctance to embrace newness. 0:03:09.836 --> 0:03:13.996 Means so we kick away at our system, we were 0:03:14.036 --> 0:03:16.516 angry with it, we shake it up a bit, but 0:03:16.716 --> 0:03:20.236 deep down we don't want anything different. May I ask 0:03:20.276 --> 0:03:24.036 about the midlife their model? You mentioned the Second World War, 0:03:24.116 --> 0:03:27.556 but both British and American democracies, at least at their 0:03:27.596 --> 0:03:30.716 present scales, are really products of in the middle of 0:03:30.716 --> 0:03:33.756 the nineteenth century, and so they've been actually around for 0:03:34.116 --> 0:03:36.276 a good long time, not just since the Second World War. 0:03:36.276 --> 0:03:38.316 If one thinks of post World War two democracy, is 0:03:38.316 --> 0:03:41.396 one thinks of Germany and of Japan perhaps some of 0:03:41.396 --> 0:03:45.676 the other European democracies. Can we really be described yours 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:48.276 or mind as being in midlife or are we at 0:03:48.276 --> 0:03:51.596 the edge of our dotage? As as a North Korean 0:03:51.596 --> 0:03:55.116 had to say about my president, it's a really good question. 0:03:55.196 --> 0:03:58.036 I think it's a mixture of both, and that some 0:03:58.116 --> 0:04:03.316 of the characteristics of German democracy or Japanese democracy we're 0:04:03.316 --> 0:04:09.116 in the same historical arc, so mass franchise, mass communication, 0:04:09.276 --> 0:04:14.876 and professionalized political party democracy. It's a twentieth century product. 0:04:15.556 --> 0:04:17.756 In the British and American case, you can probably take 0:04:17.796 --> 0:04:19.276 it back to the First World War. I don't think 0:04:19.276 --> 0:04:22.676 you can take it back much further. What makes ours 0:04:22.756 --> 0:04:26.676 different is that that form of democracy was channeled through 0:04:26.796 --> 0:04:31.036 institutions and institutional arrangements that are much older, and in 0:04:31.076 --> 0:04:33.756 the case of the British State, maybe it goes all 0:04:33.796 --> 0:04:35.836 the way back to sixteen eighty eight. In the American State, 0:04:35.836 --> 0:04:38.836 it goes back the end of the eighteenth century. So 0:04:38.876 --> 0:04:44.276 our institutions have that really elderly feel to them. The 0:04:44.316 --> 0:04:48.116 Electoral College, the House of Lords, the way the British 0:04:48.156 --> 0:04:51.276 Parliament operates often strikes many people in the twenty first 0:04:51.276 --> 0:04:55.636 century is feeling not just old but antique. And yet 0:04:55.796 --> 0:04:59.516 some of the qualities that make our democracy democracy. Everyone 0:04:59.516 --> 0:05:03.556 gets a vote at election time, people try and communicate 0:05:03.556 --> 0:05:08.196 with the broadest possible cross section of a literate and 0:05:08.596 --> 0:05:12.956 at some level informed population. That's a more recent thing, 0:05:13.356 --> 0:05:16.436 but it's still relatively old. I mean, even if you 0:05:16.476 --> 0:05:18.476 take it back a hundred years, say in the British 0:05:18.516 --> 0:05:21.756 or American case, you take it back to nineteen eighteen, 0:05:23.276 --> 0:05:26.276 a hundred years for a political system, it doesn't make 0:05:26.316 --> 0:05:30.436 it decrepit, but it means that it has outlasted the 0:05:30.516 --> 0:05:34.476 living memory of any human being who currently inhabits it, 0:05:34.716 --> 0:05:38.356 so no one can remember anything different, and that's what 0:05:38.476 --> 0:05:40.716 gives it that kind of middling quality. To me, it's 0:05:40.716 --> 0:05:44.316 not dying. Ending is something very different from dying. Now 0:05:44.396 --> 0:05:46.476 you can end in an open way. There is something 0:05:47.076 --> 0:05:50.516 called being open ended, and ending is also about transition, 0:05:50.556 --> 0:05:53.836 whereas death is about death. So we're in the middle. 0:05:54.156 --> 0:05:57.596 But I think over that hundred year period that combination 0:05:57.676 --> 0:06:00.396 of a way of doing politics where the parties are 0:06:00.436 --> 0:06:02.436 the same. So in your country, in my country they 0:06:02.476 --> 0:06:06.476 have the same names. The Labor Party, our current opposition party, 0:06:07.236 --> 0:06:10.396 is something that was born roughly a hundred years ago 0:06:10.436 --> 0:06:15.556 as a mass professional political party Labor, Conservative, Republican Democrat. 0:06:15.636 --> 0:06:18.276 Of course, these parties have been through changes over this period, 0:06:18.796 --> 0:06:22.396 but you know that gives them, in political terms, extraordinary 0:06:22.676 --> 0:06:26.956 roots and longevity. But also they're tired, they feel tired, 0:06:26.996 --> 0:06:30.236 they feel tired to me, they don't feel dead. They 0:06:30.276 --> 0:06:32.596 could evolve. They could also have quite a lot of 0:06:32.596 --> 0:06:35.316 life left in them, decades of life left in them, 0:06:35.396 --> 0:06:38.196 but they feel tired. And it's that kind of quality 0:06:38.196 --> 0:06:42.756 of tiredness rather than panic, despair, collapse that I was 0:06:42.796 --> 0:06:46.396 trying to capture. It sounds a bit like the midlife 0:06:46.436 --> 0:06:50.556 person that you have in mind is driving a car 0:06:50.996 --> 0:06:54.156 that is perhaps in many ways one hundred years old 0:06:54.156 --> 0:06:57.236 and has been patched together and peace together and changed 0:06:57.236 --> 0:07:00.516 and transformed. And that's the institutions that you're describing, the 0:07:00.556 --> 0:07:04.196 political parties, some of our constitutional institutions in the US 0:07:04.276 --> 0:07:08.156 which changed very very slowly. That the electoral college comes 0:07:08.156 --> 0:07:11.316 to mind. And so here we are in midlife, but 0:07:11.396 --> 0:07:17.436 equipped not with the latest coolest machinery or computers or 0:07:17.516 --> 0:07:20.396 software that would help us deal with the current circumstances, 0:07:20.756 --> 0:07:25.956 but rather to some degree constrained or limited by those institutions. Yeah, 0:07:25.996 --> 0:07:27.956 I mean, I'm happy with that analogy. And I do 0:07:28.316 --> 0:07:30.596 have a variant on that in my book where I 0:07:30.636 --> 0:07:33.316 describe Donald Trump as being like the motorbike that the 0:07:33.356 --> 0:07:36.276 middle aged man buys partly because there is that feeling 0:07:36.276 --> 0:07:38.956 in a midlife crisis. The car is old, or the 0:07:38.996 --> 0:07:42.516 other analogy you could draw here is the marriage is 0:07:42.556 --> 0:07:44.356 old or the relationship is old. You know you've been 0:07:44.396 --> 0:07:47.356 start in something or with something for years or decades. 0:07:47.796 --> 0:07:49.996 You're frustrated with it. You have a sense that it's 0:07:49.996 --> 0:07:52.756 over familiar. It served you well in the past, but 0:07:52.796 --> 0:07:55.476 you have a feeling that somehow it's not quite fit 0:07:55.556 --> 0:08:00.276 for purpose anymore. One classic midlife response is to think, well, 0:08:00.276 --> 0:08:03.196 I need the up to date version of this thing, 0:08:03.356 --> 0:08:06.396 so I need the motorbike, or I need the affair, 0:08:06.556 --> 0:08:08.436 I need you, I need to find the new version 0:08:08.476 --> 0:08:12.516 of this thing. When that's not the issue here. You're 0:08:12.516 --> 0:08:15.036 not going to solve your midlife crisis because you're frustrated 0:08:15.036 --> 0:08:18.116 with your car by buying a motorbike. And that's what 0:08:18.156 --> 0:08:21.636 it feels like to me, is that, yes, these institutions 0:08:21.636 --> 0:08:24.836 are old and tired, they're also adaptable, so in a way, 0:08:24.836 --> 0:08:26.676 they're not like a car from one hundred years ago. 0:08:26.676 --> 0:08:29.876 They're like a car that has been updated regularly and 0:08:29.956 --> 0:08:33.396 yet we can still see the original model behind it. 0:08:33.476 --> 0:08:36.676 But the idea that somehow the solution to this is 0:08:36.756 --> 0:08:41.356 just a faster car, the latest model, rather than to 0:08:41.396 --> 0:08:44.756 ask ourselves genuinely. If we want this thing that we 0:08:44.836 --> 0:08:48.076 call democracy to work and to continue for another hundred years, 0:08:48.476 --> 0:08:52.436 we've probably got to think much harder about how we're different, 0:08:52.756 --> 0:08:55.396 how the societies that we live in are different. You 0:08:55.436 --> 0:08:58.596 can't just plug in a faster, newer version of this 0:08:58.636 --> 0:09:01.556 thing and think it's going to make all the difference. 0:09:02.316 --> 0:09:04.476 What I think that we're missing always when we think 0:09:04.516 --> 0:09:08.316 about what's wrong with our democracy is genuinely thinking about 0:09:08.316 --> 0:09:11.396 the future. And you know, we can leave this image 0:09:11.436 --> 0:09:12.916 in a moment. But that's the other thing about a 0:09:12.916 --> 0:09:16.476 midlife crisis. It's often nostalgia. You wish you were younger, 0:09:17.836 --> 0:09:20.476 You want the moment when you could drive the car fast. 0:09:20.796 --> 0:09:25.436 So if Donald Trump then is the motorbike Brexit is 0:09:25.476 --> 0:09:28.716 the walking out on one's spouse and going walk about. 0:09:28.876 --> 0:09:31.956 Yeah it is, and it's that thing of it underneath it. 0:09:31.996 --> 0:09:34.596 There's a kind of complacency too, which is a characteristic 0:09:34.636 --> 0:09:37.676 of this kind of psychology, which is people are frustrated 0:09:37.676 --> 0:09:40.836 and angry, but they also believe we can take this risk. 0:09:41.276 --> 0:09:43.876 Maybe our marriage will survive it. Now, maybe we won't 0:09:43.876 --> 0:09:47.796 crash the motorbike. Because we're older and wiser. We're conflicted 0:09:47.836 --> 0:09:50.836 about these things we want to change, but deep down 0:09:50.876 --> 0:09:53.116 we don't want to change. And what people do in 0:09:53.116 --> 0:09:55.876 middle age when they have that feeling is they do 0:09:55.956 --> 0:10:01.036 something impetuous and impulsive but not actually long lasting. The 0:10:01.036 --> 0:10:04.836 thing that we're missing is the long lasting reform. One 0:10:04.876 --> 0:10:08.676 of the things that representative democracy was meant to do 0:10:08.836 --> 0:10:12.396 from start, according to its theorists at least, was to 0:10:12.436 --> 0:10:18.756 protect government against impulsive acts by the public. And that's 0:10:18.756 --> 0:10:22.636 one reason why the referendum would have been very much 0:10:22.796 --> 0:10:26.076 doubted as a good way of doing business by certainly 0:10:26.076 --> 0:10:28.956 by eighteenth century theorists of democracy, and then in the 0:10:28.996 --> 0:10:31.876 nineteenth century some people began to argue that, after all, 0:10:31.916 --> 0:10:34.916 the referendum was a more direct direct way of reaching 0:10:34.916 --> 0:10:37.116 the people. I wanted to ask you a question that 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:40.116 I've really been obsessed with in watching from across the 0:10:40.116 --> 0:10:44.796 Atlantic the entire bregsit melt down. And that is why, 0:10:44.836 --> 0:10:49.236 at this moment in time did Britain use a referendum 0:10:49.756 --> 0:10:54.316 when it's in possession of the most evolved representative democratic 0:10:54.356 --> 0:10:57.156 institutions that there are. Because it's frequently struck me that 0:10:57.516 --> 0:11:00.796 the impossibility for Parliament of working out a solution to 0:11:00.836 --> 0:11:02.796 bregsit has come from the fact that there was a 0:11:02.836 --> 0:11:05.156 referendum with a yes or no question attached to it, 0:11:05.356 --> 0:11:08.156 and then that was being pushed upon an institution very 0:11:08.156 --> 0:11:11.196 different or represented institution that I've got its own internal logic, 0:11:11.236 --> 0:11:15.076 in its own internal structures of politics. So why the referendum? 0:11:15.116 --> 0:11:19.196 And am I right that the referendums mismatch with parliamentary 0:11:19.276 --> 0:11:22.836 government has been part of the problem. You definitely are right. 0:11:22.916 --> 0:11:25.196 I think there is a context here, which is the 0:11:25.236 --> 0:11:27.876 Brexit referendum was not the first referendum, so it was 0:11:27.916 --> 0:11:31.876 one of a series. Governments had recourse to referendums in 0:11:31.916 --> 0:11:35.316 Britain for nearly a decade now, so there was one 0:11:35.356 --> 0:11:38.836 about changing the voting system. There was more famously one 0:11:38.876 --> 0:11:43.636 about Scottish independence. And the conclusion that I think that government, 0:11:43.636 --> 0:11:47.476 in particular that David Cameron government drew was that referendums 0:11:47.476 --> 0:11:51.556 are a good fit with representative parliamentary democracy when the 0:11:51.596 --> 0:11:55.796 answer basically comes back as no change, and that therefore 0:11:55.796 --> 0:11:57.756 they are a useful outlet. You give the people a 0:11:57.836 --> 0:12:01.356 chance to have their moment, their flirtation with radical change, 0:12:01.756 --> 0:12:03.756 they will come to their senses, they will sort of 0:12:04.116 --> 0:12:06.636 snap out of it when they realize just how dangerous 0:12:06.636 --> 0:12:09.636 the motorbikes or whatever, or the relationship, and they won't 0:12:09.676 --> 0:12:13.316 do the really dangerous thing. What we've discovered with the 0:12:13.316 --> 0:12:16.116 first referendum, when the answer didn't come back no change, 0:12:16.156 --> 0:12:18.636 the answer came back change please. We don't know what 0:12:18.756 --> 0:12:21.076 change means. We just want change. And you hear anecdotally 0:12:21.116 --> 0:12:23.156 all the time in Britain when people who asked why 0:12:23.196 --> 0:12:26.396 they voted for this they wanted some form of change. 0:12:26.436 --> 0:12:29.436 It was an expression of frustration. There is no fit 0:12:29.756 --> 0:12:32.916 because then Parliament has to decide what change means. And 0:12:32.996 --> 0:12:35.836 Parliament can't decide what change means because Parliament doesn't agree 0:12:35.876 --> 0:12:39.036 on the necessary change. And the referendum doesn't tell you 0:12:39.196 --> 0:12:41.916 what change means, it just tells you there was an 0:12:41.916 --> 0:12:45.436 appetite for change. So the shock to the system has 0:12:45.476 --> 0:12:47.796 actually again come from a kind of complacency, and you 0:12:47.836 --> 0:12:49.836 really saw it in the Brexit referendum. I mean, I 0:12:49.876 --> 0:12:53.796 think the catastrophic mistake that the Cameron government made was 0:12:53.836 --> 0:12:56.796 that they thought that the Scottish referendum had shown them 0:12:57.556 --> 0:13:00.476 that when you get to the day of the choice, 0:13:01.036 --> 0:13:06.276 people shy away, and they didn't appreciate that the data 0:13:06.316 --> 0:13:08.796 set there was very small. It was just one yes. 0:13:09.116 --> 0:13:10.996 And actually I also think they learned the wrong lesson 0:13:11.036 --> 0:13:14.116 because there was this phrase used about the Scottish referendum, 0:13:14.116 --> 0:13:17.596 which was project fear, which was that what people shied 0:13:17.596 --> 0:13:19.956 away from in the end in Scotland from independent when 0:13:19.956 --> 0:13:23.156 they offered independence was the thought of the possible chaos, 0:13:23.236 --> 0:13:26.956 particularly financial monetary chaos, what currency would we have, what 0:13:26.996 --> 0:13:29.476 would our relationship be with the Bank of England and 0:13:29.516 --> 0:13:31.876 so on. But actually, if you look at the evidence 0:13:31.916 --> 0:13:35.036 from the Scottish referendum and the polling evidence, people were 0:13:35.636 --> 0:13:39.676 moving towards independence and they didn't shy away from it 0:13:39.676 --> 0:13:42.476 at the last minute because they suddenly got afraid. What 0:13:42.596 --> 0:13:45.316 happened was the politicians got afraid and at the last 0:13:45.356 --> 0:13:48.196 minute all of the leaders of the British parties, the 0:13:48.196 --> 0:13:50.636 Westminster Parties, went up to Scotland and made all sorts 0:13:50.636 --> 0:13:53.796 of concessions to great a devolution, to more financial support. 0:13:54.316 --> 0:13:55.996 It wasn't fear on the part of the voter, that 0:13:56.076 --> 0:13:58.316 was fear on the part of the politicians. They didn't 0:13:58.356 --> 0:14:00.516 do that in the Brexit case. So in the last 0:14:00.556 --> 0:14:03.596 week there wasn't from Cameron or anyone else a recognition 0:14:03.596 --> 0:14:05.196 that this thing was getting away from them, and they 0:14:05.196 --> 0:14:07.436 would actually have to say something to the people who 0:14:07.436 --> 0:14:11.436 wanted change which sounded like change. They carried on with fear, 0:14:12.156 --> 0:14:14.396 and now we are, as you described, in a position 0:14:14.396 --> 0:14:16.556 where we have two forms of democracy in this country 0:14:16.716 --> 0:14:19.956 that cannot be meshed together. But it wasn't. It wasn't 0:14:19.956 --> 0:14:21.436 a one off, and I think the history of it 0:14:21.476 --> 0:14:24.236 only makes sense when you understand that it was the 0:14:24.236 --> 0:14:28.076 politicians who drew the wrong lesson about referendums because they 0:14:28.156 --> 0:14:31.716 thought it gave them a safe outlet. And the thing 0:14:31.796 --> 0:14:34.156 about safe outlets is that they're safe until they're not, 0:14:34.316 --> 0:14:37.156 and then you've got a disaster on your hands. It's 0:14:37.156 --> 0:14:40.876 a genuinely fascinating answer because it also explains another puzzle 0:14:40.916 --> 0:14:43.356 that I was never clear on, which is why it 0:14:43.436 --> 0:14:46.996 was conservatives in particular who would have taken this risk 0:14:47.076 --> 0:14:50.636 with the referendums, since the referendum form, at least in 0:14:50.676 --> 0:14:56.396 its historical form, is always thought to be precisely about populism. 0:14:56.436 --> 0:14:58.396 It's about the whole reason to have a referendum rather 0:14:58.436 --> 0:15:01.196 than going through the legislature, is to get to the people. 0:15:01.516 --> 0:15:03.716 On the theory that the politicians are in some way 0:15:03.756 --> 0:15:05.756 interfering with the will of the people and one has 0:15:05.756 --> 0:15:08.156 to get around them. And what I hear implicit in 0:15:08.156 --> 0:15:10.916 your answer, tell me if this is the right lesson 0:15:10.916 --> 0:15:13.356 to take away from what you're saying, is that it was, 0:15:13.396 --> 0:15:19.716 in a way the nostalgic or aspirational view of the 0:15:19.756 --> 0:15:22.716 contemporary Conservative Party that thinks of the ordinary British voter 0:15:22.836 --> 0:15:25.996 is really very sensible in the end and likely to 0:15:26.036 --> 0:15:30.196 do what the Conservative Partian imagines ought to be done, 0:15:30.236 --> 0:15:32.756 at least what Cameron imagined ought to be done. That 0:15:33.036 --> 0:15:37.316 was the driving force behind them making the mistaken inference 0:15:37.356 --> 0:15:40.556 from one or two data points. I definitely think that's 0:15:40.596 --> 0:15:44.276 part of it. I think what we've discovered, and it's 0:15:44.356 --> 0:15:48.636 clearly not just in this country. Elections, both general elections 0:15:48.636 --> 0:15:51.156 and referendum results have been surprising people for a few 0:15:51.236 --> 0:15:54.996 years now that there was also this feeling. The Conservative 0:15:54.996 --> 0:15:58.716 Party often describes itself as the historically most successful election 0:15:58.796 --> 0:16:02.876 winning machine in the Western world. It's been winning elections 0:16:02.916 --> 0:16:05.076 in one form or another two hundred years, and somehow 0:16:05.076 --> 0:16:07.876 it always stumbles across the right answer, and there is 0:16:07.876 --> 0:16:10.036 that feeling that the Conservative part he has an instinctive 0:16:10.116 --> 0:16:13.556 understanding of its people, and it didn't in this case. 0:16:14.076 --> 0:16:16.556 But there was also this other weird complacency at work, 0:16:16.556 --> 0:16:18.116 and I heard it a lot after the results. So 0:16:18.156 --> 0:16:22.036 the result profoundly shocked the party establishment, but it quickly adapted. 0:16:22.276 --> 0:16:26.236 Theresa May became Prime Minister and the thought was, well, 0:16:26.276 --> 0:16:28.476 at least the thing that we have done as true 0:16:28.516 --> 0:16:32.796 Conservatives is that we have co opted populism. We offered 0:16:32.796 --> 0:16:35.396 this referendum, it didn't produce the result that we were expecting, 0:16:35.436 --> 0:16:38.236 but now that result can be channeled through the party 0:16:38.276 --> 0:16:40.876 and we have killed our populist party. So the populist 0:16:40.916 --> 0:16:44.876 party was UKIP Nigel Farage's party, which was polling pretty 0:16:44.956 --> 0:16:46.996 high in the run up to the referendum, and then 0:16:46.996 --> 0:16:50.236 when they got what they wanted leaving the EU, the 0:16:50.276 --> 0:16:53.316 Conservative Party just took it over and performed its historic mission, 0:16:53.316 --> 0:16:55.436 which was basically to take over whatever was on the 0:16:55.436 --> 0:16:59.036 table and conservatize it. That's a word, you make it 0:16:59.316 --> 0:17:02.756 fit conservative politics. And Theresa May and her supporters I 0:17:02.796 --> 0:17:05.516 heard them saying for a year eighteen months, we have 0:17:05.596 --> 0:17:08.956 performed our historic function. We have killed populism in Britain. 0:17:09.316 --> 0:17:13.356 It's rampant in Europe. It's frankly rampant. In the United States, 0:17:13.676 --> 0:17:17.596 Donald Trump has just used populism and actually infected Republicanism 0:17:17.596 --> 0:17:20.316 with it. We've done the opposite. They claimed, we have 0:17:20.396 --> 0:17:24.396 allowed a traditional conservative party to take it on and 0:17:24.436 --> 0:17:28.996 then basically to defang it, and they were wrong. So 0:17:29.076 --> 0:17:31.156 here we are three years later, because they had no 0:17:31.276 --> 0:17:36.156 means of translating the referendum result into meaningful politics, and 0:17:36.156 --> 0:17:38.076 they still haven't worked out how to do it. We 0:17:38.196 --> 0:17:40.756 have Boris Johnson about to become Prime Minister on a 0:17:40.836 --> 0:17:45.156 frankly populist Trumpish platform because he has got to compete 0:17:45.156 --> 0:17:48.956 with Nigel Farrage his party yukit was killed and then 0:17:48.996 --> 0:17:52.036 reinvented itself as the Brexit Party and is polling at 0:17:52.076 --> 0:17:55.236 double the level yukit was ever polling out. There has 0:17:55.316 --> 0:17:59.516 always been in British Conservatism a deep complacency which is 0:17:59.556 --> 0:18:03.356 somehow as long as it passes through us because we're Conservatives, 0:18:03.396 --> 0:18:05.796 it will be all right. And even a party that's 0:18:05.796 --> 0:18:07.796 two hundred years old is eventually going to make a 0:18:07.876 --> 0:18:11.276 fatal mistake. And I know conservative politicians in this country 0:18:11.276 --> 0:18:15.356 who believe the British Conservative Party maybe in its death throws. 0:18:15.436 --> 0:18:17.836 So British democracy. I don't think it's in its death throws, 0:18:18.276 --> 0:18:20.756 but one of its traditional parties, and maybe even both 0:18:20.756 --> 0:18:24.876 of them, could well be dying. So tell me a 0:18:24.916 --> 0:18:28.316 little bit about your view of Johnson and in what 0:18:28.396 --> 0:18:33.316 way does someone who know sociologically looks not so different 0:18:33.436 --> 0:18:40.076 from Cameron turn into a Trump figure. Frankly, even six 0:18:40.156 --> 0:18:43.476 months ago, the prospect of Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister 0:18:43.516 --> 0:18:45.996 looked very very remote. So this is British politics has 0:18:45.996 --> 0:18:49.636 turned around, very very quickly. And the reason Johnson is 0:18:49.676 --> 0:18:53.436 now seen by many Conservatives as the answer is partly 0:18:53.476 --> 0:18:57.596 because May's failure was total. It's partly because the last 0:18:57.636 --> 0:19:00.676 thing that Theresa May did was to try and forge 0:19:00.676 --> 0:19:04.796 some bipartisan consensus to get her Brexit deal over the line, 0:19:04.796 --> 0:19:08.316 which meant negotiating with Jeremy Corbyn. And it's almost like 0:19:08.676 --> 0:19:12.156 the bin is not just our Bernie Sanders. He's for 0:19:12.316 --> 0:19:15.116 many Conservatives, he's further along the line to what they 0:19:15.156 --> 0:19:18.076 think of as Leninist catastrophe than that he is to 0:19:18.156 --> 0:19:20.476 the left of Bernie Sanders on substantive policy. I think, 0:19:20.476 --> 0:19:23.236 for what that's worth quite a part from any allegations 0:19:23.236 --> 0:19:26.236 of Clinism Yeah, So what we had was a Conservative 0:19:26.316 --> 0:19:30.556 leader offering to negotiate with someone who, genuinely, I think 0:19:30.596 --> 0:19:36.836 for almost every conservative politician, is beyond the pale, and 0:19:37.316 --> 0:19:41.516 that seemed to sort of trigger in the Conservative Party 0:19:42.156 --> 0:19:47.196 a desire for the politician who would never think that 0:19:47.196 --> 0:19:50.156 that kind of bipartisan consensus was a way to solve 0:19:50.196 --> 0:19:53.236 this problem. And it was almost a reaction to that 0:19:53.236 --> 0:19:58.756 that produced Johnson. Johnson's claim and he's repeated it throughout 0:19:58.796 --> 0:20:00.636 this campaign, which is about to end, but he's more 0:20:00.676 --> 0:20:03.276 or less already won. It is that he can be 0:20:03.316 --> 0:20:06.156 trusted because he was quite a successful mayor of London. 0:20:06.876 --> 0:20:09.516 But when he was mayor of London, if you looked 0:20:09.516 --> 0:20:11.396 at Johnson, you would have said he was another of 0:20:11.396 --> 0:20:14.836 that generation of Conservative politicians of whom Cameron was another, 0:20:15.356 --> 0:20:18.916 who saw themselves as twenty first century Thatcher rights, and 0:20:18.996 --> 0:20:22.676 that Margaret Thatcher was their model. Margaret Thatcher is on 0:20:22.716 --> 0:20:25.996 no account a populist and on no account was anything 0:20:26.036 --> 0:20:29.596 like a Trump politician. She was radical in her way, 0:20:30.236 --> 0:20:34.156 but she was also small c conservative, particularly about institutions. 0:20:34.396 --> 0:20:36.236 So there was none of that sense that you get 0:20:36.236 --> 0:20:39.116 with the current generation of populace that they're here actually 0:20:39.156 --> 0:20:43.316 to undercut the institutional basis of democratic politics. Margaret Thatcher 0:20:43.396 --> 0:20:45.996 was a classic politician We've had fifty years of them 0:20:45.996 --> 0:20:48.356 at that period, maybe coming to an end, who saw 0:20:48.356 --> 0:20:51.876 the challenge of democratic politics, to test the institutions, to 0:20:51.956 --> 0:20:55.276 push them, but never to think about breaking them. And 0:20:55.396 --> 0:20:59.116 Johnson was one of those. It is the phenomenon of 0:20:59.156 --> 0:21:01.236 the last three or four years that has changed him 0:21:01.276 --> 0:21:05.076 into what looks like a more trumpish politician. He's also 0:21:05.116 --> 0:21:08.756 a journalist. His journalism has always been you know, the 0:21:09.156 --> 0:21:11.396 people have been trawling through it and have found statements 0:21:11.436 --> 0:21:14.436 which you would think would rule someone out from needing 0:21:14.916 --> 0:21:19.116 a mature democracy because of the implicit racism in a 0:21:19.116 --> 0:21:23.316 lot of it, the imperialism, the nostalgia for a time 0:21:23.356 --> 0:21:26.916 when Britain ruled the world and people of different colors 0:21:26.916 --> 0:21:31.356 and different creeds knew their place. That's there in Johnson's past. 0:21:31.396 --> 0:21:33.316 But I think in his own mind he would have thought, well, 0:21:33.396 --> 0:21:37.036 my journalism was kind of a sideshow to make me famous, 0:21:37.356 --> 0:21:42.116 and then my politics will be conventional thatch right politics. 0:21:42.636 --> 0:21:44.516 And I think he's noticed in the last two or 0:21:44.516 --> 0:21:48.996 three years that his journalism and that persona is the 0:21:49.036 --> 0:21:51.796 one that other populists around the world are using to 0:21:51.836 --> 0:21:54.796 win power. How far he's willing to push it, I 0:21:54.836 --> 0:21:58.996 don't know, but we're seeing signs of it already, that 0:21:59.716 --> 0:22:04.516 he thinks that the climate has changed and he's changed 0:22:04.516 --> 0:22:08.236 with it. The way in which he's not Trump is 0:22:08.236 --> 0:22:10.876 that he is a professor politician. I mean, he's a journalist, 0:22:10.876 --> 0:22:14.636 but he's also a professional politician. He is flirting with 0:22:14.676 --> 0:22:18.796 this form of politics, and I think he's trying it out, 0:22:18.916 --> 0:22:21.836 and no one knows in the British context how far 0:22:21.956 --> 0:22:24.156 you can go. The one other thing I would say 0:22:24.196 --> 0:22:27.716 about Boris Johnson is that say Britain, like the United States, 0:22:27.796 --> 0:22:32.556 is a country where that kind of politics populist, appealing 0:22:32.596 --> 0:22:35.356 to older voters, appealing to voters who didn't go to college, 0:22:36.356 --> 0:22:41.636 and speaking a language which flirts with racial stereotypes and 0:22:41.716 --> 0:22:44.836 other kinds of politics which would five years ago been 0:22:44.876 --> 0:22:48.996 thought to be outside the bounds of democratic decency. Say 0:22:49.036 --> 0:22:53.396 you can get to forty percent with that. Trump's sealing 0:22:53.876 --> 0:22:58.356 forty five, forty seven when he's lucky, But say forty 0:22:58.436 --> 0:23:01.396 is the limit you can get to in a British context, Well, 0:23:01.396 --> 0:23:03.436 we do not have a presidential system we have a 0:23:03.436 --> 0:23:06.676