Labour in the Post-Nihilist Future

It’s possible, just, that Labour will win the next General Election but it’s not easy to say what they will confront when they take office.  Imagining these circumstances in any detail is tricky because the strongest forces determining present and future political reality are negative; the most prominent being nihilism.

By nihilism I mean a doctrine that wishes to destroy the existing social order, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

The luxury of the nihilist attitude is that it does not have to suggest any alternative to the institutions or social structures that it enthusiastically obliterates. This means that after nihilism what remains is just whatever happens to remain. What the new Labour administration will face will be the politics of a post-nihilist world. Somewhere in that world will be whatever is left of Brexit.

Brexit was driven by UKIP and UKIP celebrated and glorified nihilism. The explicit purpose of its MEPs was simple; to destroy the European Union.  They ultimately succeeded by proxy, infecting the Tory euro sceptic wing in the run up to the 2016 referendum with their own particular brand of the doctrine. 

The destructive capabilities of nihilism are undoubtedly powerful and, because it excludes serious consideration of what might replace what it destroys, peculiarly liberating. In the context of Brexit, UKIP needed to offer only grandly imprecise labels like ‘sunlit uplands’, or ‘Singapore’, to describe what would happen next. Even now, we know we’ve left the EU and that negativity has triumphed, but no-one is very sure where we’ve ended up. 

We are living in the aftermath of a historically negative decision, in a post-nihilist condition. But, because that decision was embedded within the democratic process, it is practically irreversible. This combination of the democratic and the nihilistic poses a challenge for Labour because they will not be inheriting a fully functioning civil apparatus. Moreover they will not be able quickly to fix the damaged state of affairs that 17 million voted into existence. 

Due to the influence of UKIP, nihilism has entered the Tory blood stream effectively converting it into an anti-Conservative party bent on undermining the institutions that have held things together at least since the late forties. Parliament, the Constitution, the Judiciary, international law, treaty obligations, regulatory bodies, the NHS and the BBC, UNMCR, ECHR, have all been targeted, even the RNLI. 

Now the economy, the competent stewardship of which was always an important part of Tory brand identity, has been added to this list. Kwarteng’s mini budget was pure nihilism. When he presented it in the HOC he could not control his delight, becoming almost ecstatic as he reeled off details of tax cuts, having arranged that none of the measures would be tested by the OBR or sacked Treasury officials. It was the joy of destruction that shone through his short speech, only possible if the concept of consequences is completely jettisoned.

A nihilist Tory is no longer a contradiction in terms. Usually that philosophy is associated with far left 20 c Russian revolutionaries rather than British Conservatives. To make things a little more palatable the negativity of nihilist Tory behaviour is described at ‘disruptive’ or ‘libertarian’ to disguise its radically destructive intentions. 

If Labour come back into power at the next General Election they will be faced with a political landscape consisting of whatever happens to remain after the ravages of Tory nihilism. Its task will be something like ‘nation-building’, a process of defining and supporting the institutions and social structures that have been undermined by the occupying forces of the post UKIP Tory party. This means stabilising the existing fabric of civil life and openly supporting those organisations that help to sustain it.

Supporting or restoring institutions is not usually high on the promises of a lefty political party who regard them as likely to be a drag on social progress, and serving the interest of the ruling class, and they are. But in a dilapidated state they are even more likely to inhibit mobility and equality. 

To underline the importance and urgency of nation building it would be necessary to try to form what might be unusually inclusive grand coalition consisting not only Lib Dems and Greens but also the left leaning so called ‘One Nation’ Tories who have all but been obliterated in the rightward lurch of the Johnson era. Though this wing of the party has virtually no representation in Westminster its outlook presumably must still exist within the ranks of Conservative voters especially in the south, who perhaps find nihilism uncongenial. 

This argument might appear to exaggerate the problem of nihilism but the radical undermining of institutions and social organisations without any interest in what might replace them seems a serious matter. To appreciate the threat we can learn where this negativity may lead from the example of the USA. Trump is the nihilist-in-chief and his supporters, especially those that invaded the capitol building, certainty share that view. They had no idea as to the consequences of their actions and it came as a complete surprise to them when they eventually faced criminal charges and imprisonment. Other Trump voters, millions of them, think that Biden stole the election, thus undermining the hallowed institution of American democracy, but they, like good nihilists, are not in the least interested in what system might replace it.

If you add the American Q anon conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers the problem of nihilism becomes even more scary. The significant element of these theories is that they are unbelievable. That might be obvious but their force does not come from people believing them literally but repeating, sharing or subscribing to them. Its not that these narratives are true: Rather they are consoling fictions around which a community can form. The problem is that the high priests and priestesses of conspiracy theory insist that the unbelievable is believed, often adding layers of further incredulities to the stories. What they wish to destroy is the most important social institution we have, namely reality itself. Of course they have no idea what will replace it.

The challenges facing Labour in 2024, in a post-nihilist future, are complex, to say the least. Dealing with the immediate economic problems of a public realm damaged by the pursuit of right wing policies over the previous 14 years will obviously be the priority, should they return to power. But in the meantime calling out Tory nihilism for what it is could be the beginning of a new narrative Labour can promote, presenting itself as a party wishing to repair and restore the state institutions that the Conservatives have recklessly undermined through a combination of austerity and negativity. 

 David Sweet 2022