The Lure of Greatness: England's Brexit and America's Trump

by Anthony Barnett

In 2016 two surprising explosions of popular contempt for the existing order drove Britain into Brexit and paved the way for Trump’s presidency of the United States.

On both sides of the Atlantic, proud regimes with global pretensions were levelled by justifiable revolts. But in the name of self-government, Brexit and Trump will intensify the authoritarian traditions of their outdated political systems.

The Lure of Greatness is a blistering account of how and why this happened. The shadow of Iraq, the great financial crash, campaigns of poison and intrigue, the filleting of David Cameron with the cold fury of a Remain voter... these are just the start.

At the book’s heart is the story of the institutional and constitutional implosion of the United Kingdom, the farce of ‘the sovereignty of parliament’, a passionate account of English nationalism and the absurdity of the ever-increasing and insidious influence of the Daily Mail. What emerges is a compelling summary of an EU in crisis, the fateful absence of a viable left alternative, the normality of immigration – all of which frame the reasons for the triumph of Leave.

Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy, applies a lifetime of observing, reporting and sedition in this searing analysis of the two great democratic disasters of our time.

Genres: Politics, Journalism

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Anthony Barnett (b. 1942) is an English writer and campaigner. He was a co-founder of openDemocracy in 2001.

Barnett was a student at Cambridge University, where he was active in the Labour Club, and lodged with Nicholas Kaldor.

A former member of the editorial committee of New Left Review, Barnett has written for the New Statesman, The Guardian and Prospect.

Reviews

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book after having pledged support to it via the crowdfunding publishing site Unbound. https://unbound.com

I was intrigued to notice that other subscribers included Timothy Garton Ash , David Goldblatt, Peter Hain, Will Hutton, Helena Kennedy, Caroline Lucas, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ian McEwan, Sam Mendes, Peter Oborne, Philip Pullman, Roger Scruton, Zadie Smith, Andreas Whittam Smith and Martin Wolf

Anthony Barnett was the first director of Charter 88, a campaign for constitutional reform https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chart... and co-founded the opendemocracy website. https://www.opendemocracy.net

The book was inspired by the Brexit vote and was an attempt to try to analyse the true causes and historical trends behind it, but was extended to also include the election of Donald Trump and to consider how The two phenomenon differ and may interact in future.

Barnett's own position is clear, he is pro-European, believes that the United Kingdom has outlived its usefulness and that the ambiguity between the UK and England (typified in the lack of English institutions, including a parliament) had lead to an incompatibility with the EU. He feels that Ireland and Scotland should be given their freedom and that in turn would free up a newly energised England to take its place at the centre of reforming EU. He is a fierce critic of new-liberalism, and even more a critic of the reluctance of media and politicians to admit the profound changes this doctrine has brought about (or even that it exists). He regards the Brexit and Trump votes as a backlash against much that he himself opposes, but a backlash which takes things in a regressive and closed direction rather than the progressive and open revolt he wanted and this book is really his attempt to force those who agree with him to engage in why they are currently stranded on the wrong side of the revolution.

At times he can veer too much either into close to incomprehensible political jargon (much if it terms he has invented himself). This culminates in stating that New Labour's "project was to naturalise the triumph of [Margaret Thatcher's] individualism by expelling collectivism from its political home, the Labour Party. Corporate populism modernised the reactionary [cultural] aspect of Thatcher's reactionary modernisation". He admits this "sounds a mouthful" but says "each part has a clear meaning as I have shown", the reader perhaps struggling to entirely agree with the word "clear". He also has his own hobby horses, not surprisingly giving excessive importance to constitutional issues. In both cases however the short chapter structures ensure that the book keeps moving and the reader's engagement is quickly restored.

Surprisingly I spotted a number of typos and errors, two even in the first chapter, implying unfinished or sloppy editing.

Some areas that I found of particular interest included:

his views that the whole process began in a series of breaches of trust (the lies and evasions over the Iraq war when voters realised they knew better than the establishment, the failure of the NATO alliance to successfully execute that war, the financial crash and the aftermath of that crash);

what he calls the CBC area of Clinton, Bush, Blair and Cameron an "Anglo American project to oversee a post Cold War global capitalism shaped by an American democracy captured by funders" and one which lead to vastly uneven gains while ushering in personal financial insecurity for many due to the dismantling of the New Deal and the Welfare State;

Brexit as a non-London England phenomenon (Interestingly he quotes at length here an article by Anthony Cartwright author of The Cut);

a fascinating section where he shows how Tony Blair simultaneously ushered in the greatest constitutional changes for decades (the Welsh and Scottish assemblies, the Freedom of Information act, House of Lords reform, independence of the central bank, the Supreme Court, the London mayor) while at the same time demolishing many of the crucial aspects of the traditional unwritten constitution and in particular cabinet government, thus creating chaos;

an eviscerating section which blames Thatcher's astonishingly misjudged horrors at German re-unification for much of the subsequent issues between the UK and the EU, he argues that this was an ideal opportunity for the UK to take its place as the natural leader of an EU project stemming from its own actions in WWII, he also argues that Heseltine's failed leadership challenge was disastrous and stopped the issues raised by the UK and the EU being played out in an election;

an analysis of the rise of the political-media cast, which also draws out an excellent distinction between Murdoch (who simply opposes the EU as he has not managed to gain influence the rest) and Dacre's Daily Mail which, while clearly disagreeing with most of its views, he acknowledges as the last institution standing that still believes in and speaks on behalf of The nation of Britain.

In the conclusion Bennett adds a small post-conclusion, reflecting on May's decision to call an early election. In hindsight one wonders if he should have postponed the book's publication until after the election, because its outcome calls some of his conclusions into question, particularly around the electability of Corbyn and the Labour Party as a traditional, national first past the post party rather than as part of a progressive alliance. He also lionises Nick Timothy somewhat and I think would have been surprised by the return to two party politics and the complete failure of Murdoch and Dacron to influence the result, albeit less so by the success of Momentum as a social movement rather than a political party.

Overall a very enjoyable read and one I am glad to have played a very small part in supporting.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthony Barnett is best known for his work as protagonist of a democratic revolution which, when it takes place, will provide the people of these northern European islands with the sort of constitutional arrangement which will make their rulers accountable.

Though influential with the Charter 88 movement he set up thirty years ago to campaign for a written constitution, and through the openDemocracyUK website which he cofounded in 2001, Barnett’s ideas have been treated with something close to contempt by ‘practical’ politicians operating in the established mainstream.

Those disdaining Barnett’s enthusiasm for things like electoral reform and a legal basis for popular sovereignty dismiss him as a metropolitan chatterer who stands aloof from ‘bread and butter’ issues which are supposed to be the content of ‘real life’. ‘Ignore democracy issues at your peril’, is the response that has been coming back across the years: ‘One day your neglect of the system which is supposed to make our governors accountable to the people they govern will come back and bite you’. That day came about in the small hours of Friday 24th June 2016, when the result of the referendum on membership of the EU became clear.

Barnett’s argument is that the slim vote in favour of Brexit came about because of the frustration which the people-of-England-without-London felt on precisely this issue of the way in which they were governed. That segment of the UK population that lives in English towns with populations of less than 300,000 had good reason to feel this angst. Over the years since the 1980s they had been exposed to the debilitating effects of globalising economic policies which stripped away a large part of the industries which had provided their communities with decent jobs and opportunities for life.

He persuasively argues that the anger and disillusionment with the way they were governed was displaced onto the EU and its Brussels-based commission, rather than the Westminster government which has been the real driving force behind neoliberal open markets and the constraints placed on the public sector. He tests this thesis against the response of people in other parts of the UK which had a devolved executive authority which has had some capacity to deflect the worst of what government from No 10 has had to fling at them during this time.

The evidence for this proposition comes from the referendum results in Scotland, Northern Ireland and London. Devolved governments in the first two and a powerful executive mayor in the third had helped sustain a viewpoint which saw the real source in the creation of austerity and hardship in the shape of the immediate protagonist of national and regional authority as being Westminster rather Brussels. Wales, with its majority 52.5 to 47.5 percent vote in favour of Brexit, seems to subvert this take on the matter, which Barnett hints as coming from the fact that it is a ‘long-colonised and linguistically divided country’. But it was in England-without-London, with 46 million inhabitants, and an 11 per cent vote in favour of Brexit, which swamped the pro-remain majorities in the parts of the UK with devolved government.

Barnett argues from this that the historic failure to devolve government to the English regions had contributed to the widespread feeling of ‘they’re not listening to us’, evident throughout these recent years of populist agitation, to be deflected onto Brussels and the EU rather than Westminster. He sees the governments led by Blair and Cameron as playing an active role in sustaining this delusion; each creating an aura around themselves that they were acting in the UK national interest, and shared the frustrations of the British people whenever their aspirations were apparently blocked by some EU regulation.

The book deserves a wide readership among the left in the UK. There is much to be picked over on points of detail in Barnett’s analysis, but his grand thesis that the UK is a poorly governed country, equipped as it is with a constitution that fails to place power close to the people and grants the ruling elites the maximum discretion to do as they please, has to be right. The struggle for a better democracy ought to be as much a part of the left’s programme for change in the UK as opposition to austerity and the socialisation of the economy. This book hints at what this advocacy for democracy might look like.

[Jules Findlay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book. It was published by unbound, a new type of crowdfunding publisher. The analysis is so well researched with the bigger picture in mind all the way through: securing the benefits of economic/ cultural globalisation for everyone while halting the authoritarian backlash against the same system. How does the UK’s ‘unwritten constitution’ function? Where is English nationalism, who speaks for the English? And what is ‘Britain’ if not an outdated mechanism for authoritarian governance that faces it’s last stand with Brexit. Some great ideas like English civic organisations, an English parliament, Welsh, Scottish, Irish independent nations in a democratised Europe. Less on the US, but some hope that new information networks will overcome the demagoguery. Really a must read for any human.

[Pinko Palest · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of good analysis here, some not so good too (especially about the need for engagement with and even acceptance of english nationalism). Unfair on Corbyn on Labourism. Although Trump is mentioned in the title, and there are some very valid comments on how he came to be, this is a book about England and Brexit, which is well written and poignant. Its main fault though is that it choses to ignore the racist dimension in Brexit

[Felipe Araujo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give it three stars but it’s more like three and a half.
Although convoluted at times, especially in the part where the author makes a case for Britain’s need for constitutional reform, on the whole this is a timely book, to be reread as both the UK and US look to redefine their role in the world.
A remainer, Barnett argues that the EU needs to reform if it is to survive, something that could have been done with the UK still in it. The Brexit vote was a legitimate expression of people’s anger at a system which is no longer working for them, and that’s ok. Only problem is they directed that anger at the wrong target. This is the passage that most resonated with me.


“English people are losing belief in Westminster and its self-important debates. They always enjoyed being rude about it, very rude, in the way that comedians and satire express a form of love. Gradually, the whole thing has gone sour. It is no longer funny that MPs fiddle with their expenses. The Lords is ridiculous, a crony-filled chamber that doesn’t even have any decent aristocrats to speak of. Hideous over-centralisation makes local government pitiful. The result is a displacement of English exasperation with the whole damn lot of them...onto Brussels.”

[Oscar · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the midst of political turmoil that has seemingly led the entire western world into an era of chaos, Anthony Barnett has arrived, using the tools of the age (crowdfunding) to produce a masterly analysis of the failings of the past 2 decades leading to the crisis of today.

In his mark of mastery, Barnett creates new terms to define this era, framing it as one of CBCs; Clinton, Bush, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clinton again. He also gives a name to the government that has been ruling us as manipulative corporate populism. And like, neoliberalism itself, once these terms have been defined, they seem obvious, especially once the similarity of the methods each of these leaders used is highlighted. There is a shared contempt for democracy, with the highlights of David Cameron's consistent lying, as well as a postmodern ignorance of the history of the country, marked in Blair's constitutional power grab that has lead directly to the issues of loss of English sovereignty. Indeed, he highlights the identity issues that have been swept away on the left and abused by the right, revealing the insight necessary to identify the reality.

Another key point in the book is the rise of the political-media caste which destroyed the grip of the establishment to replace it with neoliberalism. The book also leaves no doubt that Trump is the embodiment of this new wave, whilst Theresa May represents an attempt to bring back a Churchillist society. Barnett's great skill is in looking at the shifts in society that have occurred since the post war settlement and placed all the actors neatly into a grand frame.

I enjoyed Barnett's writing, holding no punches in calling a fascist a fascist, and he provides a clarity often lacking in the manner that politics has become sanitised (dare I say politically correct) in the mainstream. He reveals Cameron's rank hypocrisy as well as Blair's Stalinist grip on power. The tensions he reveals at the heart of British society are lain bare for all to see.

A failure to read this book would be a failure to understand the times we find ourselves in.

[Jay Rao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gave me a good understanding of the rise of populism and the history behind these two unexpected votes.

[Conrad Barwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books available on this topic at the moment. Though written by a Remainer, it actually contains some of the most powerful pro-Brexit arguments on record and articulates very eloquently why the votes for Trump and Brexit should not be dismissed as either ignorance or racism. It also has an extremely persuasive critique of the European project and where it has gone wrong in increasing the democratic deficit. While Barnett's belief in an English nation-state, the need to break up the British union and the requirement for a written constitution are over-blown and don't bear the weight of the central driving force he gives them, the rest of his analytical comments regarding the major problems with Brexit and the weaknesses of the solutions to it offered to it by the mostly conventional anti-Brexit forces hits home.

An invaluable read no matter what your position on Brexit.