Response to Cianan Sheekey on Compromise and Political Phototropism

As a firm believer in the importance of political discourse, I was excited to see another Europinion columnist critically respond to my article on Starmer’s most recent shift to the right on immigration. Having now read Cianan Sheekey’s article, I will break down the problems with his rebuttal.

Sheekey’s fundamental critique of my position is that I ‘fail to consider political phototropism’; a process by which political parties adapt to changing political circumstances and public opinion, strategically tailoring their manifesto and policy positions in the interest of electoral success. In Sheekey’s view, ‘It is easy, yet unwise, to expect principle to underpin every action within government, as this almost always fails to eventuate. The savviest and, by extension, most successful politicians understand the art of compromise and how it can revive a dying party.’

The issue of politicians ‘playing the game’ when it comes to electoral politics is a complex discussion bordering on the philosophical, and not one I am prepared to discuss here. Conveniently, I am not obliged to address this rebuttal, as it is not an argument I made in my original article. In ‘Compromised to Death’, my critique of compromise was made in the specific context of European politicians adopting the rhetoric and policies of the far-right in their jurisdictions, which only serves to embolden such movements and weaken the moderates’ position. My argument was not a moral one, decrying the lost honour of politicians who dare to shift their policies with the times. It was, however, a pragmatic analysis of recent failures by moderates to maintain credibility and power while shifting right in response to the surging anti-establishment wave across developed countries. On this, the electoral lost ground among moderates in Europe proves my point.

I do not believe that a political party or movement should remain dogmatic in its beliefs when such principles are proven false. If a policy is implemented and emerges ineffective, I see no reason to pursue it further. My issue with the moderate shift to the right is not so much the shift itself, but the fact I disagree with the right-wing positions being adopted.

For Sheekey, Starmer’s ‘political savvyness’ represents a ‘growth towards the light’. While ‘the light’ here is hard to define, ‘to be willing to change [and] to embrace the reasonable and sensible, allowing success in achieving something cut from the same cloth, as opposed to failing in achieving a personal utopian vision’ is the definition that stands out most pointedly from Sheekey’s writing. In his analysis, Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ movement stands out as the quintessential case of a political party growing towards the light, given the electoral success the party enjoyed after learning to adapt to a post-Thatcher political economic paradigm. Following this reasoning, Sheekey blames Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral failures on his inability to adapt to this new ideological mainstream, one which his predecessors learnt to exploit so expertly.

Given this framework for proper and successful political strategy, therefore, it is pertinent to analyse whether Starmer’s Labour government is truly growing towards the light.

As I laid out in my original article, Keir Starmer’s ideological shift to the right has done nothing to gain him the popularity enjoyed by Tony Blair before him. His backpedalling and flip-flopping has created an image of incompetence, sending Labour and Starmer himself down in the opinion polls, and bolstering Reform UK in the polls. This should not come as a surprise, and a more detailed breakdown of Labour’s failure to capture disaffected voters is detailed in my original article.

Sheekey does make an interesting argument about the nature of political discourse, one which, although misguided, can help jump-start a conversation about effective political organising and the will to change. Sheekey claims that ‘to be unwilling to change in the face of an electorate clamouring for something else betrays the democratic will for the sake of perceived ideological superiority’. Consequently, Labour must come across as strong on immigration given ‘Britain is shifting to the right socially’, or risk losing ‘democratic and, more specifically, electoral relevance’. 

Putting the evident failures of this approach aside, it is true that anxiety about immigrants in the UK is no longer constrained to the far-right. However, it is a separate claim altogether that Labour should shift its policies to reflect this. I grant my fellow Europinion writer the compliment of assuming he does not believe electoral success to be the end goal of politics. I expect he believes statecraft should ultimately serve to improve the lives of the population. In this respect, it is quite puzzling to see Sheekey defend an almost nihilistic electoral strategy, whereby parties shift their positions in accordance with the public whim, and without any consideration of their adopted policies’ material impacts. I can think of a few moments in history where such an approach presented outcomes I expect Sheekey would condemn.

As I write this, I am reminded of the first article I ever wrote for Europinion. In it, I detailed how a concerted effort by local Labour members in the London council of Barking managed to win back the support of voters who felt left behind by the government, and who in their anger were prepared to vote for the far-right BNP. In Sheekey’s view, this was a mistake, and Labour MP Margaret Hodge would have been better off capitulating to the racist policy programme of the BNP instead of fighting against it. There are, of course, many differences between the current political context and that of early-2000s Britain, but I do believe there is a lesson to be learnt here.

Support for anti-establishment parties such as Reform or the BNP is very often the product of frustration with the moderate parties in government. Feeling helpless and angry, voters thus choose to elect the candidate that speaks to their frustrations and proposes a solution, the nature of which is largely unimportant. The role of the mainstream parties should be to address their electorate’s concerns, I do not deny this, but the word ‘address’ here can mean a wide variety of things. One can address the particular concern of immigration without endorsing a policy of mass deportation for example. Instead, anger and frustration can be reconfigured to support a policy of economic redistribution and housing-market reform.

I want to linger on this last point before I finish. It is interesting that as capital finds itself in crisis, and large parts of the economy suffer economically, mainstream opinion has almost ubiquitously shifted right, with particular emphasis on scapegoating immigrants for the west’s economic woes. As I explained above, dissatisfaction with one’s material circumstances can be turned in an almost infinite number of directions, in accordance with the policy options available for solving any one particular problem. It is curious, therefore, that mainstream news outlets choose to frame immigration as the source of the electorate’s problems, to the benefit of right-wing parties like Nigel Farage’s. To uncritically adopt the rhetoric and policies of the right on these issues, is to willingly capitulate to a manufactured ideological status quo that would prefer to demonise the Bangladeshi family next door, rather than the property developers and billionaire landlords that see building affordable housing to be against their financial interest. If it is true that ‘Parties who wish to be in government, must grow towards the light of public opinion’, we should first enquire as to the origins of such public opinion.

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion