Consensus and Power #2: Undercurrent Politics (REDUX)
Analysing what is beneath the surface of everyday politics
Catch up on the previous piece in this series here.
The following is a REDUX piece on Consensus theory and a specific interpretation of it. The views shared are open thoughts / musings and not stubborn conclusions or beliefs. This was republished with a few small edits and title changes on 08/07/24.
What many political observers get wrong is believing political change or events only materialise because of surface politics – I.E surface change creates more surface change. But politics does not merely occur in the mind of a prime minister or the House of Commons. The surface changes of ‘Who's up and who's down’ (reshuffles, votes and scandal) rarely decides the fate of the UK. Instead, power is all encompassing: it seeps from every aspect of life and society, and into the minds of every voter or politician. The real changes, or continuity, of power begins with the 40-year tides (consensus periods).
Continuing our interpretation of consensus theory, seen with the sea analogy, the tide doesn’t simply manifest itself on the surface, it requires a conduit. This conduit is not solely responsible for creating political consequences, but neither is it completely powerless. The conduit’s role is to move tidal (consensus) power onto the surface of everyday politics. The conduit within our analogy is undercurrent politics. Undercurrent politics is built on the power of the tides and translates it into the surface.
To simplify this broad concept of undercurrents, its best sifted into the three key categories: Political elite groupthink, political realignment and international influences. The tides determine the general direction of each of these undercurrents. However, it’s the undercurrents that do the driving. The speed with which power translates to the surface, how, and in what form, are all reasons why the conduits of power – undercurrents – are important in the UK system.
A Consensus Summary of Brexit:
To move out of the abstract, here is an example of the analogy (See C&P#1) in reality: explaining the forces behind the 2016 referendum.
1. The Tide
– Neoliberalism: The market becomes the key force, less so the nation-state or citizen. This pushes the UK government to accept less state-power in return for access to highly valued and secure markets. In one respect this manifest itself in the case of the EU: the Single market and customs union. Essentially, the market is prioritised over democratic functions of the state / national economy. This creates side effects which feed into the political undercurrents.
2. The Undercurrents (in brackets the category of undercurrent):
– Immigration (Realignment + Elite): High immigration creates a feeling of lack of control. Worries of cheap migrant labour causing wage suppression. Retaining UK identity / culture becomes key realigning feature among the electorate, some undertones of xenophobia, seen with fears of further assimilated countries (Turkey) and further refugee crisis. Used by the elite for gain.
– Sovereignty (Elite + International): The desire for the UK parliament to make rules / decisions in the UK, not by supposed ‘unelected’ EU bureaucrats. (argued by Right-wing newspapers for 20 years, popularised by Farage + parliamentary battles of the ERG). International trend of globalised decision making, seen as distant from the nation and people.
– Bailouts / Crisis (International): Not joining the Euro and having to bailout other countries with ‘our’ money, seen in the ERM 1993 crash, the 2009-12 Eurozone crisis, and with the 2015 refugee crisis. The aura of Europe being highly functional diminishes, and instead seen as a bastion of out of touch bankers / bureaucrats.
– Anti-Establishment/ Austerity (Realignment): Conditions of austerity / stagnating wages creating a desire for change in voters. Brexit is seen as the Catalyst for change (particularly more government intervention: NHS spending on the side of the bus).
3. The Surface (results of the undercurrents):
– Revelation, 1990s-2012: UKIP / ERG / Right-wing media identifies (though in reality stumbles upon due to preconceived ideas) the undercurrents pushing against the EU within the UK electorate and begins to exploit this.
– Acceptance, 2013: David Cameron is forced to address the UKIP electoral threat in his 2013 Bloomberg speech by committing to a referendum on the EU if he wins a majority. UKIP win 2014 EU elections and achieved 12% of the vote in the 2016 General Election.
– Targeting, 2016: During the referendum Vote Leave campaign towards immigration / sovereignty (take back control) / change arguments, which resonated deeply with voters.
– Defeat, 2016: Cameron resigns as a result of losing the referendum.
– Succession, 2016: New PM in Theresa May.
– Shift, 2017-2019: The Conservatives reimagine themselves as the party of Brexit, in order to match the deeper realignment of the electorate. May begins transition to interventionist Conservatism with ‘burning injustices’, leading to Johnson’s full conversion and 2019 victory.
While this a very large simplification, it broadly covers the underlying cycle, resultant undercurrents and key surface changes of the Brexit vote in 2016. The following part of the piece will analyse the complexities of the undercurrents.
Political Elite Groupthink (Status-quo and insurgents)
One of the key undercurrents in our system is what the political elite are thinking and doing with power. Broadly, the elite encompass the 10,000-15,000 key Westminster (aka SW1 bubble) insiders: ranging from elected politicians, civil servants, advisors, the media, lobbyists, think tanks, researchers, party officials, diplomats and academics. What this set of people thinks determines: how the UK is governed, how it is perceived on the international stage and how / what each party attempts to sell to the voters in elections. Outside this bubble, local councillors, mayors and devolved administrations have a level of power. But the SW1 bubble prefers to ignore non-London advice, hence the ‘discovery’ by the Tories that the Red Wall was winnable and Liz Truss’s preference to ‘ignore’ Nicola Sturgeon.
In the next part of the series will investigate how individuals and agency affect power within our interpretation of consensus theory. However, the undercurrent of the elite is, instead, referring to their accepted ideas, trends, techniques of power. Think of it as a trendy groupthink that pushes individuals to favour certain ideas over others (see Jeremy Driver’s Cheems Mindset). This groupthink has its origins in the tide. While tide channels the core change into the system (in the case of Brexit: higher immigration and loss of sovereignty) it depends on different mindsets within the elite to interpret that power and react accordingly.
Usually, little changes because the status quo because it is the most popular and easiest groupthink to rely on. Under the status quo the elite offer superficial change to stem further reform (Bruke’s change to conserve). However, sometimes the tide creates side effects over time that the power of the status quo cannot absorb. This is when more radical or innovative types of groupthink conquers the establishment, breaking down the uncontested logic behind the status quo. Suddenly, like realignment within the electorate, parts of the SW1 bubble question their perceived wisdom of what the ‘correct’ thing is. The consensus becomes contested.
Continuing with our example of Brexit, parts of SW1 – especially UKIP and ERG, but also think tanks like Business for Sterling/ Britain, built up networks within Westminster in the early to late 2000s, as the EU expanded its powers over the UK. Other staunch Eurosceptic papers, such as the Daily Mail, Dailey Telegraph and Daily Express, only increased their attacks on the EU as more Eastern European countries were admitted (leading to higher immigration). The tide of neoliberalism – which pushed the belief in the market above the nation and its citizens – further created a disconnect between the state and voter, which these political elites realised they could exploit. The status quo groupthink of ‘the UK must be in the EU’ began to falter. The elite political group of Brexiteers may have been considered outsiders, but they were outsider insiders, and created the biggest upset in UK political history.
The two-pronged attack used by the new Brexiteer groupthink consisted of sovereignty and immigration. Sovereignty was the most appealing aspect to the elite, as it offered them more power by diverging from the EU’s rules: either to deregulate like Singapore (an IEA / Trussite vision) or to stimulate an interventionist government for investment / experimentation (Dominic Cummings’ vision of a science superpower). In short: sovereignty was the romantic vision of a free and supreme Parliament. This was the argument used by the new undercurrent insurgents that attracted key elite players like Michael Gove and Boris Johnson to the seemingly niche cause Brexit.
Immigration was a key selling point to the electorate. Taking control of borders, while protecting and reinvigorating the idea of national identity / culture was the dream among many Britons. The new Brexiteer groupthink realised this and pumped it into their campaigns: whether for UKIP in 2004, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015 or Vote Leave in 2016 or the Tories in 2017 and 2019. Some parts of the new Brexiteer elite (Vote Leave) also used the promise of big government investment to entice the electorate which explored in the next section.
Finishing this section; groupthink usually dictates what parts of the elite do with power. Ideas and power only shift when a critical mass of individuals within the system attempt to change the status quo groupthink. Different rival schools of groupthink open up among the elite – with varying degrees of power. The two schools of thought that were most powerful, which the electorate also perceived, during the referendum was: Vote-Leave-interventionist-government Vs Remain-Cameronite-Austerity-status quo.
However, it’s vital to recognise that the power of different schools of thought among the elite is based on the tide, as well as the relative power of other undercurrents. As demonstrated, the elite are always competing with (and attempting to shape) the electorate's opinion – which can sometimes be opposed to theirs. The same can be said for international events/ influences – which are (partly) out of their control. A tide really takes hold of a system when two or more of these undercurrents align or act in harmony: usually translated to a large surface change which may come as a ‘shock’, I.E Brexit.
Political Realignment (Electorate)
Realignment is a sophisticated way of saying semi-permanent change of vote (or fragmentation). The undercurrents of realignment are, again, based on the tide. The tide causes realignment by changing what voters value. However, it may take decades for this to filter through to voters – and thus realignment subtly increases – until it reaches a tipping point (2016 Ref and 2019 GE). Elections and referendums (through realignment) are conduits to allow voters to feed into the systems of power what they value, resulting in either surface change / continuity. For the past 40 year cycle, see C&P#1, the electorate have mostly voted on a market / individualistic basis due to the tide of neoliberalism. However, the side effects of the neoliberal tide, evident in the 2008 financial crash, has diminished the economic position of many voters to the point where political control / change is prioritised over mere economic stability.
Due to Cameron’s proximity to the recession, and subsequent policy of austerity, his government became interlinked with the economic pain felt by voters. As a result, many realigned in reaction – associating their newfound anti-establishment feelings as much with the EU as was with Cameron's Government. Cameron’s deep association with Remain contaminated it’s campaign, creating a toxic brand and nullifying Remain's economic defence of ‘project fear’. For many, there was no point in defending an economy that had already failed them. Voters wanted more government spending but also less immigration and more control. These three strands of anti-establishment (economic) voting, immigration (identity / nationalist voting) and to a lesser extent sovereignty, created a potent headwind that was unstoppable, resulting in realignment among the electorate and, eventually, a leave vote.
The big debate among academics and within discussions of power, is how much the elite shape the electorate or the electorate shapes the elite. Instead, in consensus theory it is the tides, or underlying political-economic basis, that determines the undercurrents. It is insubstantial which undercurrent (the elite or electorate) drives change as, regardless, it will eventually translate into a change in surface conditions. What matters is the nature, and speed, in which they do it. Brexit, due to the way the EU (thus neoliberalism) was shaping the UK was never inevitable but quite likely, either in 2016 or 2026. Brexit became a catastrophe not necessarily because of the idea itself, but because of the messy translation of the tide onto the undercurrents of elite groupthink and the electorate.
The 2017-19 parliament was a mess, the elite clearly could not agree on Brexit as the nature of the referendum was so opaque. Neither could the electorate agree, producing a hung parliament in 2017 and electoral chaos in the 2019 May elections. Thus, we had several lost years of negotiation which wasted government time and money, only to be resolved in 2019 with an aligned electorate and elite. However, the tide eventually prevailed.
International Influences
The final important undercurrent is the influence of international events and forces. As stated in C&P#1, the big bang crisis that occurs every 40-50 years are the truly global events that change the tides. However, there are also the smaller undercurrents of geopolitics which greatly shape power: again, based on the tides. Significant influences from international politics within the neoliberal consensus include factors like the price of oil / gas, trade surplus / deficit, market movements / technologies and simple geopolitics.
Applying international influences on our Brexit example, the events are clear. Beginning with the two treatises of Maastricht and Lisbon; both eroded sovereignty and brought in a closer social / economic union. These two treaties continued a trend towards supranational decision making (‘unelected / distant bureaucrat’), and not intergovernmental (between elected national leaders), power which angered the electorate and some of the elite in the UK – feeding the undercurrents of both. This international shift in relative power was based on the foundations of neoliberalism: sacrificing national power for market preferences and trade.
The ERM crash in 1993, manifested the divergence between the UK and EU. Due to the scar from this crisis, the UK elite (led by then-Chancellor Gordon Brown) moved against the Euro. The pressure continued to build through higher immigration from Eastern European states – due to Lisbon – in the early 2000s. The 2009-12 Eurozone crisis, which necessitated British taxpayers to help bailout weak southern European countries, added an economic layer of anger. This anger culminated in the refugee crisis in 2015 due to international wars. Merkel and other EU refugee-friendly leaders only fuelled the international undercurrents now pushing for Brexit, uniting with the worries of the elite and electorate. Through the multi-crisis of the EU and the erosion of sovereignty, we have our third key undercurrent creating Brexit. All inspired by the tide but translating it in different ways.
To conclude
The undercurrents filter power through three key drivers: the elite, electorate and international system. They mould and temper how power translates to the surface but can never fundamentally stop the tide (cycle) if its force for change is powerful enough. (NB: Though revolution and existential global crisis may be a possible counter to this – hence the limits of consensus theory).
Only when two or more undercurrents fuse together do they cause fundamental surface change. Undercurrents usually can act against each other as counter forces. Without all three occurring in tandem, Brexit was probably impossible – short of a revolution. The last undercurrent to fall into place was elite groupthink – causing a constitutional crisis. However, there was enough of a critical mass (Vote Leave, Johnson’s phase one team, some in the Tory party) within the elite that could grip the Westminster system and push through that systemic tidal-influenced change into surface politics. The undercurrent of the elite eventually acquiesced to its role as a conduit within the theory.
Many of the SW1 elite, bar notable exceptions like Stephen Bush, completely misread the tide on neoliberalism. Under the assumption that the status quo settlement could absorb the pressures which were pushing the country to vote to leave, the elite almost unanimously predicted a Remain landslide. It’s a great example of how the undercurrents are imperfect conduits of power, therefore sometimes these conduits fail, causing chaotic surface shock (political polycrisis).
After two pieces under the surface – in the abstract – it’s time to launch into reality and breach the surface in part #3: asking the question, how does undercurrent politics translate into the surface of everyday politics?
Thanks for reading. A Like or a Share goes a long way!