The good news in Poland versus the bad news elsewhere: why we should watch out for how the populist right is now defining “multiculturalism”
Finally, some good news internationally. The Law and Justice party of Poland, a populist right organisation that has presided over a decline in the separation of powers, the sinking of state owned media into a cheerleader for the governing party, and a weakening of Poland’s position within the European Union, has been defeated by a coalition of parties who will form a new government, led by Donald Tusk. It is a triumph for common sense, the rule of law and democracy - and a defeat for Putin and the forces of darkness.
Some of those less than pleased with this result might bellow, “But Law and Justice came first in the election!” Yes, but under a PR system, like Poland has, it’s all about who can form a government and Law and Justice, much like the British Tories, have alienated potential coalition partners over the last several years. Supporters of first past the post might chime in here to say that Law and Justice would have won under a FPTP election. They might have, but they very well might not have. People tend to vote very differently under different electoral systems, as those who support both FPTP and PR systems constantly tell us, at least until it doesn’t suit either of their immediate campaigning interests.
The good news in Poland, of course, is in sharp contrast to the bad news coming from the Middle East. I don’t want to go into any of the details of the situation in Israel-Gaza, mostly because it is a huge topic that if one is going to dive into, deserves a lot of space of its own. I only mention it here because it gets to what I really want to talk about, which is sections of the British right throwing around the term “multiculturalism” as a pejorative this week and why that’s such a bad thing, both in general and more specifically, with their own supposed goals in mind.
“Is it cowardice, or antisemitism or both? What is clear is multiculturalism has failed,” Richard Tice announced as the trailer for his “Sunday Sermon” programme (for a guy who once said he wanted to stop talking about culture war stuff and concentrate on conservative economics, he sure talks about culture war stuff a hell of a lot). I don’t want to pick on Tice, however - I only use him here as an example. There have been scores of right-wing commentators taking almost exactly the same line over the last few days.
The idea here is to make as many people as possible link anti-semitism with “multiculturalism”, and thus see the latter as a moral evil. It’s the usual trick from right-wing populists these days - take something from the left that most people will view negatively, say, support for Hamas or criminalising misgendering, and try and make everything left of centre equal that thing. Tar it all with the same brush, in other words.
What is the definition here of the word “multiculturalism”? It strikes me that the populists want to keep the meaning of the term as loose as possible. They want people to read whatever they wish to read into the turn of phrase. At an extreme, it’s obvious that “multiculturalism” can just mean “anyone non-white in Britain is bad”, a bit like anti-Semites use the term “Zionist” when they mean “Jew” (used in a sentence by an anti-Semite: “The Zionists are evil and have no right to exist”). Now, this isn’t to say that whenever anyone uses the term “multiculturalism”, this is what they mean to infer. Like I say, the word is used to intentionally have the broadest possible meaning. Which mostly then renders it completely meaningless as a result.
There are legitimate discussions to be had on the topic of multiculturalism, as in, the real thing. What is it about communities that don’t fit into British life particularly well and what elements of this should a). concern us and b). can we realistically do anything about? What elements of assimilation into British culture are important for societal cohesion and which are not?
But that’s the start of a serious discussion on the matter, which doesn’t seem to be what the populists of the right want. What they seem to want to do is to throw the word “multiculturalism” around as click bait. It’s worth saying that even on the most surface level imaginable, what they are saying about “multiculturalism” makes no sense whatsoever.
I’ll give you two examples of this. Both are based on what has kicked this latest round of “multiculturalism” bashing off, namely the various pro-Palestinian marches that were held around Britain since the October 7th massacre, the largest taking place in central London this week. The big march in London (and possibly others, I haven’t seen enough of them to comment) featured elements of unquestionable anti-Semitism. If you chant anything positive about the death of Jews or display an image of support for the paragliders who murdered people in Israel, you’re not doing anyone in Gaza any good and furthermore, you have committed anti-Jewish hate crimes. Sadly, there is evidence of these things having taken place at these rallies.
Now, the populist right wants to blame all this on “multiculturalism”. One reason that doesn’t make sense to me is that so much anti-Semitism of late, or at the very least, unqualified support for the Palestinians in the current conflict, comes from white British leftists with deep roots in this country. So, people who in terms of who they are and their family history, represent the exact opposite of “multiculturalism”. If you want to say, “Well, but those leftists support multiculturalism themselves, so it’s still related”, I think you’re suffering from several basic logical fallacies there. Imagine there were zero Muslim people in Britain right now - do you really think white, far-left types who think no Palestinian has ever done a single thing wrong would be any less vocal in their support for Hamas, any less likely to jump on anything Israel might have done wrong in a heartbeat? Seriously?
Another reason it makes no sense is that if this demonisation of “multiculturalism” is being done in the name of supporting Jews, they’ve committed a huge error because the populist right is then just attacking the very thing it wants to defend. What about Orthodox Jewish communities in North London (and other places around Britain)? The people in these communities inarguably lead very different cultural lives from most Britons, from the way they dress, to the language they speak, to the clothes that they wear. They are visibly culturally different. How are they not part of any reasonable definition of multiculturalism?
To be clear here, I am in total support of those communities existing in Britain and welcome their place in the fabric of the nation wholeheartedly. But that’s easy for me to do since I have no real problem with multiculturalism, at least as I understand the term.
I mostly wish the parts of the right that are currently using the horrible conflict in the Middle East as a means of sparking off more culture war shit in the UK would just cut it out. This isn’t a fire that needs further stoking, chaps. You can support Israel as wholeheartedly as you wish without having to turn your fire on immigrants and the sons and daughters of immigrants in this country. In fact, with the North London Jewish communities point above in mind, it makes a lot more sense if you don’t.
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"Supporters of first past the post might chime in here to say that Law and Justice would have won under a FPTP election. They might have, but they very well might not have. People tend to vote very differently under different electoral systems, as those who support both FPTP and PR systems constantly tell us, at least until it doesn’t suit either of their immediate campaigning interests."
Actually, under a FPTP system PiS ( Law & Justice) would probably have won more considerably more seats than their 36% would have merited. This may have resulted in an overall majority. Blair achieved an overall majority of 40 seats on that % in 2005. While PR voting would probably change the number of parties on offer, it can also leave the overall picture remarkably stable. A good illustration of this would be NZ where they changed from FPTP to a PR system. Germany's national parties have been little changing for decades except for the rise into 20% support of one that can be traced back to the nazi's, the AFD. But the AFD like Wilders on 15% in Netherlands, will not find partner parties to work with.
PiS would have done better under FPTP because as the largest right wing party and the largest party, their votes will have been more broadly spread across more seats and FPTP is hundreds of little elections where you only have to beat all of your other disparate opponents with their split votes, by one more vote than any of the others. It suits Pis and the Tories, while progressive votes are piled up concentrated in the smaller number of urban areas, useless and wasted as the majorities are swelled higher. This is essentially why the Dems always beat the Gop in USA in vote share but the FPTP on steroids, the Electoral College makes Gop competitive on seats.
Democracy is the will of the people. It is not the will of little majorities in the highest number of constituencies with arbitrary boundaries, while ignoring the greater majority of actual voters.
FPTP voting combined with our uncodified constitution has enable two great Tory economic madcap failed experiments to be perpetuated on the British people which no broad coalition would have enabled. Monetarism in '81-2 and it's fallout, the ideology of Hayek and Milton Friedman killed thousands of firms and millions of jobs, while impoverishing much of the country.. Some towns and small cities never recovered. More recently Truss's 6 weeks as PM, avoided all studies and scrutiny and seeked to borrow unsustainably for tax cuts for the wealthy and Corporations, using the language of extreme markets, only to be punished by those actual markets, vastly increasing the cost of mortgages, plus consumer and business credit. The perpetuator behind the politicians in both sad cases, one Prof. Patrick Minford, now in his 80's.
No wonder the Tories love FPTP and our uncodified constitution. It enables someone like Johnson to come to power with an enormous majority based on 43% of the vote, to start to crush all checks and balances or opposition in his burning desire to become world king. Courts, the Electoral Commission, voting systems for mayors and Police Commissioners, Parliamentary scruntineers, donations, expenses, protocol, fascistic loyalty agreements and appointments. All a trashing or manipulation, much as what his mirror image Trump was doing as President. Then within one 5 year term, Truss attempted her terrible Minford experiment No.2, to wreck the economy.
Mark, I think I should have said extreme marketisation, or hyper capitalism, with vulture capitalism along for the ride. They want extreme deregulation, low taxes on the rich, to abolish the welfare state, make unions illegal etc