Penn Raine: Wait for it!

Wait for the howls of ‘Populism!’ when Britain’s red wall of Labour run councils crumbles as Farage’s Reform party marches over the ramparts, giggling as it goes.

No doubt there are similar wails, but of ‘Misogyny!’ and perhaps even ‘Racism!’ sounding around Wellington’s beltway and its bureaucracy’s dim corridors at Maiki Sherman’s announcement that she was stepping down because her position was ‘untenable’.

That TVNZ had characterized the matter as an ‘employment issue’ could lead us, gentle readers, to imagine that Sherman did not in fact jump but that the other thing happened. Though it always makes for a better story if a special-status group can claim discrimination even when institutions have sidled around best practice trying to protect it.

When Better Public Media’s Myles Thomas was interviewed by The Platform’s Michael Laws following the announcement of the BSA’s disestablishment his cries of ‘Corruption!’ and ‘Antidemocratic!’ contained that same self-regarding claim of ‘No fair!’ that the moralizing Left revert to when they fail to get their own way. No doubt the BSA thought that its overreach would fly under the radar, but enough noise was made by Plunkett’s 73,000 subscribers that it became the story du jour.

There are still many who like to insist that Ardern was driven away by ‘misogyny’. While it was probably true that many men became brave enough to point out that she had delivered too little that was good and too much that rankled, the fact of their defection was not that mid-reign they had only just noticed that she was female. Simply put, people decided they no longer trusted her.

For Sherman, the BSA and Ardern too it’s a simple illustration of FAFO.

In the case of Britain’s Labour party the same applies.

Nigel Farage has been called many things and ‘populist’ is probably the least insulting. Populist politicians are accused of over-simplifying complex issues and even by their rhetoric looking to undermine trusted institutions – if anyone can call to mind what these might currently be.

On the other hand, populism is also a means of challenging unresponsive power structures and demanding honest responses from elites.

Keir Starmer’s Britain has been shaken by several scandals of the type he vowed to end, as in sleazy goings on in Westminster and jobs for mates. It is clearly the fact however that his historical voting base has grown tired of Labour’s attacks on British national culture, free speech, farmers, pubs, veterans and flags…the list is a long one.

And in the end the success of the populist voice is proof that simple democracy still can work.

Penn Raine is an educator and writer who lives in NZ and France.