How many people, I wonder, seriously think that Keir Starmer has much in common with Enoch Powell? It’s true that whoever came up with the phrase “island of strangers” was, at best, naive. But those three words don’t do justice to his whole speech. Powell was a (proud) racialist. Starmer is not.
But, somehow, in modern Britain as elsewhere, we are more comfortable with pigeonholes. Not so long ago Starmer was typecast as weak-kneed and woke-minded on the issue of immigration. Now he apparently spies the River Thames foaming with much blood. Maybe his views aren’t so extreme, but he has simply been persuaded to nudge a little to the right to undermine the threat from Reform. In other words, perhaps Starmer is, at heart, that most ridiculed of creatures: a centrist dad.
But aren’t most of us somewhere in the middle on most of the big issues of the day? The common wisdom is that we’re living in an age of great polarity, which is true up to a point. But, increasingly, I suspect, most of us aren’t attracted to extremes. We are repelled by pigeonholes and huddle for warmth somewhere in the middle instead.
I am no John Curtice, so what follows is a gut feeling rather than a psephological revelation. But that feeling, when it comes to immigration, is that most people appreciate that, as a country, we do benefit from migration, and that we also need controls on who—and how many people—should be allowed in.
In other words, we do buy the argument that migrants bring considerable benefits and are probably necessary for growth, but we also understand those who fear that, wrongly handled, there could be a risk to social cohesion; and that unskilled workers, in particular, feel threatened by the lower pay rates that an excessive number of foreign workers can cause.
In other words, Keir Starmer was right two years ago when he spoke up in favour of migration and also right today in wanting to set boundaries. He’s more or less in tune with most people, who are not in favour of uncontrolled migration any more than they share a cruel obsession with denying sanctuary to those most in need.
See too Israel-Palestine. Most people surely agree that Israel had to defend itself after the barbarous 7th October attacks by Hamas. But many, if not most, people now consider that Israel’s response has been wildly, possibly criminally, disproportionate. By holding these two thoughts, they are not siding with either the Islamist radicals or the ethno-nationalist hardmen propping up Netanyahu. Stop the killing, end the famine, get round a table and talk. That’s where most people are.
On trans issues, the majority probably feel sympathy and understanding towards people who feel trapped in the wrong body. They probably believe that such people should be free to live whatever lives they want—including self-identifying in terms of gender. They simultaneously acknowledge that, in a tiny proportion of cases, there might be issues to resolve sensitively around toilets, prisons and sport. Anyone with any personal knowledge of trans people will know that 99.9 per cent are not in prison, don’t compete in sport and quietly resolve any issues around bathrooms. The obsessive vitriol and noise about the 0.1 per cent leaves most of us cold.
And then Brexit. Most people could see there were some sovereignty issues with “rule from Brussels” but that there were also huge economic benefits from being part of a trading bloc. It was, literally, a trade-off: freedom of movement brought advantages as well as disadvantages.
Self-evidently and by a small margin, it transpired that we were relaxed about a form of decoupling. But support for the most extreme version of severance was limited and is declining now the economic (and security) consequences are becoming icily apparent.
That leaves climate change. Most people accept that it is very real—and that we need to move fast to try and mitigate the damage that a significant rise in warming will cause. Most support an energy transition, though they are up for a constructive argument about how fast and at what cost. The majority of people don’t want to go back to coal or maintain our reliance on fossil fuels for longer than we have to. If there’s a cleaner way of generating energy, bring it on.
Moderation in all things. But contrast that instinctive moderation with how most of these issues are presented and discussed as either/or rather than a bit of both. When did we lose the art of nuance and reasonable discussion? The easy response is to blame it all on social media algorithms which do, indeed, favour the shouters and the polarisers. But is that the only explanation?
Some argue that a fairer voting system would change the nature of the debate so that we could debate in shades of grey rather than the prevailing black and white. We’re tired of the adversarial approach to everything.
Does the mainstream media have to accept some responsibility for the way we force people to take more eye-catching positions than those they actually believe in? Or have we simply lost the art of nuance? Keir Starmer as Enoch Powell—really?
Our instinct for moderation was once considered a defining British—or, at least, English trait. We didn’t fall for fascism or communism in the thirties because we—well, because we huddled somewhere in the middle.
Orwell, famously writing under the hail of Nazi bombs in February 1941, said: “Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, ‘co-ordinated’. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence. No party rallies, no Youth Movements, no coloured shirts, no Jew-baiting or ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations. No Gestapo either, in all probability.”
And so it turned out. Which makes it all the stranger that Nigel Farage, with his Mr Toad flat cap and yellow cords, has managed to brand himself as the epitome of Englishness. Speak for England, Nigel? I don’t think so. Let’s hear it for the neglected middle.
