Identity: Left

Over the years, I’ve found myself having more to say about identity politics than almost anything else I’ve written about — a tiny subsection of my thesis has grown out of all proportion to the rest. The ongoing tumult on the Left — in the UK, and beyond — has given further fuel to this fire. My argument is that the Left — from the centre ground, on out — has a fatally flawed conception of identities, which is part of the reason it is struggling so badly amongst voters.

There are many little things that propelled me to write this — the reaction to a Royal Opera House tweet about “flying the flag for UK culture”, someone in the comments under an interview of Terry Gilliam in The Independent* wondering why white men feel attacked when “it’s pointed out that white men are responsible for a lot of bad shit, past and present”, and a diffuse collection of sneering, irritating comments and tweets about, variously, patriotism, England, the English, and so on, since the general election result. Taken together they demonstrate a silence within discourses of identity on the Left that must be plugged if electoral success is to flow.

Let me do some customary hedging here. I am not claiming the Left is uniquely focused on identity politics — the Right does plenty of identity politics these days, and is viciously successful with it. I am not claiming to have discovered why colonialism does not matter, or why oppression does not exist, or why actually it’s all the fault of women or people of colour or trans folk, or any of the other things I might be accused of. These things matter, but the context in which they are delivered to the electorate matters as well — and it is here that I am focused.

Identity of identity

Identity is, in its simplest terms, the image an actor has of themselves. That identity is made of component parts, and they all exist side by side with each other. They rise and fall, grow and shrink, fight or reinforce each other, and through that process we develop, sustain, and change our identities. Sometimes we positively identify with things — “I am English” — sometimes we negatively do it — “I am definitely not British”.

This is both what makes identity integral to politics — because politics is the negotiation of the good life, among people, and what the good life looks like depends a lot on what we imagine ourselves to be and what we imagine that person needs to live well — but also quite so incredibly painful as an issue, even where apparent common ground exists.

As an example — a hometown. For one person, this might be the place of comfort, strength, and joy, where they feel rooted and happy. But for another, it might be a prison of a place, reminiscent of bad times, strife, broken dreams, and more. Neither of these people can ever be said to be objectively true about their hometown as an entirety for the people who live there. But when other people — including politicians and activists — speak about, for example, towns, then it touches that element of their identity and ‘activates’ it.

An activated aspect of an identity (I am going to call them “facets” here, simply because I do not want to get into a second long definitional rant) might only be present for a short time, or it might be repeatedly activated, or stay on for ages. It will assume greater importance because it is at the forefront of the wider discourse, and will become a more emotive, and motivational issue for the person.

This happens a lot because, as you might have already guessed, identity is inherently social. Our identities are formed in reflection of the society around us — positive and negative. As we come into contact with other people it can grow or weaken facets, re-order them, introduce new or fade out old; or, activate them in positive or negative ways. The negative activation is the most prominent in politics, and the one I most want to focus on — where people feel that a facet, or facets, is under threat — and react accordingly.

Any rant you can type, I can type longer

Social media is a fantastic tool for activating facets. It can do them positively — the many groups dedicated to how much I love rabbits I am in on Facebook are a testament to this — or it can do it negatively. It is not new in being able to do this, but it is new in terms of the scale and scope of its ability to activate facets.

After the election result, there was a furious reaction on social media from many on the Left — partly, because key facets had been activated and they felt under threat. Facets that orientate around values (Why doesn’t [outgroup] hold [value facet]?), place (Clearly [place] rejects good things), and more were all on display. There will always be anger and dismay after such an election result, but in the way that the current development of identity thought as an element of the Left informed that debate was telling, because there was a huge silence that was later only filled with dismissive comments.

We know that, for many people in places like Leigh, and Grimsby, and Workington, and Darlington, and Wolverhampton, that things like Britishness or Englishness are key facets of their identity. Any effort to connect with these voters, given its importance, probably has to positively activate that facet to connect with them. But what was on offer instead? Either a flat refusal to engage with notions of patriotism, or outright hostility (especially, and this pathology is extremely wide-spread on the Left, to England).

This was a background noise that many of these voters had picked up over the years, from Left activists and politicians — that what made them proud was resented, feared, even hated by those same public figures. Rather than trying to fix that, or even just trying to ignore it, it seems that too many on the Left would very happily reinforce that perception amongst those voters — no, they seem to say, you must not be proud to be English, or British. Instead you must adopt this other facet that we have, or you are a morally malign person.

But this does not work. Trying to crowbar someone’s figures off a facet, especially one as historically important as nation, merely makes them grip tighter. Worse, trying to push them onto something that holds nowhere near the same emotional resonance, will likely cause them to double down. What you are left with is voters in (now marginal) seats who feel that you actively disdain them, what they love, and what they believe in. No person wants to join a cause that holds them in disdain, and so they take their support elsewhere.

Ah, but we are told, we can explain to voters why their identity is wrong. Explaining to voters means you’re losing — people want to feel you instinctively understand them, their place, their values. If the message you are sending out is actively hostile to them — or they see it as much — no amount of earnest doorstep conversations will save you from the judgement of the voters.

Accomodation — or, an AirBnB for Englishness

So what does this mean? It means two things — that the ordering of things needs to change, and that the Left needs to change the way it discusses some identities.

First of all — there was a moment in the election campaign where, looking back, it perfectly summarised what was wrong with Labour, and what was going to happen. In the first leaders debate on ITV, in the quick fire round, both leaders were asked a question about climate change. Jeremy Corbyn opened his reply with the observation that climate change would hit the Global South hardest — which was met with groans and a cry of “here we go again” from the audience.

Objectively, Jeremy Corbyn was right — climate change does impact the Global South hardest. But voters rank that lower than the immediate impact on their lives; during the election campaign, there were floods in South Yorkshire. The impression that voters already had, and moments like that encapsulated, was that Jeremy Corbyn — and people like him — put things they either didn’t like or were less focused on higher up their list of priorities, and either ignored or actively disdained things they did like. Then, it doesn’t really matter if you’re promising them a thousand policies that poll well individually — voters don’t think you’re motivated by things they identify with, and in fact may be motivated by facets hostile to your own.

The Left must convince voters that ranks things in a similar way to voters — that it puts, in the words of Clement Attlee in 1945, first things first. Voters are immediately motivated by the people and community they know; that is what drives them, and this both logical and understandable. This is not something that can be transmitted in a single interview or policy document — it is something you broadcast over time, and build up with voters. You show that what worries them about what is happening to key facets — hometown, nation — is something you understand how to fix, but also that you will defend the best aspects of these things.

Secondly, it means adopting a more understanding approach to aspects of these identities that the Left currently views as negative. This will be interpreted as a call to endorse transphobia or racism — and it isn’t. It is a call for the Left, for example, to develop a discourse around Englishness that is positive and sincere.

We (and I include myself here, as part of this vast array of people I’m calling the Left) need to talk about England as though it was a real place, with real people, with real value. Too often commentators discuss England as though it were itself diseased, unwell, unable to think critically, to function, to see beyond what they view as ugly prejudices. But England is populated by people no less capable of reason than any other land on the Earth. The English are no less understanding of others or unable to form social bonds than other nations.

Talking about England as a good thing needs to become common currency on the Left. The Left needs to find the stories that people tell about England and why it matters to themselves, and discover what aspects of those stories will resonate best with the stories the Left tells. I do not think this is that arduous a task — for all the harrumphing and eye-rolling about Spitfires and D-Day, there is a powerful narrative in the war about solidarity and community that can be used to draw the two together, for example. People need heroes, history, and home to feel respected — and more time spent on that, means an easier time getting these people to vote for you on other things they feel are less important, but matter greatly to you.

TONTY BLAIR IS BEHIND THIS

Because, at the end of the day, this discussion is meaningless unless as a bridge to gain political power through elections — the end goal of those involved in politics in a democracy. We should not be in politics to be right as the end goal, we should be in politics to translate what we believe into action, because we believe that what we believe is inherently good and helpful.

That means compromise. It means changing our message to match the audiences we need to gain that political power. It means ordering our values in a way that resonates with the voters we need — not necessarily with ourselves. It means developing narratives about the identities of others that speak to them positively, rather than merely making them feel threatened.

It means that the Left is going to have to fill in these silences in its identity politics — silences about values ordering, silences about certain identities, and above all, silences about what the purpose of being in politics is, if not to turn values into policy in practice.

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*Where, incidentally, Gilliam comes across as what I would professionally call a “total fuckwit”.