The Political Centre

If the meta-narrative of American politics since the millennium has been polarisation, the equivalent in Europe has been the dissolution or recomposition of the traditional parties of the centre. First those of the centre-left, the process known as Pasokification, and more recently those of the centre-right, notably in France and now Germany. This had led to much debate about where the political centre now lies, and even whether the centre can be located any more on a left-right economic spectrum or whether it is more determined by the orthogonal axis of cultural values. Is the "median voter", the traditional embodiment of the political centre, now a two-dimensional hybrid? In the UK, this has been interpreted to mean that Labour should compete with, and even outflank, the Conservatives on the axis of cultural values, from welfare authoritarianism through patriotism to the resistance of identity politics. But what does it mean in a country like Germany where the centre-right CDU/CSU was defeated in the recent federal elections and the centre-left, in the form of the SPD's Olaf Scholz, is likely to secure the chancellorship following Angela Merkel's retirement?

Georg Diesz in the New Statesman fears that "German conservatism is imploding". This is a rather incoherent argument that first accuses the centre-right of differentiating itself by indulging in a form of identity politics (a leitkultur, or guiding culture, based on Western, Christian norms) after the SPD embraced neoliberalism in the 1990s but then insists that its subsequent "disconnect from economics" led to a policy of "permanent austerity, via Germany’s balanced budget amendment, the much vaunted Schuldenbremse [debt brake]; and “the market”, in its most reductive and generic form", which sounds remarkably like a party very much wedded to Ordoliberal orthodoxy and a focus on economics. He also claims that Germany's handling of the Euro crisis of 2009-12 was "suffused with a moralism" arising from this identity turn - the jibes about feckless Greeks versus thrifty Germans - even though its policies were clearly driven by a hardnosed desire to protect German banks exposed by negligent loans to the European periphery. 

Even more odd, though perhaps easy to miss among the other bizarre claims, is the suggestion that  "Historically, German conservatism styled itself as a balancing force between the interests of capital and labour". The implication is that it habitually occupied the political centre, resisting both the revolutionary left and the irresponsible right. This is obviously not true. Not only has German conservatism been staunchly pro-capital and anti-labour throughout its history, but it famously responded to the leftward shift in public sentiment in the Weimar years by allying with the far right. That might have been a calamitous miscalculation on the part of German conservatives, but it arose from a fear of organised labour and the left in general and not, as some revisionists have claimed, the Communist Party alone. But Diesz's idea of a pivot between the interests of capital and labour is still a useful way of thinking about politics, both in terms of where public sentiment lies (what we might term the popular locus, if the median voter is too one-dimensional) and the politico-media representation of the political centre (what is commonly understood by "centrism"). It's particularly useful to look at the gap between the two.

On Twitter, the New Statesman's George Eaton heralded Diesz's article with "The centre right is out of power in the US, France, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, every Nordic country and, likely soon, Germany". For this to make sense, we have to categorise Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Mario Draghi as centre-left, purely on the grounds that they are not representatives of the traditional parties of the right. But none could be said to even-handed between capital and labour, despite Biden's sentimentality about unions. That Keir Starmer could recently praise business while resisting a £15 minimum wage suggests that the centre-left prefers capital over labour. That this preference should be seen as "centrist" is a perfect illustration of the shift that has occured over the last 40 years. Compare and contrast to the Liberal-SDP manifesto of 1983, which advocated industrial democracy and rejected privatisation of natural monopolies (this was classic triangulation, but it also reflected the status quo bias of centrism). What is notable is that while the political centre has moved right on the economic spectrum, the popular locus has remained pretty much where it was, hence the median voter's support today for higher taxes on wealth, rail nationalisation and a higher minimum wage.

This shift in the political centre has led to the past being recast as more radical than it really was, often to the detriment of the present. Thus Biden's stimulus must live in the shadow of the New Deal and Olaf Scholz's "continuity" will no doubt appear uninspiring compared to Willy Brandt's departure from the CDU's postwar conservatism. But this relativism can be misleading. For example, Roosevelt was never in any doubt that he was saving capitalism from the threat of socialism. His economic intervention might appear bold today, but it was common currency at the time. Similarly, Brandt rode the wave of cultural liberalism in the late-60s after the SPD had dropped its traditional social democracy for the social market in the 1959 Godesberg Program. Though there would remain local differences between their various policy platforms, most European social democratic parties shifted towards a social market model in the late-50s and early-60s. (Only the French socialists held to the principles of common ownership and workers' control, but that reflected their junior position on the left relative to the communists in the 60s and would eventually be abandoned under Mitterand in the 80s.) However, this didn't shift the centre of politics to the right so much as normalise a more profound leftward shift on social reform by neutralising economic issues. 

With nationalisation now a pragmatic tactic rather than principled strategy, and with a general acceptance of higher taxation in return for more extensive and generous welfare, the 1960s were marked by progressive social policies and the early stages of European economic integration. This trade-off was probably always going to lead to a political crisis. At some point capital was bound to resent the higher labour costs and taxation of wealth that the trade-off entailed. Equally, as social reforms highlighted inequities of power, organised labour was likely to return to the issues of workplace democracy and autonomism. The economic crises of the 1970s - the two oil shocks, stagflation and the crisis of profitability as globalisation accelerated - were exogenous events, but they arguably amplified an endogenous tension that could be traced to that historic accommodation by social democracy. As a result of these crises and the slowing of social democracy's progressive impetus, the late-70s and early-80s saw both the popular locus and the political centre shift to the right in the UK and US, a process that would later be echoed elsewhere. This was reflected not only in the clear imbalance between capital and labour expressed in falling union membership, but also in a new social authoritarianism (emblematically, the advance of the religious right in the US and the vogue for "Victorian values" in the UK). 

By the late-80s, centre-left parties across Europe were increasingly siding with capital (and the EU), self-consciously defining this as a centrist "third way" or painting neoliberalism as a progressive acceleration for hitherto under-developed societies, as in Spain and Greece. What should be noted here is that the hegemony of neoliberalism in Europe was very much a product of the centre-left, not the centre-right. While the CDU's Ordoliberalism might have looked like neoliberalism avant la lettre, it was never dominant on the continent, having too many features specific to German politics and history (notably the fear of state capture). The revival of the centre-left's electoral fortunes in the 90s reflected a leftward shift in the popular locus, reacting against the 80s' authoritarianism, but this didn't produce a corresponding shift in the political centre. In many countries, the failure of this counter-movement to occur at the political level contributed to growing electoral disillusion after the millennium, emphasising the widening gap between the locus and the politico-media representation of the political centre (a gap that subsequently helped fuel the rise of social media). While there were renewed gestures towards progressive social reform, policies like Workfare and Working Tax Credits indicated the continuing privileging of capital over labour.

The formal political centre remained static for most of the period of the "great moderation" between the mid-80s and 2007. The differences between centre-left and centre-right were largely tonal, but in many areas there was notable unanimity, such as attitudes towards the finance sector, the privatisation of public services and foreign policy. The 2008 banking crisis and the subsequent Euro debt crisis changed this. Not only was there an upsurge of populist energy but the popular locus took a further step to the left, reflected in the revived interest (however shallow) in Marxism and support not only for traditional socialist policies but more novel ideas such as UBI. This wasn't a passing fad and in many ways it didn't begin to affect the political superstructure for some years. When it came, the adjustment saw many centre-left parties either collapse (typically where proportional representation meant there was already a range of left alternatives) or shift decisively leftwards, as in the case of the Labour Party. But just as fragmentation on the left in countries such as France hindered the realignment of the political centre to reflect the popular locus, so in the UK the resistance of the politico-media class proved enough to stymie the shift at the parliamentary level. 

The idea that the centre-right faces an existential crisis in Germany and that the centre-left has consequently revived is misleading. The SPD has been a junior coalition partner with the CDU/CSU since 2013 (Olaf Scholz is the current Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance - the epitome of a safe pair of establishment hands). The likely new coalition will see the SPD combine with the Greens, who are distinctly non-radical these days, and the FDP, who remain radical free marketers. In terms of the political centre, it would probably be fair to say it has barely moved and the CDU's collapse owes as much to institutional exhaustion (its new leader, Armin Laschet, proved uninspiring) and regret at Merkel's departure as it does to any shift in the popular locus. Where the centre-left is in power in Europe, for example the PSOE in Spain, this is typically on the basis of a 30% share of the popular vote and the support of the left. It's worth noting at this point that the SPD won 26% of the popular vote in the recent Bundestag election, and will likely lead the next coalition government (excluding Die Linke), while Labour won 32% in the 2019 UK general election, which was widely greeted as a disaster by the soi-disant centre and centre-left.

The next significant European poll is the French Presidential election in April 2022. According to the Guardian, Emmanuel Macron is once more pitching for the centre: "He sought to reconnect with his promise in the previous election to build a 'start-up nation' – deliberately focusing on his favoured topic of the economy in an attempt to contrast with the right and far-right, who are concerned with identity and immigration, while the left is focusing on working hours and salary increases". This highlights how the "culture wars" have allowed the media to redefine the political centre as straightforwardly pro-capital, while the interests of labour have been placed firmly on the left. In 2017, Macron positioned himself as slightly left of centre, capitalising on the collapse of the Parti Socialiste to win 24% of the first round vote and 66% in the second round. His chief opponents were the Front National and Les Republicains, whose candidates polled 21% and 20% respectively in the first round. He won the second round with the votes of not only the grudging left but much of the centre-right. Since then, he has been a consistent champion of business interests. Macron is the centre-right and he needs a far-right candidate, whether Le Pen or possibly Zemmour, to secure the once-more grudging support of voters to his left, in the same way Chirac did in 2002.

In the UK, the politico-media class currently inclines to the view that Boris Johnson, a man not hitherto known for his love of theory or constancy of purpose, is redefining conservatism and thereby dominating the political centre. Though his actions to date, from welfare cuts to the "war on woke", suggest Thatcherite continuity rather than the revival of One Nation Toryism, there is a belief that "levelling up" and the talk of a high-wage economy (despite understandable scepticism) is a move towards the popular locus. This appears to fill the centre-left with something approaching dread, despite their notional support for precisely those outcomes. For pundits like Jonathan Freedland, it is easier to focus on Labour's supposed loss of the working class as it became "increasingly dominated by the concerns of the “hyper-educated” left, concerns not shared by the wider public". Johnson's success can then be painted as the result of Labour's flight from the political centre: "That leaves space for parties of the right to offer themselves as the voice of the mainstream – in tune with the less educated, lower-income voters that used to be beyond their reach". The idea that the 2017 vote was as much an indicator of the popular locus as 2019 will not be entertained.

Following the election of Keir Starmer as Labour leader, all of the political forces are in favour of the status quo, so it strikes me as unlikely that Johnson is going to single-handedly carry through a revolution. He doesn't need to. Labour's attempt to occupy a political centre significantly to the right of the popular locus means that he can adopt a holding pattern for some years to come. Eventually, the gap between his rhetoric and reality will lead to popular disillusion, just as it did after 2000. That New Labour managed to win two subsequent general elections amid dwindling turnout was due to the Conservative Party resolutely remaining not just far beyond the popular locus but beyond even the political centre (the "nasty party" years). The reason Johnson is odds-on to win the next general election is that Labour remains focused on the media-determined political centre, with all its pro-capital assumptions, and interprets the popular locus as an appetite for more social authoritarianism rather than more socialism. In both the economic and values dimension it is trying to position itself on territory occupied by the Conservative Party. It is a strategy that will lead to electoral defeat, but importantly it will preserve the political centre and all the careers invested in it.