The recent riots, as we wrote last week, show that a small minority of the UK population has been radicalised – they are prepared to break the law, to commit violent acts and even to take action likely to lead to the death of others because of what they have been led to believe about the state of the country.

This is the most obvious face of radicalisation, but there are less obvious but equally damaging faces, and the numbers involved are far greater:

• A small number of very powerful anti-democratic actors are the instigators of radicalisation in the UK and elsewhere;
• A small percentage of the population has become dangerously radicalised;
• A very large number – perhaps all of us – have become more subtly radicalised in ways that are profoundly damaging to the fabric of society.

It is vital that we deradicalise at all levels if we are to return the UK to a path of progress.

There are a small number of powerful instigators

Some of the instigators are in plain sight. The tabloid press headlines inciting racists attitudes are not hidden. Other far-right media like GB News – which provides consistent support to Farage – and TalkTV are not hidden. And we know who is behind the major social media platforms and to some extent what happens on these platforms.

Politicians like Nigel Farage or Suella Braverman have not been shy of publicity for their inflammatory rhetoric. And the neo-fascist organisations like Patriotic Alternative, Britain First, and the semi-formal networks of the former English Defence League (EDL) and its ex-Leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (whose alias is ‘Tommy Robinson’) are not trying to hide their activities.

The financial backers of all this are less obvious and in many cases we do not know their names, just as the backers of the far-right think tanks have gone to great lengths to hide their identities – though Jane Meyer’s excellent Dark Money tells us a lot about some of the leading market fundamentalists and their modus operandi. And Russian influence, though known to the security services, is not public knowledge.

A minority of the population is dangerously radicalised

Between them, these instigators have crafted, repeated, and amplified messages that everything that is wrong with the UK today is the fault of vulnerable minorities: immigrants, Muslims, the so-called wokerati, trans people and workshy malingerers on benefits. It is these people, we are told, who are to blame for falling real wages and the state of the NHS; it is nothing to do with government policies. If you believe these messages, it is in no way excusable to riot – but it is perhaps understandable that you could be whipped up into such a state that you might do so.

If you believe that COVID was a hoax or that the vaccines are more dangerous than the disease, you might refuse to take precautions – putting yourself and others at greater risk. And with the possibility of another pandemic looming large, this group of radicals also poses a serious threat to public health.

And if you believe that climate change is a hoax, you will support government measures to open new coal mines and oppose measures to reduce the burning of fossil fuels.

But the good news is that, though far larger than one would hope, the violently radicalised remain a small proportion of the population.

Many more of us are subtly radicalised – and this is also dangerous

When it comes to what we might call ‘economic radicalisation,’ however, many of us do at least half-believe things like:

1. Our economy is driven by wealthy entrepreneurs – we must be very careful not to reduce the rewards for their success, and if they were to leave the UK, that would be catastrophic;
2. Government spending crowds out their investment – every time the government spends £1, much more than £1 that would otherwise have been spent by entrepreneurs in the private sector will not be;
3. Government finances are in such a state that we cannot afford to spend – if we borrow any more there will be serious problems of debt sustainability;
4. Money creation would cause hyperinflation – although we got away with the bailout of the banks in 2008/9 and the subsequent QE, if we were to use money creation to fund the NHS for example, the pound sterling would soon become worthless paper;
5. Restricting the freedom of the media / social media to say whatever they like is a step towards dictatorship.

And to the extent that we believe these things then, however little we may like it, we can be persuaded that the only safe path forwards is to cut taxes and regulations for the wealthy, cut government spending and cut benefits and public services. To stick with implementing the market fundamentalist agenda, in other words.

So, let us just look at the five assertions above.

Most of our press uncritically reported threats by entrepreneurs to leave if Labour were elected. As we wrote before, many of the wealthiest have already left, at least in tax terms; the genuinely patriotic would not leave; and if they did, it would free up vital resources for national renewal.

The crowding-out belief is not confined to laymen, it has been institutionalised in important national institutions like the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). When they assess the Budget, using a multiplier of less than 1, the OBR implicitly assumes that all government spending harms the economy! Real-world evidence suggests that in fact there is a strong crowding-in effect.

The ’state of government finances’ is something that all politicians seem to agree is a matter for intense concern. As we explained in our submission to the House of Lords inquiry on debt sustainability, even if we were on the gold standard, there would be no grounds for such concerns – UK debt:GDP today is neither high by historical standards (it is almost exactly at the 300-year average level), nor in comparison with other countries (Japan has had far higher debt for decades with no hint of a debt crisis).

Money creation has been happening on a grand scale in the UK, most recently to fund the COVID furlough scheme, and it did not cause inflation (at least only inflation in the prices of financial assets). Most UK discourse about inflation is almost guaranteed to do harm to the UK economy.

Freedom of speech is, quite rightly, highly prized; and it is also, quite rightly, curtailed in every country in the world – nowhere is it legal to take out a contract on the life of your enemy, even though all that is needed is to speak instructions to a contract killer. That would not be true freedom of speech. The democratic importance of freedom of speech is to enable ordinary people to speak truth to power. Increasingly over the last 14 years, this true freedom of speech has been under threat in the UK – we are one of few European countries without the right to peaceful protest, and we have seen some of our most courageous journalists risking their careers when they try to speak truth to power. But that has nothing to do with freedom for the powerful to lie to and radicalise the population to act against their own interests – that is a freedom which must be curtailed for democracy to thrive.

And it would be easy to add to the list: many commentators and politicians continue to peddle the idea that it would be responsible for governments to run their finances like households, that the private sector is inherently more efficient and effective than the public sector, that wealth will trickle down if taxes are cut for the wealthiest, etc.

The damaging policies of the last 14 years were justified on the basis of beliefs like those above. When we believe them, we are radicalised and we become complicit in the market fundamentalist agenda. We ourselves are helping to unwind the social contract on which we all depend.

Who believes all these assertions? Most of us do – at least to some extent. If you read the list again, you will probably find at least one entry on the list which – because you have heard it so many times – feels as if it must be partly right. Importantly, many politicians and policy-makers believe these things, and even many ‘experts’ partly believe them.

Conclusion

Last week’s article talked about the challenge of deradicalising the rioters. Because they will not be fully deradicalised while they continue to get poorer year after year and while they see vital services like the NHS failing, we will not be able to deradicalise them unless we first deradicalise ourselves, our policy-makers and the experts in our key institutions.

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