In the wake of this referendum one thing is clear: class divisions have returned to politics with a vengeance. Leaving Scotland aside, let us observe that a younger, metropolitan, well-educated, worldly class led the Remain vote; while an older, poorer, less educated, and more parochial class led the Leave vote.

 

This is a problem. Why? Politics in general, and democracies in particular, succeed when they accurately represent the conflicts and interests present in their underlying societies. It is this accurate representation that allows interests to be balanced and conflicts to be resolved peacefully.

 

When there is a large interest in society (i.e. a class) that is not being represented, or not being represented accurately and competently, disaffection rises. At the limit, where a class is permanently excluded from (or persistently misrepresented in) politics, the reasons to secure its interest peacefully, through the channels of ordinary politics, become dramatically less persuasive. If you have nothing to gain, why stay in the game?

 

What the referendum has revealed is that this process is well advanced in the UK. There is now, and has been for some time, a new class division in Britain, one half of which lacks representation in an appropriate form. In particular, there is a class of people, let us call them the ‘left behinds’ (a provisional term which I am not entirely happy with), that is represented by neither Labour nor the Conservatives, and is represented only incompetently and inaccurately by UKIP.

 

The anger of this class has corrupted the tone of the Brexit referendum, and its numbers have swayed its outcome. And although this problem was particularly visible in this referendum, it is by no means limited to the United Kingdom. From Donald Trump in the US to the AfD in Germany; from Le Pen and FN in France to Beppe Grillo and the M5S in Italy; from the Danish People’s Party to Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, this problem has become endemic to the West.

 

What can be done about it? In brief: less political correctness and less meritocracy.

 

First, we have to make room for this class in our mental models of politics. Observe that simply describing it, as I did in the first paragraph, makes me sound disparaging (or even despising) of it. ‘Older,’ ‘poorer,’ ‘less educated,’ and ‘parochial’; none of these are terms of praise, in our current register. This is a serious problem. We must recognize that, if we truly believe in ‘one person, one vote’ and the principle of equal moral consideration that stands behind it, this class is just as worthy of representation in our democracies as the young, educated, metropolitan elite. In the UK, both sides have long pretended that outside the elite, only ‘aspirational voters’ are worth their attention. The rest has been denigrated as intolerant, backwards, and legitimately-to-be-ignored. There was a hope that the bulk of this class could be ‘educated away,’ and perhaps that the rest could be shoved under the carpet. Regardless of whether this was ever plausible, it is impossible now. The class has become too numerous and too vociferous to be ignored, too burdened in its day-to-day life and perhaps too old to be ‘educated away.’

 

Of course, making room for this group in our vocabulary of democracy is difficult. It ‘sullies’ the image that ‘we’ have of our politics in SW1, in the House of Commons, in the BBC, and in the universities. But it is precisely this mode of thinking that we must leave behind after the referendum. Of course we would like to think that we can erect certain entry barriers (especially of education, habitus and values) to keep our democracies enlightened and progressive. We would like certain values to be beyond debate (and thankfully many still are). But what we have learned in the referendum is that this form of exclusion (for that is what it is), while it may have kept intolerance and aggression at bay for a while, eventually produces a backlash.

 

And as always, a pent-up reservoir that is suddenly released causes greater devastation than when the same force is released evenly over time. The first take-away, then, is to accept that UKIP’s constituency is part of the UK’s national fabric; that certain views ought to be palatable in public discourse; and that perhaps we need to think hard about ideological diversity at our universities and schools. This is a bitter pill for me to swallow; but the alternative is worse.

 

Second, and more sociologically, we have to think very hard about the institutions that generate our political leaders. In their current make-up, profoundly shaped by the idea of meritocracy, they have proven themselves incapable of producing talented and competent leaders for the ‘left behind.’

 

The reasons for this lacuna of leadership are manifold: for a start, if you are from the ‘left behind’ class, you start ten yards behind. This means it is extremely hard to succeed in the admissions race to elite training, above all decent secondary education and then Oxbridge. And even if, against the odds, you make it there, you will be thoroughly socialised into the norms and values, the thought patterns and the habitus, of the ‘metropolitan class.’ Further, even though you are talented you do not make it there, then your disadvantage will only grow: an underappreciated fact about elite education today is that it works. Of course, elite education produces access to advantage, that much is obvious; but it also produces more skilled leaders and more competent thinkers. Hence there is a catch 22: make it onto the elite track, and you face a high risk of being ‘socialised away.’ Don’t make it on there, and you may not have the skills you need.

 

Next, even if, despite the dynamic just described, you have both the skills and the inclinations to lead this group (a traditional way to get to this point was through the trade unions; this route still exists, but it has been narrowed dramatically), the disapproval you are likely to receive, across the political spectrum, the media, and from the entire top of the social pyramid, acts as a massive disincentive: just note the treatment of Nigel Farage. Adam Smith rightly pointed out that we all tend to “admire and almost to worship” the rich and the powerful. Their disapproval is a powerful deterrent.

 

And finally, even if you are not daunted by this disincentive, you may very legitimately be pulled away by the strong positive incentive to use your talents in other careers, where you will be lucratively rewarded, where your social prestige will be high, and where the risks to you and your family’s personal life will be incomparably lower.

 

My suspicion is that changing this, i.e. facilitating the emergence of a talent pool to represent this group, will be difficult, mainly because it runs up against the idea of meritocracy, which after all commands wide popular assent.

 

In a meritocracy, those who succeed (even though the odds are stacked against them) are ‘lifted up’ into the metropolitan class. As long as life in the upper class is attractive to most individuals, what this means is that we have a collective action problem. We would all be better off if the ‘left behinds’ had leaders that could accurately articulate their grievances, propose sensible reforms to address them, and, should they win an election, could competently govern. This would raise the quality of our political discourse and allow the existing rifts to be healed. But no person in their right mind would take up this baton right now, if it means foregoing the lucrative, attractive, and respected alternatives that a functioning meritocracy offers.

 

To address this problem, then, we need to tone down our affection for meritocracy. Note that the standard solution usually proposed at this point – more and better education – is unlikely to work. There is no reason to expect education in its current form to produce the leaders that this class needs: it is ever more optimised for labour market preparation, hence encourages private over public sector careers, and it is suffused with the ethos of the metropolitan class. A different system of education might help address this issue, one that emphasises the virtues of the public sector and is less slavishly devoted to labour-market performance. Higher taxes (weakening the pull of the private sector) and stronger trade unions (broadening the historical alternative leadership pipeline) would also help. But all of these directly run up against the ultra market-oriented version of meritocracy that is currently holding sway amongst us.

 

To conclude, the Brexit referendum has highlighted the existence of two hitherto underappreciated tensions. First, between meritocracy and democracy, and second, between political correctness and democracy. These tensions appear to prevent the full representation of what I call ‘the left behind class.’ To the extent that a functioning democracy requires all its classes and all its interests to be represented competently, these tensions represent tough, ugly, but important nuts to crack. Until we crack them, expect more upsets like that of Brexit.