John Harris, in his thoughtful piece, (Petitions and jokes will not halt this march into calamity, Journal, 1 April) says: “Out in the everyday world, the ongoing Westminster drama feels like it only scratches the surface of what is actually going on. And so the mad riddle … goes on, complete with one key mystery: that … by the time our passions finally start stirring, it is likely to be far, far too late.”
It is not such a mystery – there are two intertwined reasons. Firstly, vision: the politicians of the left accepted that there was a settled system (to which there was no alternative) and concluded that economics was just about technical management. When that turned out to be wrong they went into denial or were unable to understand why they were not seen as credible.
Secondly, willingness to protest: it is worth recalling the observation of John K Galbraith in The Culture of Contentment (1992). Too many people doing OK to stir themselves. Those on the right realised that the minority of the losers could be ignored, with the consequences we are now seeing.
The problem is not that by the time passions are stirring it will be too late. The losers are now angry enough to fight back. The polite middle is also willing to turn out: 6 million sign a petition and 1 million protest. Passions are stirring all right. Part of the problem is that those who should be allies now face each other across a gulf of misunderstanding. When either group look left, what do they find? The left has failed to provide (as Milton Friedman noted) the ideas that need to be lying around when a crisis occurs. Mass direct action needs to be guided by vision (coherent alternative ideas) and that enables focussed anger.
I’m inspired by Greta Thunberg. I hope there is enough time.
Brian Fish
Leeds
• John Harris is right: we are being trolled. But it’s no recent phenomenon or consequence of Brexit. This trolling has been going on for at least 40 years or so – and probably much longer. The pernicious joke being: you are told you are part of a UK that’s still a contender, a big-hitter, a power of sorts, where all opinions, classes and cultures are bound by a collective sense of Britishness – when all along the true narrative has been one of a nation witnessing the inevitable change in its influence and importance. Where the self-interest of the “what’s in it for me?” cult of the individual and a growing tribalism has killed any collective identity, despite the efforts of some to resist it.
Considered in that context, that there’s been any organised response at all to Brexit is something of a miracle. The revolution still feels a long way off.
Colin Montgomery
Edinburgh
• I agree with most of John Harris’s excellent article about the seeming passivity of much of the opposition to Brexit. But his puzzlement over the “now customary humour captured on the placards” is misplaced. Humour has always accompanied righteous anger and does not indicate a lack of passion.
In 1968, as an A-level student on my first demo, I attended the anti-Vietnam war protest in Grosvenor Square. On one side of me, the dour Marxists and Maoists chanted “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh”, while in response a hippy contingent took up a chant of “Hot chocolate, drinking chocolate”. I am still not sure which was the most appropriate.
Chris Morris
Kidderminster, Worcestershire
• John Harris, in his otherwise excellent article, says the poll tax riot of 1990 was “the last time that street-level politics forced a change of government policy”. That is not so. The fuel tax protests of 2000 led to a freeze on fuel duties, stalling the government’s attempts to counter the climate crisis. Later protests, such as in 2007, did not affect the policy of the then government, but did lead to the introduction of the “fair fuel stabiliser” by the coalition in 2011, intended to cap fuel tax when oil prices rose and raise them only when prices fell.
Equally importantly, the impact of the protests was such that they have paralysed government action to limit our use of polluting and precious oil ever since.
Charles Harris
London
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