My ethnographic foray to Clacton-on-Sea
And can the UK Elections still be a lone bright spot for global Order?
Well, well, well… what does a Mega Orderer do when others take Sunday off, and he is reeling from crazy Supreme Court decisions, fear over the French Parliamentary elections, and the Dems seeming refusal to sub out Biden…?
He heads to Clacton-on-Sea! Even if it wasn’t that warm…
Despite the 19 degree weather and overcast skies, I was expecting for it to be a madhouse there, as Clacton is where Nigel Farage is running to be MP and where a seismic revolution in British political life is underway…. but I forgot that no one in the knowledge professions in this country seems to works on Sunday in this country… even during the election season… So I was in Clacton-on-Sea to go meet the ‘real Reform’ people and was thinking I am not gonna be able to get parking as this town is gonna be mobbed by guardian journos from Islington but no… no one was there cuz it was a Sunday… I don’t get that… So my first question is will Reform help fix the UK’s 9-5, Monday to Friday, bank holiday obsessed culture? my next question which we will follow up on some pods in a few months time is can AI make people work more hours and care more about their jobs and less about their time off?
But I digress back to my experiences in Clacton, here I narrate my rather wild discussion with a REFORM Get-out-the-Vote Campaign official on the seafront in Clacton:
So it didn’t exactly make my mood better… but did put a lot of what Neo-Populism is really about in perspective! It is about blaming others, abnegating responsibility to actually fix things, and not proposing really solutions, but taking actions like Brexit or withdrawing from Global coordination that make the situation worse so you can blame it on others!
(If you would like to fund these undercover investigative reporting trips, pls join the pay for subscribers only- substack…i’ll be having some follow up stories on this from the election and my trip to the House of Lords later this week for members only)
Now to today’s episode—
So with that rather depressing introduction out of the way, I think the elections present the British electorate with stark choices… do they want creeping neo-populism with its conspiracy theories that constantly blame the global elite, the EU, and free trade for Britain’s woes or do they want centrist technocratic globally ordering rule which respects international law? As the election campaign has dragged on, my fear is that more than enough will want the former and those who want the latter may not have made their case sufficiently well…
But nonetheless, later this week as they go to the polls, UK voters will likely celebrate their very own ‘Independence from Neo-Populists Day’. With Labour widely expected to secure a large majority… could this be a chance for Order within an increasingly Disordered West? If he cruises to victory, as expected, how will Sir Keir manage his relations with the EU and US?
In this episode, Jason Pack and Alex Hall Hall discuss the rather uninspiring election campaign so far. They analyse why Labour’s play-it-safe ‘Gareth Southgate approach’ is dissuading some voters; what a Starmer premiership means for the UK’s relationship with the EU (could some stealth mega-ordering be on the horizon?); and how David Lammy and Kier would almost certainly reignite an increasingly ‘special relationship’ with a Biden/Democrat-led US, or how they would struggle to navigate a ‘specially-challenged-relationship’ with a Trump-led White House.
Listen Here.
More Background on the British election and Starmer’s Foreign Policy orientation:
Read In Picture-Postcard English Villages, a Seismic Political Shift Is Underway (on Jeremy Hunt) from the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/world/europe/uk-election-jeremy-hunt.html
Sir Keir Starmer must win. Only his government can shape the future we want to see: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2024/jun/28/the-guardian-view-on-the-general-election-2024-a-labour-victory-would-be-a-reason-for-hope
And when will we get the results: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/21/general-election-timetable-when-what-time-results/
Read The Lammy Doctrine https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/06/david-lammy-doctrine-interview-jason-cowley?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email