Boris is leaving office, does that mean the anti-establishment conservative movement is done for?
With the British Prime Ministership being vacant after Boris Johnson resigned the entire 2016 anti-establishment conservatives are out of office. Was the ascendancy of figures like Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Dominic Cummings, and Boris Johnson a temporary quirk of post-Great Recession politics or the new normal?
Comparisons between Trump and Boris were common back when both were in office, partially due to their similarities in looks, but also due to their similarities in how they governed and in their political beliefs. Or rather, that neither seemed too wedded to any specific policies, preferring instead loose ideological axioms like immigration is bad, or sovereignty should be restored. Interestingly, both Boris and Trump are routinely described as being from their respective countries’ conservative parties even as both have promised and delivered drastic changes; Brexit and the trade war were anything but conservative projects. While their time in office were quite chaotic and scandal-prone, in some ways both Boris and Trump managed to shift the political landscape around them drastically, so even though their reigns were short, and even though I personally think it’s unlikely Boris will be back in the top job, in terms of having an impact his time as prime minister was quite successful.
These aforementioned scandals have also been a theme for not just Boris, but his American counterpart as well. Much as the anti-establishment conservatives (a contradiction in terms perhaps but it’s the best term available) have made huge advances in making their beliefs mainstream, they have also been dogged by near constant missteps and controversies which might be endemic to the movement; after all, the point is to be anti-establishment. The experience of being a professional politician brings certain drawbacks which the anti-establishment conservatives are focused on not repeating, but at the same time that boring quality is what makes sure scandals like Boris’ many parties during Covid don’t happen to most establishment politicians.
Boris stepping down from Downing Street to me signals the end of the 2016 era of anti-establishment conservative politics. I don’t think Boris, Cummings, Bannon, or Trump will be back at the top of politics again; though the likelihood of seeing Trump back in the White House is far higher than seeing Boris return to Downing Street. While these particular personalities probably won’t be overly relevant in the future, I think it’s clear that the ideas they so successfully represented will be with us for many years to come. The post market revolution politics where the state was supposed to stay out of the economy, and where efficiency was king is over and done, and I think the political economy that Thatcher and Reagan engineered is what gave rise to the 2016 conservative populists. Their electoral prospects might have dimmed but their ideas have a bright future. To answer the question I set out in the beginning, I think the rise of anti-establishment conservatives was anything but a quirk of the time, but the individual politicians who led the movements were.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by Bence Szemerey from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson