“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous prayer has a useful message for the confused politics of today. But wisdom is in short supply.
The tribal world
For most of the 20th century, British politics was tribal, and class-based. There were only two real parties. Very crudely, Labour was for solidarity of the working class, and Conservative was for the ‘posh’ or those who aspired to be posh. Most people understood the distinction and voters trusted ‘their’ party to defend those interests without paying too much attention to specific policies.
Most people voted with their tribe, although periodically, sufficient people were dissatisfied enough with things to swing Parliament to the other party. But only a minority were interested in the minutiae of policy, and most accepted the rough compromises required by government in practice.
In the 1970s and 80s, that consensus broke down. Large scale industry, and the trade union movement which accompanied it, was replaced by a much more fragmented and insecure labour market. The Thatcher revolution replaced collective values of loyalty and solidarity, with individualism and aspiration. And as the trade union movement lost its purchase, Labour’s identity became increasingly simply one of opposition. The Blair years did not reverse the trend. Rather, it sought to turbocharge aspiration, but with a different approach to distribution of the gains. However, while much poverty was eliminated and most people became more prosperous, some communities continued to slide into long-term decline.
Lost identities
In 2008, the global economic machine came to a grinding halt. The limits of the power of individual governments were starkly revealed, and most saw their standard of living stagnate. Whatever the main parties had stood for once, no longer seemed to apply; the tribal loyalties were no longer delivering, and trust went into decline. So, for a decade, both have struggled to find a new identity which can command their former tribal appeal, with little success, leaving voters increasingly looking for alternatives.
Behind these changes, one can detect a yearning for the solidarity of the tribal world, to be part of a movement with shared values and mutual validation. From different starting points, Corbynism and Brexit shared that appeal. Both offered a relatively simple and understandable overarching vision, and charismatic leaders who symbolised that. The recent rise of Reform UK is not unlike that of the Corbynistas, a movement of enthusiasts keen to share the energy of solidarity with a tribe.
Single issue politics
And, in the absence of clear tribal identities, we have seen the rise of single-issue politics. When people see little change in the big issues, like the cost of living, economic growth or housing, people who, in the past, would have reluctantly accepted policy trade-offs, are now much more willing to switch allegiance over very specific causes. It is emotionally satisfying to join an angry tribe, and the online world provides the means to build solidarity with others over something specific.
But in reality, politics is messy, complicated and involves appallingly difficult choices. No politician wants to see children go hungry, but securing economic stability sometimes requires constraints on welfare spending. Government makes hundreds of detailed decisions every day, some big, some small. But, because people have become so attached to specific causes, many of those choices evoke great, and sometimes organised, anger.
This is most obvious in the rise of illegal immigration as an issue. It is extraordinary that polling now shows a majority of voters ranking it as the most important issue facing the country. Objectively, it is difficult to see why it should feature at all in public attention. Welfare, defence, healthcare, industrial policy and environmental degradation will all have a much greater effect on most people’s lives and futures than a few thousand refugees. But, like Brexit, it has come to symbolise something around which people can gather, as if ‘stopping the boats’ would solve all the nation’s social and economic problems.
‘The things we cannot change’
So, to return to Niebuhr’s prayer. There are many things which we cannot change. But far from being prepared to accept those things, they seem to be the ones we want to fight about, and anger over those issues is stripping away support from the parties which stand some chance of serious government.
Stopping small boat crossings (even if it were possible) will make almost no difference to migration numbers, or to pressures on housing or welfare. British sanctions against Israel over the Gaza war will make no difference to the appalling fate of Palestinians. Yet people are prepared to make these issues the only focus of their political lives.
And there are unpredictable consequences. Reform UK’s anger over immigration played a large part in the Labour landslide of 2024. The Corbyn party’s anger over Gaza could swing marginal constituencies to give Conservatives or Reform a similar one in 2029.
Somehow, we need to restore the wisdom to stop fighting over things we cannot change, and build solidarity around the things we can. That would be wisdom.
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