Madame Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn would not, of course, regard themselves as extremists. And it seems that although some Conservatives consider Nigel to be an extreme right wing populist, others think of him as part of the family.

From saying in 2019 that Jeremy would make an excellent prime minister, Sir Keir now tells us that he only said that when he knew they would lose the election. And so his opinion was at that point ‘hypothetical’. Which is why, in the light of the need to tack away from the extremes, and so increase his chance of winning the election, he threw Jeremy out of the party. This though was on the basis of his alleged anti-Semitism rather than his Marxist politics. Perhaps.

I suspect that Madame Le Pen considers Eric Zemmour to be an extremist, someone who follows in the footsteps of her father, rather than adopting her own more ‘cleaned-up’ image. Or perhaps she sees him just as someone trying to muscle in on her space.

Likewise, the Socialist party in France would no doubt consider M. Mélenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise (France unbowed), to be of the extreme left and consider themselves to be quite moderate.

Over in the US of A their Trumpian right wing makes Farage & Co look almost centrist. The ‘progressive’ wing of the Democratic party is looked on as Marxist by the Republicans.

So then extremism seems to be a relative term, something which is in the eye of the beholder. The beholder though is entitled to criticise what he sees.

Immediately after the French election results were announced, each of the party leaders was given the opportunity to make a statement live on television. The first to speak was my friend M. Mélenchon. His speaking style is classic demagoguery. He insists, he demands. His party had fewer députées than Mme Le Pen’s party, the RN (Rassemblement National), but the largest number of deputies within the left-wing grouping, the NFP (Nouveau Front Populaire). And that grouping had more deputies than the other groups. And therefore, he told an astonished nation, he had a right to implement his policies, in full, with him as Prime Minister. He insisted on it.

This would mean that the pension age would be lowered back to what it had been. There would be a 14% increase in the minimum wage, the introduction of citizens’ assemblies to propose laws to parliament, a substantial lowering of gas and electricity prices and various attacks through the tax system on ‘the rich’. None of this is of course feasible in a country with one of the worst debt problems in Europe. It is pure populism.

And his claim to an entitlement to govern is pure fantasy. He is incapable of assembling a majority in parliament for his reforms. He and his party are distinctly unpopular In the Assembly. The NFP itself only has so many deputies because, in the second round, people wanted to vote against Le Pen.

To my astonishment, however, two days later Le Monde actually printed an article co-authored by four (!) French law professors explaining that a governing majority means a majority of all the members of the Assemblée Nationale and not the largest party in the largest grouping and not even the party (the RN) having the largest head count, (but still a minority) in the Assemblée.

Will Hutton wrote one of his anti-capitalist homilies for the Guardian the other day. He started by citing F. Scott Fitzgerald who, in 1925, wrote:

”Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They think...that they are better than we are... 

Hutton’s main complaint is that the rich do not expect to pay taxes like ordinary folk. But Mr Hutton is living in the past. Unlike in the good old days, pre-prepared avoidance schemes simply don’t work any longer. The clamp-down on tax avoidance over very many years in the UK has made it very difficult to take effective avoidance action.

For those living here, as various of our more famous entertainers (e.g. Jimmy Carr), foot-ballers etc. have found out, you’re likely eventually to have to pay your dues - with penalties and interest.

In France, Mr Mélanchon says, in order to to encourage égalité, earnings over 411,000 euros p.a. should be taxed at 90% and he wants inheritance tax at 100% for any amount over 12 million euros, as well as the reintroduction of a wealth tax.

In the UK, we had a period when the top rate of tax was 98%. This was and is all pure populism. Having extremely high rates of tax for the rich, as wished for by those on the extreme left, is a belief system rather than a carefully thought-out economic policy. As with other forms of extremism, there is no actual evidence to support the view that it will be economically productive, that it will benefit the population as a whole by increasing the overall tax revenue – which is what I think Hutton wishes to achieve.

I can understand however that major differences in wealth will strike many people as unfair. Mainly, though, we tend to shrug our shoulders and accept it as part of how the world works.

But for the revolutionaries on the extreme left it was always part of their doctrine that inequality was irredeemably a ‘bad thing’. Today’s revolutionaries might though accept that not all inequality is bad, just ‘extreme’ inequality. After all, how else can we justify the wealth of football players?

But distinguishing inequality from extreme inequality is rather difficult. Where does the boundary lie? And so, except for M. Mélanchon’s obviously arbitrary definition, it becomes a mantra without any real meaning.

And of course, to confuse things further, we now have very many billionaires giving large parts of their fortunes to charities of various sorts.

Likewise, though, the right’s claim that reducing taxes invariably leads to an increase in the country’s tax revenue is flimsy in the extreme. Obviously if extreme tax measures were introduced, such as those proposed by Mélanchon, then we would find many of the rich fleeing the country – as is starting to happen with French multi-millionaires.

But despite Liz Truss’s claims to the contrary, there is no actual evidence that lower taxes invariably produce increased tax revenue, except when lowering taxes from eye-watering levels to more normal levels. It is a mantra (a lie) put forward to justify the lowering of taxes for the rich.

If Farage wants, like Mme Le Pen, to have MPs other than just in run-down seaside towns like Clacton, he has much to do.

Typically, his form of very unsavoury populism relies on the manufacture or exploitation of a grievance felt by a majority or at least a very substantial number of people.

The claim is that a minority is threatening the rights (and sometimes the very existence) of that majority. These are minorities defined in terms which, without being explicit, suggest a different ethnicity or, more likely, ethnicity coupled with religion.

The majority are led to believe that their world is being changed around them by the minority – and that they have every right to be angry. Currently this is not just a matter of skin colour. It is also the conflict between Christianity and other religions.

They say that those in charge don’t care about the effect on the indigenous majority: the elite are not affected by the perceived erosion of long-held values caused by the foreign minority, particularly in the inner cities.

And so we have the ‘Great replacement theory’ which tells us that with relatively higher birth-rates amongst the minority then we, the indigenous people, shall shortly be outnumbered. Our Christian country (whatever that means) will be no more.

No account is taken, of course, of the reduction in birth rate as people (regardless of ethnicity) become wealthier and healthier and no longer need numerous children to take care of them as did their forebears in their remote villages.

Nor is any notice taken of the relatively low actual number of people making up that minority. In 1990, 3% of the world’s population lived in a different country than where they were born. Today it is 4%.

But then those in the grip of populists are not known for their openness to the facts. And the populists have no reason to inform them of the truth.

17 July 2024

Paul Buckingham