If I were Rishi Sunak, I would resign immediately. I say this not only because I disapprove of his politics, but out of a selfless devotion to his well-being. Here is a man with billions in the bank who is about to spend the next few years slaving away in a cramped London office trying to resolve problems of breath-taking intractability, only to provoke the hatred of half the nation. Why not take the money and run?
The obvious answer — that he has never shrunk from a challenge, feels a keen sense of responsibility to the country and wishes to serve its people — is the kind of thing that politicians read off autocues. It is like declaring that there are brighter days ahead, that actions speak louder than words, or that we should stop brooding over the past (including what happened 10 days ago) and look to the future. If Sunak could best serve the nation by working as an anonymous official in a dingy back room in Basildon, would he do so? I’m not convinced.
Our new Prime Minister is in Downing Street chiefly because he is hungry for power, like most of the place’s previous inhabitants. It’s not that Sunak is power-mad, but that power can itself be a form of madness. What sane human being would prefer supervising the decline of an increasingly inconsiderable offshore island to permanently sunbathing in the Cayman Islands? Boris Johnson’s cronies spouted similar guff when they claimed that in withdrawing from the contest he was putting the country before himself. They were talking about our most resplendent example of a Hobbesian man, powered purely by self-interest. Johnson is no more likely to put the nation before himself than he is to glue himself to the M6.
Perhaps Sunak believes that he can unify the country. Almost everyone is in favour of unity, just as almost everyone is in favour of freedom, happiness, nurses, chocolate truffles and Billy Connolly. Nobody casts a vote for the Disunity Party. But one should be wary of what almost everybody approves of. Unity is not a virtue in itself, as the German people learnt to their cost when the Nazis came to power. Plato disapproved of tragedy because it enhanced our sense of the individual’s apartness, thus undermining the cohesion of the state. Unity means trying to weld conflicting interests together — but in whose interests?
There is something fundamentally dishonest about the call to drop your differences and rally around a leader. Either the differences are real, in which case they won’t just disappear; or if they can be dropped as easily as that, they probably weren’t worth much in the first place. It’s not as though one is dealing simply with minor shades of difference. If politics is to be more than a game, it must engage interests which go all the way down, to the point where they form part of one’s identity. And you can’t abandon these just because you’re doing badly in the polls. You can say you do, of course, but that’s different. It’s a matter of biting your tongue, not changing your heart.
Behind the idea of discarding your interests overnight lies a particular view of human beings. On this theory, interests are really external to the self. You can shop around among them as in a boutique, trying on one after another. There’s the little red Marxist number, the sky-blue Tory one, the saffron Buddhist robe, the scruffy black leather existentialist jacket and so on. You don’t have to commit yourself to any of them for good. Sinéad O’Connor tried on the Catholic priest outfit for a few weeks before throwing it out, while Madonna has been through the entire shop more times than anyone can count. A few weeks ago, there were Tory politicians who were fervent Trussites in the morning, ardent Johnsonians around lunchtime and devout Sunakians in the evening.
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SubscribeI’m not sure what is really the point of this article, but I’ll just take issue with the final flourish that ‘there is no such thing as an independent nation-state other than in the fantasies of Farage.’ This is a fundamental misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of the concept of sovereignty. Of course, all countries are constrained by their size, geography, history and economic situation, but they are still sovereign and independent if they can set, re-set and reverse their own policies and laws. They are democratic if they do so with some accountability accepted by their population. Having to duck and weave to respond to current world circumstances is not the same as surrendering policy and lawmaking to an external, unaccountable supranational institution. I’m sure Nigel Farage would understand the difference. And if a country doesn’t want to borrow vast amounts of money, it won’t be beholden to the markets.
Eagleton is a Marxist – and therefore a dyed-in-the-wool elitist (‘vanguard of the proletariat’ etc). The concept of the nation state is a little too pluralist for his tastes.
Great post btw – I hope Eagleton reads it. He might learn something new..
What Eagleton is unaware of is that the UK is an independent sovereign state, but not a nation. All ‘nations’ are founded on ethnic and religious bigotry. The UK isn’t.
Your last sentence is the most important one.
Just to clarify: It is misrepresentation. We all know it, parfticularly Eagleton..
…very well said. Lost me at “supervising the decline of an increasingly inconsiderable offshore island”…is by all objective measures rather silly in respect of a Country which is still a nuclear power, on the Security Council, G7, Five-eyes, leading European NATO power etc…still in the top ten percent of all the 200 or so UN member-states by most measures of success despite being pretty small in area, population and resources…still apparently being expected to show up at the COP-27 nonsense…and most important of all, still being the biggest stone in the Czar’s shoe…
…a fully paid-up left-wing declinist, who presumably thinks the only place that really matters is the Celestial Emperor Xi’s Middle Kingdom…and possibly sleepy Joe’s USA. Although I’m guessing he’ll write them off after the mid-terms…
Everyone is driven by greed and ambition except ME. No-one cares about humanity/ the planet / the working class except ME. Nobody knows the truth about anything except ME.
Academics, eh?
‘‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”
(GBS.)
“And those who can’t teach, teach teachers”(My Dad, who was a teacher)
especially at MBA business schools!!!
“In any case, it’s hard to reconcile unity with diversity.”
How can anyone with a ounce of intelligence come to this conclusion? The United Kingdom is a textbook case of exactly that. No qualifications for residence based on wealth, religion, ethnic origin. Yes we have state characteristics – a Monarch (effectively powerless), a state religion (Protestantism), Received Pronunciation (due for a return I’d say) and so on. Yet the UK is a riot of different religions, and different dialects (none proscribed), and anti-monarchists are not persecuted, unlike the freedom-loving people in Eagleton’s ‘Marxist’ hellholes that he presumably finds so desirable.
I am not sure that the UK is in a state of unity but I agree it IS diverse & I am also not sure that is all to the good.
Crikey, was this article previously published in Marxism Today?
Not visited Unherd for a few months, it used have well balanced articles written by people who weren’t frothing at the mouth Tory-haters…has it been taken over at all? Just had a shufti about at some articles and this site appears to have gone leftard…shame, I used to think it was fairly good site.
I think the idea of Unherd is to allow voices that are shut out of the mainstream media to be heard. On that basis, Marxist ideas belong here, along with the many other diverse ideas that are represented.
Agreed! It is crucial that all views are aired, as long as the comments on them are NOT censored
Eagleton’s motivated reasoning contianed no surprises or insights. I look forward to his analysis of the Labour Party’s divisions and Starmer.
One reason for lack of unity in a political party is that the discussion takes place at too superficial a level. There are endless debates around policies, but, since a given policy hides some basic values and assumptions, we should be looking at these first.
When people discuss basic things like ‘What is the role of the state?’, it is easier to find broad agreement. This agreement on principles can then be used to derive policy which has wider agreement.
“there is no such thing as an independent nation-state“. I guess Eagleton wonders why Ukraine is making such a fuss about it!
All drivel from a Marxist who has been wrong about the big questions all his life.
If the country is in trouble and a multi millionaire ex banker can’t fix it, try Amazon, Google or Tesla would be my advice. Delivery, if not immediate then within a day or two or, if it goes flat plug it in overnight while you sleep. Can’t be difficult, easy payments, ignore or send it back if it doesn’t work.
The same wretched trope as all “liberals”. “… There is no such thing as an independent nation-state …”
It’s rubbish. The (only) reason we are “at the mercy of the markets” is because 25 years of “liberal progressive” government borrowing has put our country into that position.
If this fool’s “progressive” pals hadn’t hocked our country, we could tell those markets to take a hike.
Spot the false dichotomy! “Either the differences are real, in which case they won’t just disappear; or if they can be dropped as easily as that, they probably weren’t worth much in the first place.”
Those are not the only options! If one family member gives up their desire to visit the beach in favour of a family day in the forest, that doesn’t mean the beach-desire was shallow.
Is the market a unified, autonomous state, or not? It’s certainly unified in objectives, perhaps ideology and certainly autonomous.