One of the defining features of current UK politics and government is the absence of consensus. The present situation is in stark contrast to the consensus that built up during the Second World War and continued into the post-war years.

Commitment was never total, but there was general agreement on unifying principles and policies aimed at creating a fairer and more equal society. There was shared belief in a mixed economy, full employment, educational opportunity, house building, establishment of the NHS and expansion of the welfare state.

After five years of suffering and sacrifice, optimism that things would get better, swept Labour to power in 1945. Most post-war policies were driven by a sense of “doing the right thing”. Politicians accepted popularity and electoral success was best pursued through national harmony and actions that improved people’s lives. There was greater trust in the political system and in what historian and writer Peter Hennessy has called “The Good Chap” theory of government.

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There was also consensus around “Britishness”, reinforced by the togetherness of the struggle for national survival during the war years. The post-war settlement prolonged the illusion of Britain as a major world power with an empire, a permanent place on the UN Security Council and its own nuclear arsenal. As late as 1957 the economy was still strong enough for Harold Macmillan to sloganise, “Most of our people have never had it so good”.

It didn’t last. The industrial and economic crises of the 1960s and 1970s undermined both the feelgood factor and national consensus. From 1979, Margaret Thatcher initiated a sharp direction change in sentiment and policy. The monetarist theories of Hayek and Friedman held sway. The “glue” holding national consensus together was systematically weakened. Full employment, nationalised utilities, the place of trade unions and the safety net of the welfare state were no longer givens or necessarily seen as “doing the right thing”.

So-called “lame ducks”, including much of the UK’s heavy and manufacturing industries, were allowed to go to the wall. Large parts of central Scotland and the North and Midlands of England became industrial wastelands. In Scotland the Community Charge, the hated and regressive “poll tax”, dealt Conservatism and Unionism a blow from which they have yet to recover. The assault on economic and social consensus fostered a sense of grievance on which the nationalists in the UK’s four nations have built steadily.

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In recent times the Prime Minister has seen Covid as an opportunity to renew a semblance of post-Brexit consensus. Despite the evidence to the contrary, he has emphasised, “we are all in it together”. The spirit of the Blitz and Dunkirk has been conscripted. The nation must roll up its collective sleeves to build back better and forget irrelevant distractions such as Scottish independence.

It will be a hard trick for Mr Johnson to pull off, particularly as he and his like have done more than most to undermine national consensus. In the past, consensus rested on a shared sense of “good chaps doing the right thing”. In contrast, Mr Johnson has opted for a divisive strategy, reliant on what journalist and author Gavin Esler calls “othering”. During the Brexit debate it was “others” in the form of the EU that had usurped UK sovereignty, taken control of our laws and kept us from the sunlit uplands.

Mr Farage warned that “others”, mainly immigrants, were queuing up to deprive enthusiastic Brits of careers as carers and fruit pickers. There were repeated warnings about “elites” that looked after themselves to the detriment of the majority. Those who didn’t sign up to Brexit were “wreckers”. In shades of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, lawyers and judges who questioned the legality of government actions, were othered as “trendy lefties” and “enemies of the people”.

In truth, Mr Johnson is where he is because he undermined consensus, exploiting and widening differences arising from Brexit. Jingoism is his latest wheeze to undo the damage. The Union Flag pandemic is a not too subtle response to nationalist sentiment in other parts of the UK. The fantasy of world power is perpetuated by a potential 40% uplift in the UK’s stockpile of nuclear warheads. HMS Queen Elizabeth will patrol the South China Sea as a display of “lethality”. Xi Jinping will be having sleepless nights.

The lost consensus is symptomatic of economic and social division, at its most visible in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England’s “left behind” regions. Faith in “good chaps” instinctively “doing the right thing” has been eroded, probably irretrievably. In his book, Value(s): Building A Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, traces the loss of consensus to what he describes as “a common crisis in values”.

In brief, he argues that key social values, such as fairness and solidarity, the “glue” of consensus, have been exposed to market forces and self-interest which he describes as “a malignant culture”. As Oscar Wilde put it, “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Contrast the values and actions of the volunteers who made PPE early in the pandemic and those who subsequently made millions from crony contracts. If Mark Carney is correct, there can be no renewed national consensus until there is political and economic leadership that acts according to values on which it is impossible to place a price.

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