Fundamental disagreement

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

We are now near enough 10 years post the Brexit referendum. Brexit was a rare act of direct democracy and its intention to solve, once and for all the "European question" in hindsight has ended up creating more polarisation and not helped stem the loss of trust in political institutions.

I remember the day vividly. Nigel Farage, based on early polling suggesting a narrow victory for remain, had already said it looked like the vote had gone the other way. So having gone to bed at 11pm planning to see how the Asian markets had reacted to the news, woke at 5am to an entirely different picture of 'leave' winning the vote. We all know what happened after that.

A new way of communicating with voters

Ray Dalio often comments that there are echoes between our current period and the 1930s in terms of political polarisation. This period coincided with a new form of communication. Between 1930 and 1940 radio ownership rose from 40% to 80% which allowed non-mainstream voices direct access to voters. Similarly, Brexit was considered to be one of the first elections where social media had become an important source of news and political information. New forms of communication in their early stages have both pros and cons. On the pro side, they allow voices who are kept away from the mainstream to be heard and on the negative side, being new and unregulated, there are far lower standards regarding accuracy and funding transparency.

Lessons for everyone

Brexit was a learning experience for everyone. For those who lobbied for the vote to happen, this has shown that movements do not need a mainstream political parties. For those who felt negatively about the result, even after fewer of the stated benefits materialised than had been promised, there was no downside for those who proposed it. Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and Nigel Farage and many other prominent "Leavers" continue to enjoy credibility in some parts of the electorate.

This blog is me trying to explain why policymaking is more difficult now. Rather than just a disagreement around policies I think the disagreement is far more fundamental. Here's my framework on the four alignments of policy.

The 4 policy pillars

It takes alignment on four levels to have people think positively about policy:

• Where we are (is)

• Whether we want to be here or not (ought)

• Where we want to go (goals)

• How we get there (means)

  
  

It feels to me that the fundamental nature of disagreement today goes all the way up to "where are we". Each layer lower compounds that disagreement until we have diametrically opposed policy suggestions.

How each pillar works in practice

Pillar	Source	How influenced	Example tensions
Where we are	Putting together a picture from our sources of information	Sources curate what you see to paint a particular picture of how they see or want you to see the world.	Right wing sources tend to curate pictures of minority actors committing crime. Left wing sources tend to focus on corruption by wealthy or foreign elites.
Whether we want to be here or not	Forming opinions on whether we are in a good place.	Opinions are often inherited or picked up from the way our sources frame things or from influential people.	Business between tech companies and government is viewed as "cutting edge technology" on the right, and as "evidence of corruption" on the left.
Where we want to go	A new destination or place in the past which is deemed as better than here	This again compounds from facts, values and preferences.	Reduce poverty through more state provision vs more expectation on the unemployed to develop the ability to cope by themselves.
How we get there	Policy choices e.g. bans, subsidies, regulation.	Often the first and second order impacts of policies are hard to predict so again, it compounds from your values and beliefs and who you trust.	Renewables roll-out through investing in cutting edge technologies vs subsidising existing tech.

Why is it so difficult now?

I think we are heavily divided not just on pillar 1, where we are, but on pillar 3, where we want to go. To come back to the example of Brexit, as a Londoner. I have always been surrounded by an almost begrudging acceptance that the EU for all its waste and bureaucracy was a net good. It helped lower our trading costs with the continent and provided easy entry for smart, hard-working Europeans to join our workforce. This was a very London-centric view and clearly those outside of London had a less rosy view of the arrangement.

Another example is the disconnect between what I hear about crime in London and those around me experience. For me, the narrative does not match the lived reality or statistics that I have seen. London, for me, is not in the middle of an never-seen-before crimewave.

From this starting point even if we agree that the average UK worker is not enjoying a rise in living standards, what is the reason for it? Some blame immigration, others austerity, the tax system, reduced working hours etc. There are very few forums where this balanced conversation could be had. I think it is better and easier to agree upstream on what problems we think we have and want to solve than go straight to policy. I think many of us can agree that for whatever reason overall standards of living feel lower decade on decade for at least 2 decades and many would agree that a focus of government should be to increase them.

Brexit itself relied on a divergent view of pillar 1, where we are. Even if you agreed on pillar 2, you could diverge sharply on where to head. Either a more collaborative, integrated Britain pooling sovereignty with its neighbours, or a more self-governing one charting its own course.

Importantly, this conversation is feeling more and more detached from common roots. We have lost institutional trust of civil servants, academics, bishops and politicians. Perhaps school and the curriculum is the only place/time we actually experience similar grounding leading to a common understanding, and that has changed significantly over the last 40 years. As our roots have eroded, polarised sources have filled the gap with whichever information world we happen to inhabit. Each of us have an algorithmically curated picture of both where we are and where we want to go. This lack of shared roots strains a sense of national identity - no wonder it is such a struggle to define national values.

Negative framing for engagement

Dramatic and visual framing of each side of the debate which is excellent for social media or new website engagement (and hence more advertising revenues) is making balanced arguments more difficult. Balanced arguments are less humorous, engaging and require more cognitive effort than memes, threatening videos or tribal speeches.

Upstream agreement

In my humble opinion, parties communicate policies but not on direction. Answering a question like "what should be our number 1 priority" is something we probably have the data for, but asking something less obvious like what should the immigration policy be, or what should our energy policy is important, but creating consensus requires a sense of collective direction.

I would personally frame direction in the timeline of a generation i.e. 20years. Something like getting a clear narrative on "in one generation's time, the country we wish to leave to our children is X". This will help frame many policy decisions.

Without a clear downstream agreement of where we are and where we ought to be, we can get blown in different directions. The Disney-like policies being proposed by pretty much all parties is a clear race to the bottom.

So what?

• Brexit, intended to settle the European question exposed the key disagreements in the national debate of not only where we should be headed, but on a more fundamental level of where we are.

• The referendum revealed the communication power of social media, taught political movements that they do not need mainstream party structures and also highlighted that the downside for not delivering promised benefits is non-existent.

• Alignment comes from 4 layers, 1) where we are, 2) whether that is good or bad, 3) where we want to go, and 4) how we get there.

• We are increasingly struggling at the first pillar: “where we are.” Different information sources create radically different pictures of reality.

• Loss of trust has weakened a sense of national identity and common roots, leaving algorithms, partisan media and curated information bubbles to shape people’s reality.

• Before arguing about immigration, energy, tax or Brexit-style choices, politics should first build a shared 20-year vision of the country we want to leave to the next generation.

Next week, will be "Developing a shared vision". As always get the blog delivered directly to your inbox on Home | Deciders | for mental fitness | change your mind.