By Kate Banner
Image from Vogue
Lying is as global as politics itself. From Trump to Truss, the global political landscape is exceedingly structured around corrupt polarised lies. Many spent the Brexit years fearful of the consequences of Farage’s deceitful appeal to working people; what nobody could have predicted is Britain’s incumbent neoliberal party with a deeply rooted post-truth core.
What this past month has elucidated about Britain’s reputation on an international scale, is that the Conservatives can no longer be trusted to elect respectable leaders. Long gone is the fantasy of accountable democracy, replaced by short termed, lying and manipulative leaders devoid of credibility. We have seen Liz Truss’ tax cuts criticised by Joe Biden; the leader of a country lacking in a welfare state. We have been told to find ‘stability’ by French President Emmanuel Macron; a leader whose mandate is consistently threatened by extremists. We have been taunted by the former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev when he tweeted ‘Bye, bye @trussliz, congrats to lettuce’ – a leader who only used his position to foster Russia’s war-mongering regime. Surely, when Britain is lambasted from all sides, we must take a step back and reflect upon the state of our Conservative leaders. Democracy has been warped and manipulated by a rising number of charismatic politicians who recite disingenuous messages of hope and prosperity, beckoning post-truth’s threat to both domestic British politics and the humiliating obliteration of our global standing.
The problem is not only that the Conservatives elect post-truth leaders, but that it is difficult to even find one person running in the Conservative leadership contest whose campaign wasn’t saturated by false promises. As Kemi Badenoch summarises her own party ‘we make promises we can’t keep’. Yet, she is still unable to break her party’s mould through a campaign devoid of policies. Politics was once driven by structured policies and agendas, but now we live in a world where Liz Truss is elected with no economic plan for the country. Even Tom Tugendhat who was viewed as a genuine candidate for the Conservative leadership contest critiqued Liz Truss’ previous role as foreign secretary and yet when it looked like she was going to win he supported her. Politicians in Britain no longer need a plan, they can appease stakeholders with promises on shaky foundations. Is the Conservative party so corrupt that the only condition to survive is to lie? The worst broken promise of all was when we saw the shortest-serving Prime Minister pitch her fanatical solution to the economic crisis, which by the way was directly caused by the previous 12 years of Conservative mismanagement. She promised ‘growth’ and we received rising food prices, higher energy bills and the pound freefall. Surely the Conservative members would have learnt from Boris Johnson if you’re going to lie your way into office, you will pay the consequences.
Many thought that Liz Truss’ resignation would have brought about a new wave of competent ideas, a period of clarity where post-truth politics will no longer be the answer. But with the Bring Back Boris campaign so ardently defended by ex cabinet ministers, Ben Wallace and Nadhim Zahawi to name but two, the corruption of the Conservative party cannot be more evident. Boris Johnson – a man who came as close to a Prime Minister ever has of being fired, was thrown out by his own party with polling that he was going to lose his own seat. He completely mishandled his leadership and government. Plagued by scandal after scandal, and yet this utter buffoon of a man managed to find support in the Conservatives. The problem is not that Rishi Sunak is now Prime Minister, it’s that Boris Johnson actually had support to run again. It’s the fact that 53 MPs publicly backed a man still under investigation for misleading parliament, and I do not doubt for a second that more would have cast their ballot for him in parliament that Monday. The Conservative party is too factionalised to be taken seriously. What could be an era of great change and fairer societies, leaves us instead stuck with something I can only compare to the start of an Orwell novel.
So, what is the solution? We can see that the labour party isn’t encompassed by this painful post-truth propaganda. It is obvious that the current system is only resulting in failure. But the answer is so much more than changing a ballot slot – we must take action. If this month has told us anything about politics, it’s that we can no longer trust post-truth leaders to deliver the mandate in which they were elected upon. We must learn from the past. So long as the Conservative party continues to govern on false pretences and continues to fail in rejecting the right-wing faction of the party, post-truth will continue to threaten British politics.
