Can’t we do better than lesser-evilism?

Pulling apart one of the knots keeping us tied down in this election.

Note to those reading via email: This article may exceed the length that can be sent by Substack. In which case, please click on the headline and it will take you directly to the Substack article.

By Alan Story

Perhaps you have a progressive friend who is a member of the Labour Party and who has told you, “I have many of the same concerns as you do about Starmer and his politics. But they are better than Sunak and the Tories … and so I’m going to stick with Labour on 4 July. “You might even think this yourself.

Or read this message that activist, worker and artist Izzy Tellin of Madison, Wisconsin received from a fellow worker who plans to vote for Joe Biden: “If you don’t vote for Biden, you are enabling Trump. I understand your frustrations, and we as a country are trapped between old apathy and old extremism. And I know to some degree, inaction is action. But trust me, not voting will be worse. And voting for a non-viable candidate is a vote against the least of the evils. I know none of this makes you happy. And I know your passion. But you know what happens if we make it worse. And it can get much worse. You know it can.”

Tellin, a socialist, replied ---in an article appropriately called “Lesser- Evilism Has Led Us Here” – that “… All the liberal talk from politicians is a ploy for your vote to keep them in power. If I chose to vote for either an open dictator, or an open Zionist war criminal, I would continue to play the game and believe the system we live under works. But it doesn't. And it isn't logical to argue the system “works”—because it only works for a privileged few….”  

In short, Izzy won’t be ticking his ballot --- or lowering a voting machine lever --- for either Biden or Trump when the US holds its 60^th presidential election on November 5, 2024. Assuming there is not a follow-up insurrection (!), the winner will be sworn into office on 20 January, 2025.

THE WORLD OF “LESSER EVILISM”

Welcome to the world of “lesser evilism” on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a long-standing political phenomenon that is especially common in countries where only two parties stand a chance of winning an election, where an electoral duopoly operates,     or, to be blunter, an “elective dictatorship holds power. 

In both the UK and the USA, there is no serious mass socialist party which progressives and socialist can vote for. So the choice constantly posed for us, especially in England, is: Who is worse? Sunak or Starmer? In the US, it is:  Biden or Trump? 

Of course, political parties never suggest that they themselves are “evil” … or even “the lesser evil.” What both of the two big UK parties do suggest is that the major question on 4 July ---- in fact, really THE ONLY QUESTION --- is for voters to compare them with the other big party.

That’s the underlying message in this recently-release Tory ad:

Labour use the same “them or us” approach. Sunak “embarrassed Britain on the world stage with his D-day debacle”, wrote Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds in LABOUR LIST,  with the clear implication that true blue patriot Sir Keir would never be so crass. (See “CHECK THIS OUT” below.)   

Such poverty of thought, such a feeble attempt to narrow the range of options we have. Sunak vs Starmer? The absurdity of the supposed choice has become all the starker when both parties have taken exactly the same position for months on the leading global crisis of the moment, namely Israeli’s genocide in Gaza. There has not been a proverbial cigarette paper between them.

Yes, Labour does not yet dictate British foreign policy regarding Israel. But Tony Blair’s record in the Middle East was deplorable and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who will soon likely be in charge, recently suggested Nelson Mandela would have opposed the US student protests  in support of the Palestinians. Labour’s pledge of 13 June to recognise a Palestinian state is shabby window dressing.

Another example of Labour’s complicity:  a just-released video from Declassified UK and titled “BRITAIN GREENLIT DOZENS OF ARMS DEALS WITH ISRAEL AMID GAZA WAR”, shows that the UK government has approved the sale of millions of ££ of weaponry to the Israeli killing machine. Not a peep from Labour. Lab

To think of Labour as the “lesser evil” on foreign policy OR to even consider the issue within a greater/lesser framework is extremely limiting.

In any event, with Labour so far ahead in the polls, the standard Labour refrain --- “vote Labour or you’ll get the Tories” --- is less convincing as a threat on a UK-wide terrain. It is used, however, in marginal constituency races.

The tactic is sure to be more prominent again in the next election…and especially if, post-election, the Tories choose an even more right wing leader. For their part in the 2024 campaign, the Tories are pushing the idea: “vote Reform, get Starmer.”   

FAR WORSE IN THE UNITED STATES 

The situation is even worse in the USA. As a recent informative article titled “The Wild History of ‘Lesser of Two Evils’ Voting explained, this particular political disease became especially pronounced in the 1830s and 1840s in the USA when its two- party system took root.

“For as long as Americans have been subjected to lousy candidates, they’ve been told to suck it up and vote for one of them,” THE NATION magazine said in this March 2024 article. As for the 2024 campaign, “A recent Bloomberg poll found that the percentage of Americans who didn’t find one of the candidates either ‘dangerous’ or ‘too old’ is in the single digits.”  

Here in the UK, a study released on 12 June revealed that “Public trust and confidence has fallen now to record lows across a range of measures.”

These include:  

“45% would ‘almost never’ trust British governments of any party to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party, more than ever before.

79% believe the present system of governing Britain could be improved ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’, matching the previous record low in 2019 during the parliamentary stalemate about Brexit.

58% would ‘almost never’ trust politicians of any party in Britain to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner, similar to the 60% recorded in 2009 in the wake of the MP’s expenses scandal.”

A record 53% now support changing the electoral system to one that is fairer to smaller parties. “

There is an obvious class dimension to these conclusions. “72% of those who are struggling financially ‘almost never’ trust politicians, compared with 49% of those living comfortably,” states the National Centre for Social Research study.

In other words, the electoral and political systems in both countries are in meltdown, both have minimal popular support and are being exposed more and more as serving only the political class and not the rest of us.  

But the issue is far wider than simply that of the deeply-flawed electoral system used in both countries.    

ON LESSER EVILISM

Political philosopher Lorna Finlayson looked at the wider question in a terrific article titled “On Lesser Evilism” in the January-February 2024 issue / #145 of NEW LEFT REVIEW. (Here is the link to it; only subscribers can access it.) I had hoped to do a videoed interview with her, but the timing did not work out. Instead, I have pasted in a few excerpts below.    

Political philosopher Lorna Finlayson

Finlayson starts by suggesting that lesser evilism is in tune with the idea that:

“… the only reason to vote Labour is to dislodge the governing Conservatives after a dismal decade and a half in office. As the ballot approaches and the polls narrow, the Starmerite commentariat will begin to register this fact. They will become less concerned with defining Starmer’s ‘vision’ and more focused on addressing this pool of potential abstentionists—urging them to put aside their qualms and vote for the lesser of the available evils.”

She explains:

 “The lesser evil, by definition, is the least bad of a given set of options. To refuse to accept the least bad is to prefer the worse over the better, which seems obviously illogical. This, it is often implied, is not only a failure of rationality but also of morality….The argument of the lesser evil is styled as ‘grown-up politics’: accepting that we cannot always have what we want, that we must sometimes swallow our disappointment and make do with second worst. Those unwilling to do this are cast as unable to master their own impulses for the greater good. They are stubborn, petulant, selfish, clinging to their idealism out of spite or vanity.”

How to respond? asks Finlayson.

It often doesn’t much matter whom we vote for

“Part of the reply …then, is that it often doesn’t much matter whom we vote for or whether we vote at all. This, once again, is a stance liable to be accused of immaturity, a kind of adolescent nihilism, although it need be nothing of the sort. There is much that can be done other than voting—and even if there weren’t, this wouldn’t make voting any more effective a means to social change.”

I agree 100% with her views on voting.

Finlayson suggests that in some circumstances you do need to make choices.

“It is sometimes—very often, no doubt—a good idea to choose the less bad of multiple options, none of which we like very much. We recognize this in any number of everyday expressions, from ‘damage limitation’ to ‘the best of a bad lot’ to ‘the devil you know’. It is no more than a reflection of the fact that we not only can’t have everything we want, but frequently have no choice but to have something we actively don’t want. That holds all the more starkly in politics.”

But she goes on to say:

“For many of us, there is a point beyond which appeals to the lesser evil lose their grip on us, where holding our noses no longer seems like an acceptable or appropriate response.”

Time for a humour break: below is the front page of THE DAILY MAIL of 13 June. The one thing the UK will NOT be under Labour is a socialist state.

Finlayson, who teaches at the University of Essex, looks back at the Blair landslide of 2005:

“When Blair was re-elected in 2005, what was arguably communicated was that you can invade Middle Eastern countries despite massive public opposition and people will still vote for you. Even granted that the Conservatives were the greater evil in 2005, a voting policy of ‘Teach New Labour a lesson’ might have had a more salutary effect on British politics.”

It is worth noting that the 2005 general election was arguably “the worst ever”, in part because of our undemocratic voting system. It is a system that is very poor at teaching lessons.  

She adds:

“Once we look beyond the immediate term, the claim that electing the lesser evil will always produce the better consequences goes from trivial to highly dubious. The point is not complicated: we’re all familiar enough with the idea of strategies that work in the short term but are self-defeating in the longer run.”

Finlayson concludes (and supporting footnotes are omitted here): 

“Whichever dimension you focus on, though, the case for seeing Starmer’s Labour Party as the lesser among the available evils of Britain in 2024 is weak….As for the evil, Starmer offers an embarrassment of riches. You could be forgiven for thinking that he is engaged in some sort of performative stress-testing of the limits of the lesser-evilist argument. Starmer has avidly defended the siege of Gaza, supporting Israel’s ‘right’ to cut off food and water, threatened to sack anyone in his parliamentary party who calls for a ceasefire, subverted parliamentary procedures to prevent Labour MPs backing a Scottish Nationalist motion for one.

Hailing Margaret Thatcher as a model of ‘law-and-order’ politics.

He is shoulder to shoulder with the Tories on plans to criminalize the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. He backs the bombing of Yemen, while out-hawking the Conservatives on Iran, China and Russia. He has promised to speed up deportations and ‘off-shore’ asylum seekers—sending them overseas while their applications are being processed. He has committed his party to iron ‘fiscal rules’ and criticized the Tories’ ‘cavalier’ approach to public spending. He has supported the Conservatives’ clampdown on public protest, vowed to retain the bulk of its anti-trade union laws, and pledged to strengthen the security state, endorsing ten-year prison sentences for vandalizing statues, promising to crack down on petty crime and hailing Margaret Thatcher as a model of ‘law-and-order’ politics.

The biggest challenge for the lesser-evil defence of Starmer is that there is no plausible reason for thinking that he actually represents the lesser evil at all, and some grounds for thinking he could be the greater one: keener yet to prove his allegiance to Washington by dragging the world to war; more brutal still in the enforcement of punitive cuts and privatizations.”

Remember: Finlayson wrote all of this long before the current election campaign began.

Her views on Labour under Starmer seem fair and accurate to me. I would only add this caveat: if you take a longer view of Labour Party history, Starmer can best be understood as a typical Labour leader. But that the subject for a future issue of THE LEFT LANE.

The overall conclusion? The lesser of two evils is still evil.  

CHECK THIS OUT

1) A record number of indy candidates, especially “left” indys

As reported on the very helpful website DEMOCRACY CLUB, “the 2024 UK general election will see a record number of candidates. 4,515 candidates have been nominated to stand on 4 July, beating the previous record of 4,150 set in 2010.” This 2024 total includes 459 independent candidates --- I believe also a record --- who are spread across 317 constituencies.

A good percentage of these independents are “left” independents. Among other things, this shows how many political activists are alienated from mainstream parties, especially the Labour Party. This is one point arising from the above analysis of “lesser evilism”.

One such candidate is Jan Cunliffe (pictured) who is running as an “independent socialist” in the Wigan constituency of shadow cabinet minister Lisa Nandy. Cunliffe resigned from Labour soon after Starmer became leader and “not long before I would have been expelled”, Cunliffe told me in an interview this week. “I want to give Wiganers hope.” 

Another left indy candidate is former Green Alison Teal of Sheffield. THE LEFT LANE (TLL) has covered her case in detail in recent weeks, first here (in our most read post ever) and then here. She was selected as the Green candidate for Sheffield Central in October September 2022 but was then suspended. Teal quit the Greens after that party’s unfair and infamous disciplinary process did not act in 19 months and after a replacement candidate was selected at an emergency meeting called by the local GP brass.

An upcoming TLL will assess the campaigns of left indy candidates and ask: do they bring “hope”? what resources are needed to even keep your deposit…and do they have them ? are such campaigns a stepping stone towards what is really needed: the creation of a mass socialist party, a development that would really keep Starmer and co. wide awake on future 4 July’s?   

2) Jonathan Cook: Always insightful on Gaza 

Here is the link to the latest Jonathan Cook’s piece on the Israeli genocide:  

“The day the West defined ‘success’ as a massacre of 270 Palestinians: Israelis dance in the streets, the White House hails a ‘daring’ operation, Rishi Sunak expresses relief. How carnage in Gaza has become the new normal.”

3) Am I the only one?

A week ago, PM Rishi Sunak attended one, but not two, events, in France marking the 80^th anniversary of D-day. Instead, he came back early to the UK for an election interview. The next day, Sunak apologised. Here is a clip from Sky News.

For a week now, the PM has been roasted about this debacle, both by the media and the leaders of some other parties. Farage was racist in his comments. He said the incident showed Sunak was not "patriotic" and did not understand "our culture".

Am I the only one who thinks the incident has been far over-blown to make cheap and racist and nationalistic points? Yea, Sunak made a mistake, but he (and Starmer) has made far greater ones, such as siding with war criminal Netanyahu and doing precious little to fight climate change.

And a p.s. To say such things can easily get you branded as “anti-war veteran.” My own father signed up for the Canadian Army in 1939 and was based in Aldershot England from 1939 to 1945.  

4) The liberal centre collapses AND the Right surges in Europe 

The recent EU elections are being reported in the mainstream media as “a surge for the far/ hard right.”  

But it is more insightful to appreciate what lies behind the results of last week’s election.  So sit back. Here are three videos and one good article (with embedded hypertext links) that give context.   

 a) Some basic news coverage from Unherd.  Has Europe turned right?  

b)  An interview with former British diplomat Alastair Crookes. The straight goods on these elections and Israel.      

c) In a January 2024 interview on the theme “Democracy is finished in Europe”, Yanis Varoufakis, leader of DiEM25, explained that a leading cause of the growth of the far right was the deepening economic and political crisis of capitalism. Prescient.   

d) This very good “Naked Capitalism” piece gives further context.

Worth watching out for: A number of Left parties have joined forces to contest the snap French elections of 30 June and 7 July.

If you want some light relief, here is how the very right wing UK publication THE CONSERVATIVE WOMAN commented of the EU elections.    

5) THE LEFT LANE is hiring.  

There are many tasks involved in operating a Substack. Adding the role of operating THE LEFT LANE Twitter / X account (https://x.com/LeftLane2024/) is one too many. So we’re hiring a new person to take up this task --- and some other social media roles --- in a paid job of 2-3 hours per week. Interested? Want more details? Please write ASAP to: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com

+++

Edited by Alan Story, THE LEFT LANE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:  http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

You can reach us at: theleftlanepolitics@gmail.com

+++++

Thanks again to Glyn Goodwin for the terrific cover art. And thanks also to Mat Callaghan and Caroline Gold for editorial assistance.    

Follow THE LEFT LANE on our Twitter/X at: https://x.com/LeftLane2024

We have had a sizeable number of recent subscribers --- 30 in the past two weeks --- to THE LEFT LANE.  WELCOME! If you wish to read any of the previous 25 issues, click here.