Nothing is inevitable: narrating the Covid crisis.
| Author | Creasy, Stella |
Coronavirus has wrought destruction and heartache. Loved ones have been lost, livelihoods collapsed, and health harmed. It has also acted as a magnifier of underlying inequalities, to devastating effect. Progressives repeatedly demand 'we can't go back to business as usual'. (1) The case for how and why, though, needs to be convincingly made. It seemed unthinkable last spring, when people all around the country stood on their doorsteps to clap for carers, that six months later a Chancellor would introduce a partial public-sector pay freeze, including for teachers and police. Nothing is inevitable about what happens next.
As with previous moments of crisis, different people draw different lessons from both the effects of the crisis, and the response. The first question those on the left need to ask is why should this crisis be, as political scientist Colin Hay wrote, 'a moment of decisive intervention, a moment of transformation'? (2) The second, no less pressing, question is whether we are capable of ensuring this moment is one in which our values and ideas shape the work of rebuilding.
Socialists who believe that a radical, egalitarian distribution of power, wealth and opportunity is the best way to unlock the potential of all in our society need not only to understand the times in which we live, but also to win the argument about how to transform them. The track record of the left in recent decades does not bode well. The politics of COVID-19 are not objective, but a product of judgement, argument and debate; one the left needs to lead if it is to be effective. It would be an error to presume that left-wing concerns - injustice, inequality and the fatality of inaction in the face of such issues - automatically cut through.
We seek to contribute to that debate here. First, we briefly explore how crises are defined. Second, we set out what Labour must do to affect what this crisis should mean for the UK; this includes using a concern for liberation to give clarity of purpose; encouraging a lively intellectual culture, including celebrating the value of dissent; and finding ways to bring about organisational change to engage, hear and amplify voices that too often go unheard in our politics.
The elements of a crisis
As the enormity of the pandemic set in, many responded with a determination that nothing should ever be the same again. In March 2020, Peter Baker argued: 'disasters and emergencies do not just throw light on the world as it is. They also rip open the fabric of normality. Through the hole that opens up, we glimpse possibilities of other worlds.' (3) In the last decade, Britain has faced multiple crisis moments: the financial crash, flooding, terrorist incidents and Brexit. The magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis sets it apart, of course. Yet at each point, political life seems to shudder to a halt - and there is a moment in which the crisis and the response are defined.
In the last global crisis, the sudden disruption of the financial system saw normality for thousands of people suddenly disintegrate before them. Systemic injustice meant it hit millions on low incomes, whilst the banks appeared perplexed at a modest one-off tax on bonuses. The Occupy movement sprang into life, as suffering provoked demands for change. Yet the Conservatives won the battle to explain what the crisis was and what response was necessary. There are important signs that some lessons have been learnt from the mistakes of austerity. However, the argument that Labour had 'maxed' out the credit card, successfully set in stone by the right, can still be used to justify swingeing spending cuts and secure election victories.
The 2017 general election showed that, when confronted with a tone-deaf Conservative prime minister, Labour could shift the dial on attitudes to the funding of key public services. Yet, within two years, faced with a downbeat response to its election offer, and the democratic crisis generated by Brexit, the left suffered a wipeout. With Boris Johnson's Conservatives making all the running in defining the election, Labour was once again left reacting to an agenda already set.
During a crisis, presuming that any outcome is a 'given' is hazardous. Should we assume, following the public presence of epidemiologists and SAGE analysis in the national presentation of the virus response, that evidence in politics is back in vogue? No, is our answer. For that to happen, that part of this crisis would need to be drawn into an overarching narrative about post-COVID politics. Colin Hay, in explaining crisis narration, revealed a process 'to identify, define and constitute crisis in the first place' (original emphasis). (4) Hay's argument was based on an analysis of media framing and construction of the 'winter of discontent', where different elements of what was happening were brought together and defined as a crisis of the state in late-197os Britain.
COVID is different in substance and scale, but utilising Hay's way of thinking is revealing. The list of failures, and devastating problems emerging or being made visible during the pandemic, is long. Many of them speak to decades-long problems of inequality, market failure, and a lack of political commitment or proficiency. The challenge for the left is to ensure the need to act on these problems is not lost after the crisis abates - but is part of a post-crisis politics that says this is why we should act, now. That this is what's important.
Rebecca Solnit has written a great deal about change - how work on power, agenda-setting, and the construction and maintenance of dominant ideas play a role in determining who gets to shape the past, present and future. (5) Inspired by recent social movements, she has written of 'new generations...less bound by the old assumptions and denials. To change who tells the story, and who decides, is to change whose story this is.' (6)
Solnit's words should also challenge the left: following this crisis, whose voices will be heard? How can we empower those whose voices are so often drowned out? From people who came to the UK and found work in our public services, to those living in less affluent parts of our country that have been most severely impacted by the pandemic - these are voices that must be heard...
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