Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Revolt on the Rightis a rich and insightful dissection of Britain's first new major political force in a generation. Ford and Goodwin combine rigorous yet accessible statistical analysis of UKIP's supporters with unprecedented access to party activists and leaders. They paint a detailed portrait of the social forces driving UKIP's emergence and how the party itself has developed to mobilise a new mass electorate. This book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand this fascinating, and potentially disruptive, new force in British politics." Anthony Heath, University of Oxford and University of Manchester. This is absurdly exaggerated. Goodwin makes the same error as writers about the Establishment used to make, namely to suppose that members of the New Elite all think the same as each other.

Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics | LSE

Ultimately, the category of national populism is stretched in so many directions that it obscures more distinctions than it illuminates. It starts with an eminently understandable desire to be listened to and recognised, but then extends to demagoguery, violent threats and wall-building. If the language of racism, nationalism and fascism is really not adequate to distinguish between the desire for stable community and Salvini’s vicious hatred of refugees, between alienation from unelected elites and Orbán’s dismantling of the rule of law, then find a language that will. The book’s timing (completed in summer 2018) rescues them from having to stretch national populism to accommodate Brazil’s new president-elect. It would be hard to come up with a better line-up of analysts to dig into both the long- and short-term drivers of Britain's decision to leave the EU. Whether you're a Leaver or a Remainer, the vote for Brexit needs explaining - and this is just the book to do it.' Tim Bale, Queen Mary University of London and author of The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron

Goodwin only refers in passing to the Establishment, a term coined by Henry Fairlie in 1955, and instead describes, in his opening chapter, the “Rise of the New Elite”, which according to him This book presents an insightful and highly informative analysis of the most significant independent challenge to the existing party system in England. It is a must read for anyone interested in the future of British politics."John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University and a research consultant for ScotCen Social Research Lee Anderson, recently interviewed on ConHome, is a Tory Democrat, never happier than when teasing the New Elite.

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This is a canny and deceptive intellectual move. It would be strange to define socialism in terms of the hopes and fears of trade unionists, or liberalism in terms of the worldview of a free rights-holding individual. And yet national populism is only really distinguished from nationalism and racism by the fact that its supporters do not see themselves in these terms. Inversely, Eatwell and Goodwin’s insistence that Le Pen or Wilders are not racist politicians rests on the PR efforts these figures have made to detoxify their images as racists in the eyes of the public and media.This book begins with the strange suggestion that British politics used to be considered “stable, boring, moderate and consensual”. Only in retrospect, when the alarms of the moment have faded, can such a complacent judgement be reached. No doubt many of them do, but Goodwin is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent, and does not think the same as every one of his colleagues. The vacuum left by the collapse of the trade unions has been filled, as Goodwin says, by university graduates who marry other university graduates, seldom talk to anyone outside their own class, and with insufferable self-righteousness try to impose their trendy opinions on the rest of us.