The new ghettos

The current storm battering the UK is the fifth named storm of this winter. It comes with a record breaking wind, over 100 mph in some places, with red warnings about a threat to life and limb in some parts of the UK. Meanwhile I read on LabourList that a survey of Labour voters suggests that they would prefer the prioritisation of health and not cutting welfare over tackling climate change actions. And of course in the US a madman has decreed the end of civilisation as we know it. Despite nature’s warnings we are therefore still locked into a short-termist approach to the biggest challenge facing humanity. I once described this problem as being part and parcel of the nature of democracy, with politicians’ eyes largely focused only on the next election. But in truth it afflicts all governments of whatever stripe. Dictatorships (and nascent dictatorships) are these days more concerned with the huge distraction activity of territorial expansion and protectionism. Anti-immigration policies fall into this category. Building walls is a long standing human response to the other, which today is not just a tide of fellow humans but rising sea levels threatening coastal cities where billions live. We are headed for the ghetto-isation of the human race on this our only planet, where attempts will be made by the better off to live in metaphorical and real gated communities. Anyone witnessing the Los Angeles fires may now be considering where exactly is safe.
 
The political response is ‘populism’ which tries to assuage people with immediate, unsustainable but simply communicated ‘solutions.’ Rather than addressing the drivers of immigration it is easier (allegedly) to throw up physical barriers and shut out  any type of understanding. Underpinned by racism, spoken or not. These trends are so prevalent and frankly obvious that I am continually dismayed that the level of debate has been dragged down to merely seeking to answer the populists’ blind propositions at their own level. The concept of intellectual debate is for the birds. The only hope it seems for the left (as represented by Starmer)  is a tepid incrementalism which always says this is where we are, work with it. Two steps forward in this scenario is usually followed by three steps back. The fundamentals aren’t changed. This is the quintessential core of the type of conservative thinking known as ‘centrism’ which is ineluctably drawing the human race into the disaster zone.