There’s a contradiction in Reform UK’s policies. They declare they want to “stop the boats” and deport illegal immigrants. If they achieve power, they will exempt Britain from international agreements that hamper that aim.
Many suspect that they’d go much further. Yet at the same time, they state on their website that British culture is built upon Christian values and that these will be “protected and celebrated”.
It’s not obvious how being heartless to those trying to enter Britain, many of whom are fleeing hardship and persecution abroad, is consistent with the New Testament commandment “love thy neighbour” (unless you’re a literalist about “neighbour”). Christian charity is about helping those in need. But Reform cites the cliche “charity begins at home”.
If Reform gets its way, overseas aid will be cut by £30bn. That would cause immense, imaginable suffering – and would be short-sighted too. Perhaps Reform should just ditch the pretence that its approach is consistent with Christianity altogether. The same might be said of Donald Trump’s MAGA brand of Republicanism.
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Reform is a nationalist party, and nationalism is a stance that requires demarcation. It is intrinsically divisive and binary. Anyone adopting it needs to be able to distinguish who “we” are and who “they” are to police its perimeter. In its more benign forms, nationalism involves holding on to local traditions and championing particular historical narratives; in its nastier manifestations, it’s a way to create scapegoats.
Nationalists might respond that they’re only asserting the sovereignty of their nation-state and the rights of citizens to determine what happens within its borders. That’s nationalism in its most abstract form.
But this often tips over into xenophobia, fuelling racism. Fear quickly morphs into hatred. This is the direction in which populist nationalism so often travels, and the worst populist leaders play on this. Patriotism and unaggressive love of one’s country is one thing; a dismissal of the interests of everyone deemed foreign quite another.
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“They” become the problem and need to be encouraged to leave. “They” don’t belong here, because they’re not us. And because “they” are not us and are lesser, we can do anything we like to them: they don’t deserve the same consideration as members of our tribe.
A political party that does little or nothing to curb descent down this slippery slope towards dehumanisation, or even encourages it, can end up being responsible for violence. This descent is not inevitable. Now is the time to dig our heels in, before it’s too late.
In philosophy, there has been a strong tradition of cosmopolitanism that opposes political nationalism. This stretches back to Diogenes’ declaration that he was a citizen of the world, not of a city-state (ironically, he is usually known as Diogenes of Sinope to distinguish him from another famous Diogenes, Diogenes Laertius). In the 20th century, Bertrand Russell continued that tradition when he declared political nationalism a harmful superstition.
Russell questioned why emphasising one’s own nation’s merits should be thought a virtue since we wouldn’t say the same about an individual who claimed moral and intellectual superiority over everyone else, and who believed he or she had a right to ignore everyone else’s interests.
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Russell’s deepest fear was that humanity might destroy itself with nuclear weapons. Nationalism in its worst forms could trigger that. That possibility hasn’t gone away, even though the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that Russell helped found has a significantly lower profile now.
Cosmopolitans emphasise common humanity and our consequent duties to one another which, they (OK, we) believe, extend far beyond national borders. It’s a view that is consistent with the Christian belief that we are all equal before God, and with mainstream views about the appropriate extent of Christian charity.
In philosophy, cosmopolitanism is largely secular, however. Cosmopolitanism emphasises the importance of every human being’s interests and builds on the best aspects of cultural nationalism. It recognises what one contemporary cosmopolitan, Kwame Anthony Appiah, has called “universality plus difference”.
We should never lose sight of our duties to one another as human beings, but at the same time can still recognise the value of localised traditions. That is a very long way from the nationalism that seeks to turn people against one another and makes foreigners our enemies.
