Centre Must Hold (eBook)

INTRODUCTION

Yair Zivan

On the evening of 13 June 2021, a new Israeli government held its first meeting in one of the nondescript committee rooms in parliament. A few hours earlier a coalition made up of eight political parties had been confirmed by Israel’s parliament with the slimmest of majorities. Sitting in that room waiting for the photographers to take a few final shots, as the two leaders of the new government shared a joke, it was impossible not to be struck by the diversity of the ministers around the table – from the progressive left to the nationalist right and including Israel’s first Arab party in a governing coalition. But the heart of that coalition ran through the political centre. Not only was the largest party in the coalition a true centrist one – Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid – but the ethos of the coalition was quintessentially centrist. I served as senior advisor to Yair Lapid in his role as foreign minister and prime minister, and the next eighteen months gave me a front-row seat to how a centrist-inspired government can work.

Our government did much to be proud of during that time and had an extensive list of successes across a whole variety of fields – but ultimately its political diversity, which was almost unprecedented in global politics, proved to be its downfall. The fringes of the coalition, from the left and the right, tore the fragile partnership apart and the centre was not strong enough to prevent it. While the key players were consistently willing to compromise and cooperate, the political fringes, under pressure from the extremes on their side, ultimately resorted to ‘all-ornothing’ politics. That left us all with nothing. At the end of December 2022, I watched from afar as a new government was sworn in to replace us. It was by far the most right-wing and conservative coalition ever elected in Israel – and its divisive actions and policies led to one of the most disastrous years in the country’s history.

The experiences of those eighteen months, one of the great political experiments of modern times, and the centrist leadership I saw up close as we met with counterparts from all over the world led to the conception of this book. It is an attempt not only to explain what centrism really is but to lay out the positive vision it has for the world, to see if it can answer the questions being asked of political leaders in the twenty-first century and, critically, to assess if it is strong enough to stand up to the threat coming from the political extremes. I met some of the contributors to this book during my years working in politics, while others simply share a deep commitment to the centrist idea. Each has written about their own area of expertise or passion; each brings a unique perspective.

Centrism is based upon a clear set of ideals and principles: the importance of moderation and pragmatism; the embrace of complexity; the deep commitment to liberal democracy; the belief in equality of opportunity, and that through balancing the tensions that exist in every nation we can make people’s lives better. The first section of the book explores these ideas and the roots of centrism, and gets to work dealing head on with the challenges it faces; the second looks at some of the biggest issues confronting society today; the third shows how centrism can provide answers to specific policy areas; the fourth demonstrates how centrism works, with examples from across the world; and the fifth offers a path forward for the future.

I entered government a committed centrist and left with a conviction deeper than ever that centrism can provide the answers to the challenges of our time; it is the antidote to the extremism and sustained attacks on liberal democracy that are sweeping much of the democratic world. But for that to happen we first have work to do.

Gallons of ink have been spilled on the crisis of democracy, the divisions within society, the spread of misinformation and the rise of extremism. Some of that is undoubtedly true, some is exaggerated. The populist right, for example, is clearly rising across much of Europe, visible in many election results, while a populist left discourse dominates on campuses and in academia.

Resentment, anger and despondence all drive populist sentiment. People who feel a sense of loss for a world that once was and fear the world that is coming are drawn to politicians who offer simplistic solutions, especially if no one else is willing to take those valid fears seriously. Populists can neatly reduce any issue to two basic messages: the solution is always straightforward and failure is always someone’s fault. There is no problem that can’t be solved by a tweet or a five-word slogan. Populists always have an easy, if ultimately unworkable, answer. If the problem is rapid technological change, they’ll take us back to the glory days. If it’s overpowerful elites, they’ll smash the system. If it’s inequality, they’ll bring down capitalism. If it’s globalisation, they’ll close the borders. And whatever you’re angry or fearful about, they will always find you someone to blame. Populism, at its core, is the attempt to divide society into two easily distinguishable groups. Often it’s the ‘real’ people vs those working against them in some way, whether that’s the elites, the deep state, newcomers or outsiders. Or sometimes it’s the oppressed and oppressor, in which the latter is always attempting to subjugate the former, based on race, ethnicity, gender or economic status. The individual doesn’t count, only their identity classification. Whatever form populism appears in, this divisive approach leaves no room for nuance, context or complexity. There is no room for introspection, for debate, or for self-criticism.

That is why populism goes hand in hand with political extremism, dividing us and preventing us from finding any common ground. Extremists want us to believe that compromise is never necessary, that it is a symbol of weakness and failure. They too always have a simple solution to all the problems of society – total commitment to their ideology. When they fail to deliver on their promises, it isn’t due to faults within their ideology but because people failed to embrace it fully enough, usually blamed on some imagined moment of weakness in which compromises were made that supposedly undermined the purity of the ideology.

But what if those people who guarantee easy solutions to complex issues – who seek to exploit genuine economic difficulty and sincere cultural fears – are the problem? What if we’re not as divided as they want us to believe? What if, in fact, many of us are eager to inhabit a political centre ground?

Not only do the populists and extremists fail to offer real solutions, they’ve become one of the foremost problems: an obstacle we must overcome to move our countries in a healthier direction. It’s not enough to brand them as irresponsible or racist or anti-democratic, although they may be all those things. Someone has to offer a better alternative. That alternative can’t come from another brand of extremism or a different strain of populism, it must come from the centre. It is the centre which offers the antidote to the politics of intransigence and inflexibility; it is the centre which can counter the messages of despair and divisiveness.

In his first victory speech, French President Emmanuel Macron said, ‘I will do everything to make sure you never have reason again to vote for extremes.’ That should be a rallying cry for centrists because it’s aimed at us. It’s not a criticism of the extremists and it’s certainly not a criticism of the public – it’s a challenge to centrists to do more to give the people a clear alternative and connect with their genuine, well-founded fears about the future.

Centrism, as envisaged in the pages of this book, is not the middle point between two ever more extreme tribes on the left and right. Centrism, when properly articulated and implemented, sets the agenda that others must respond to and so becomes a driving focal point of politics. But something has been missing from the centrist message. If the great challenge to democracies today is the emotional pull of populism and the way in which it is amplified by sections of the media and the algorithms of social media, then centrists must find a way to break through with an emotional appeal of their own. There are good reasons for people to be concerned about the impact of AI on the future of their jobs or for their despair at stagnating wages while the cost of living rises. Centrists must show genuine compassion and understanding of the anxiety that large swathes of the public feel and then offer a better path forward.

We will never beat the extremists at their own game, nor should we ever seek to. If illiberal extremists drive the agenda with fear, then liberal centrists must do the opposite. One of the major effects of fear-driven politics is that it destroys trust in public institutions and poisons the public sphere. It creates what political scientist Lee Drutman of the New America Foundation calls the ‘cynicism and mistrust doom loop’. He summarised it in his newsletter, Undercurrent Events, in September 2023 as follows: ‘muddling authority thus undermines authority. This distrust fuels cynicism. Cynicism drives both demand for and consumption of misinformation.’ This cycle only serves to strengthen the extremes and weaken moderate liberal centrists. It is why centrists must lead the fight to preserve...