Rafe Fletcher is the founder of CWG.
No human is illegal and protecting pensioners who have worked hard and done the right thing are appeals to quite different political vibes.
But Zack Polanski and Robert Jenrick have more in common than they think. The Green Party leader and Reform MP invoke group justice, instead of fairness, to rally their voting blocs.
Is it fair that opportunists on boats are housed, fed and paid?
Not to those who apply dutifully for visas and work to provide for their households. Is it fair that triple lock guarantees mean state pensions have risen 14 per cent more than wages since 2011? Probably not to those funding it while facing record taxation and a house price to income ratio that has doubled since 1990.
I’m not drawing an equivalence. But when Jenrick and Polanski make these claims, group justice obscures fairness. Because justice, in its legal context, necessarily pertains to the individual. Criminal convictions require proof beyond reasonable doubt. One contradictory piece of evidence in an otherwise cogent case means a just jury should find the defendant not guilty.
But identity-based justice, particularly where it concerns government finances, is a road to ruin. Britain can’t cut anything because a single contradiction invalidates the whole case. One genuine asylum seeker or hard-up pensioner means benefits must be extended to the lot.
The result is an electorate of conflicting identity interests. Parties proffer entitlements to different groups, rather than offering any vision for the country. It’s why the right still flounders amongst the young, defeating my earlier optimism that it could find fertile ground here.
Reform once threatened to take the baton from Argentina – where Milei won 70 per cent of the vote amongst under-24s – or European neighbours where right-wing movements poll strongly with the same demographic. Instead, its commitment to the triple lock shows the party parking its tank on the Conservatives’ geriatric lawn as it fights to be party of the right.
It’s disappointing but undeniably pragmatic. As Miriam Cates outlined recently on this site, the youth wave has not permeated British politics. YouGov’s January polling has Reform on 35 per cent and the Conservatives on 27 per cent amongst over 60s. Amongst under 30s, Reform and the Conservatives are both at 10 per cent.
If either party abandons the triple lock, they risk ceding ground to the other in their most reliable demographic.
The prospect of compensation from younger voters is small.
Lord Ashcroft’s February polling suggests they are not that bothered by the triple lock. 40 per cent of 18-24s support keeping it with just 8 per cent saying it should definitely be abolished. In other words, while young people may resent the older generation for their social views – the language of OK Boomer or Gammon – they accept the moral premise of group justice. Every group is entitled to its share from the state.
I look at the recent episode of Owen Jones, one of the many Corbyn to Polanski converts, challenging a caller, Steve from Essex. Steve phoned in to complain about the generous discounts for Universal Credit claimants receive at London’s tourist attractions. Jones shuts down Steve’s concerns, telling him that taking money out of other people’s pockets won’t make his life any better.
Steve and Jones are talking past each other because the former speaks to fairness and the latter to justice. Steve doesn’t think it’s fair that some struggle to get by on a working income while the seemingly indolent enjoy subsidised £2 trips to Westminster Abbey. But Jones believes living on benefits is an equally valid identity. One example of a worthy claimant entitles the whole group to such a life.
Jenrick’s triple lock defence speaks that same language. Reform may not indulge the benefits class but in making its own OAP target automatically deserving, regardless of circumstance, the party prioritises identity in the same way. The 65-year-old claiming PIP is lazy but a year later, he or she is a deserving pensioner.
Britain must make policy based on fairness, within a framework of trade-offs, rather than on abstract moral claims to justice. An easy diagnosis. A harder cure. As always, I’m obliged to look to Singapore for potential lessons.
One is that bad times guard against complacency. Singapore’s prosperity is recent. Its GDP per capita is twice that of Britain today but was four times lower in 1965. Poverty is still a recent memory for many Singaporeans. Remembering wealth as hard-won engenders the discipline to endure trade-offs. Maybe Britain needs that reminder. The sort Milei profited from in Argentina, as a new nadir forced difficult choices.
Two is creating a common lived experience. Identity politics thrives upon the concept when it posits that others cannot understand what I experience as part of a group. Singapore disputes this and strives for common pathways. My firm, Coulthwaite Group, is working with the government to establish a new careers festival here. Ministers want us to focus not just on youth employment but finding opportunities for disabled and older workers. These disadvantaged segments still receive certain subsidies, but Singapore wants them engaged in the workforce. It prevents their division into a distinct group.
The third and final lesson persists in Singapore’s personalised safety nets. Unlike National Insurance, workers’ CPF contributions stay in allocated pots. In retirement, people draw upon these protected savings, rather than a common pool that the government is free to redistribute. Group justice cannot dictate who gets what.
Lessons that must always be qualified by Singapore’s unique governance. Conservative influencers approvingly shared a clip of Lee Kuan Yew last week. There, he states that leaders shouldn’t be swayed by opinion polls but actively try to change opinion. Easier done when the country’s governing PAP has such a tight grip on power.
Without that assurance, the Conservatives and Reform would argue they’re doing the best they can within a system that has imbibed identity politics. Better, they might say, to be in power making on the back of irresponsible promises to older clients than not at all. Especially if the alternative is Polanski re-distributing from the revived magic money tree.
But if Britain is to thrive again, the right cannot be complicit in its identity politics. It must argue that the state cannot resolve every grievance. That means setting out objective facts that are relevant to all. That working must pay better than not. That everyone must bear some responsibility for their own finances. That Britain is not simply the amalgamation of different identities.
If Britain wants to arrest its malaise without the jerk of a fiscal shock, it needs to stop talking about justice. And lay out what is fair.