Many of those who campaigned against the UK leaving the European Union accused the 'Leave' campaign of pursuing 'populist' ideas. 'Populism' was identified with some sort of evil and underhand way of appealing to the people through the promotion of policies which, while popular, were fundamentally unfair and wrong. Similar criticism was levelled at the campaign of Marine Le Pen in the French Presidential election.
However, as we get into the nitty-gritty of our General Election campaigns, popularity seems to be what it's all about. Theresa May seems to be popular while Jeremy Corbyn is not and, consequently, the Conservatives are miles ahead in the opinion polls. The Labour Party Manifesto, due to be published next week but leaked yesterday, appears to be utterly populist, full of policies designed to appeal to particular groups in society. Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have been putting forward their own 'populist' policies, be they on energy prices, public service investment, welfare, paternity leave or whatever else they can dream up.
Obviously, political parties need to have a degree of popularity in order to win elections and they all appeal to voters with a range of relevant policies designed to appeal to their own supporters and, hopefully, some others as well. Why then was 'populism' so derided by the likes of Nick Clegg, an arch-Europhile, when his side lost the EU referendum ? Might it have been nothing more than a case of sour grapes ?
Surely not !
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