This week in the Portuguese elections, the far right surged to 18% of the vote while the two main parties collapsed to around 25% each. This is now a pattern across western democracies. The collapse in support of the centre left and centre right and the rise of the populist left and right forces. At the moment, the momentum is with the radical right. 

The conventional wisdom of the liberal political class, as shown in endless opinion articles, is that the centre right and left have to, in various unspecified ways, get their act together and stop the rise of the extremes. “Will Europe ever learn?”, one Guardian article writes. What does that actually mean apart from a vague appeal for people to be nice? 

It is vague because there is, in fact, no effective structural response to the rise of the political outsiders. Both the centre right and centre left are ideologically committed to an international neo-liberal regime that systematically undermines the incomes and the identities of the majority. This international regime has also shown itself incapable of fulfilling its first political duty: to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people. The elites pouring more carbon in the air will now take us over 2C.

In other words, it is impossible for these political forces, both ideologically and structurally, to respond to what is objectively the most extreme political project in human history – the destruction of the biosphere for private commercial gain. 

The reason people are turning to the “extreme” left and right is because the centre – the existing political system – is beyond “extreme” itself. It is literally taking us to hell whilst lying and insulting our intelligence along the way – “1.5C is still possible” they claim. Not a good strategy to make friends and influence people!

The question now is which impossible options remain – the take over of western democracies by demagogic right or left wing forces – or a renewal of democracy by a new revolutionary movement which forces changes in constitutions to give legislative power to citizens assemblies based upon sortition and informed deliberation.

I’m opting for the latter impossibility.