Centrist politics will not defeat Boris Johnson’s rightwing populism | Chantal Mouffe

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Democratic politics always involves ‘us’ against ‘them’ – so the way to fight the populist right is to build a bigger ‘us’

In his determination to deliver Brexit “do or die”, Boris Johnson is planning to launch an election campaign that will pit “the people” against “parliament”. He promises to take sovereignty back from the political elites – and return it to “the people”. The announcement of these tactics has caused alarm among those who fear democracy will be threatened by a “populist” politics of polarisation between “us” and “them”.

But this fear of populism reveals something troubling about how we currently understand democratic politics. What most people seem to find shocking about Johnson’s strategy is that it involves an “us v them” confrontation – as if democratic politics could avoid conflict between irreconcilable political projects.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2msAoRC

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