Politics has long been a balancing act between idealism and pragmatism. But in today’s Britain – where the economic books don’t balance, the planet is burning, and our global alliances feel increasingly brittle – the space for both pragmatism and popularity seems to be shrinking fast.
The gravest problems we face aren’t the kind that yield to three-word slogans or viral soundbites. They’re messy, structural, and cumulative – decades in the making. We have a national debt pile that must be serviced even as tax receipts stagnate and public services strain. We’re caught between the competing demands of a world that wants Britain to spend more on defence while our own people can’t see a dentist. And climate change, that quiet background hum of doom, is not waiting politely for the next election cycle.
Yet, for years, politics has rewarded wishful thinking. Each new leader has arrived promising painless solutions – growth without investment, sovereignty without cost, security without spending. We’ve treated governing like a marketing exercise, not an exercise in national renewal. As we recently noted in our piece on unpopulism, there is something refreshingly honest about politicians who refuse to pretend that the big problems can simply be wished away. The truly responsible position today might be the unpopular one.
For all his populist credentials, even Nigel Farage seems to be bumping up against this reality. As reports in The Telegraph this week suggest, the Reform UK leader – now taken seriously as a potential prime minister – is learning that slogans don’t balance budgets. The closer he edges to power, the more he’s forced to confront the unyielding arithmetic of governing: businesses need confidence, markets need stability, and growth doesn’t materialise from anti-establishment fervour alone.
If Farage is discovering that the economics of rebellion differ from the economics of responsibility, he’s not alone. Every major political party in Britain is quietly wrestling with the same dilemma: the need to tell voters that there are no easy answers. We cannot keep borrowing indefinitely to paper over low productivity. We cannot cut taxes, fund the NHS, and build a green economy without making hard choices. We cannot shout “Britain First” while divorcing ourselves from our largest trading partner and expect to remain prosperous.
When you pollute the planet, disengage from your nearest markets, and allow wealth to pool in the hands of a few, there is an inevitable reckoning. Someone, eventually, has to pick up the tab. The politics of magical thinking has delayed that moment, but it cannot avoid it. The only question is whether we will face it honestly – or whether we’ll keep pretending there’s another rabbit waiting in the hat.
Being pragmatic shouldn’t be political suicide. The next generation of leaders, whoever they are, will have to find a way to make realism resonate. Voters deserve to be treated as adults, not customers. The most radical act in modern British politics might not be to promise the impossible, but to level with people about what is required to make the country work again.
Pragmatism and popularity are not necessarily incompatible, but they require trust – and trust has been squandered. To regain it, politicians must rediscover the courage to be “unpopular” in the short term in order to be sustainable in the long term. Britain doesn’t need another messiah with a catchphrase. It needs a leader willing to tell the truth: that the bills have come due, and the only way forward is through.