Senior Research Seminar with Dr Soumhya Venkatesan (University of Manchester)

Dr Soumhya Venkatesan (University of Manchester)

Invocations of freedom and the creation of right-wing publics in England

Isaiah Berlin remarks that ‘almost every moralist in history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems to be able to resist.’ I draw on fieldwork with an English campaign organisation which brings together self-identified right-wingers who partially share political, social and economic views that are understood as constituting or promoting freedom. A key activity is the identification of specific freedoms as under threat and needing protection, by extension then protecting freedom itself. This kind of ongoing activity generates a freedom-loving public who identify with and populate a shared discourse and are willing to act together to promote commonly agreed goals  - e.g. Brexit, lower taxes, a smaller state and the preservation and enhancement of specific individual liberties. However, some freedoms identified as under threat can simply fail to gather sufficient publics even among well-disposed folk, who may then dissipate unless a fresh freedom cause is found. I argue that a focus on publics offers a much more dynamic understanding of political activism than is grasped by the more fixed language of ‘communities’ or ‘groups’. It also enables a more granular differentiation of different kinds of actors in the right-wing landscape.