But before then, in January 2015, Greece ’s Syriza, a coalition of previously insignificant left-wing groups, would win the most seats in that country’s general election. After agreeing to be the senior partner in a wider coalition they formed a government, becoming the first party of the radical left to do so in a Western democracy since the Second World War. This fed hopes of a deal between Greece and the ‘Troika’ of the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the terms of their coming bailout deal that summer. In due course Syriza campaigned for an ‘Oxi’ vote, defying the conditions proposed by the Troika. To widespread amazement, oxi – no in Greek – won by a landslide. While the Troika would refuse to change their stance in the negotiations that followed, and the Greek government capitulated to their terms, a new reality had emerged: the corridors of power were no longer insulated from mass protest in the streets.
In Britain, meanwhile, the Conservative Party won its first majority since 1992 as the right-wing UKIP attracted almost 4 million votes and the Scottish National Party took an astonishing forty seats from Labour in Scotland. A few months later, Jeremy Corbyn, who began his outsider bid at odds of 200–1, became Leader of the Labour Party – his supporters certain he could be powered by the same wave that had taken the likes of Syriza and Podemos so far in such a short space of time.
It was 2016 which proved to be the decisive year, however, as a crisis that started eight years earlier found its most potent political expressions. In June, Britain voted to leave the European Union with more people voting in the ‘Brexit’ referendum than any previous vote held in the country. That appeared to be a pivotal moment, with right-wing populism seeming to capture an increasingly clear hostility to governing elites. As Nigel Farage, a figurehead for the Brexit movement, triumphantly declared on the night, ‘This is a victory for ordinary people, for good people, for decent people … the people who’ve had enough of the merchant bankers.’
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chaos under heaven