Maurice, Baron Glasman is a political theorist, academic, social commentator, and Labour life peer, best known as a founder of Blue Labour. He is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at London Metropolitan University, Director of its Faith and Citizenship Programme and a columnist for the New Statesman, Unherd, The Tablet and Spiked.

 

We are moving from an era of contract, of globalisation, of the rule of lawyers, into an era of restoration, of the nation state and of covenant: an age of borders and belonging, of solidarity rather than diversity, of weapons production rather than TV production – a time when the working class have found their voice once more and will not be stilled.

Pope Francis said in a rare moment of clarity that we are not living through an era of change but a change of era. About this he was profoundly correct. I attended the inauguration of President Trump last January and that confirmed my suspicion that the old era of progressive globalisation, mercilessly initiated by Margaret Thatcher and immaculately consummated by Tony Blair, in which markets are good, privatisation is good, free movement of everything all the time is very good, when mass immigration is good, not only for the economy but for all of us because diversity is good… all of that is over. The era initiated by the Brexit referendum is now in full swing. We have already witnessed a government, and possibly an entire great political party, grievously wounded by its inability to grasp the meaning of sovereignty and the possibilities of Brexit. The wound is grievous; it could yet be fatal. The same is true of this Labour government. If it cannot move from the contractual to the covenantal, it will suffer the same fate.

Sovereignty and Globalism, Covenant and Contract

During a change of era, concepts that were considered redundant or outdated take on a new relevance. One example was sovereignty, which was considered obsolete in the era of globalisation, but which had a durable power to influence and frame political debate during the Brexit referendum, and is now perhaps the central dividing line of politics. I divide the world between ‘sovereigntists’ and globalists, between common law and human rights.

Similarly, another concept that was considered antiquated and irrelevant, but which will play a central role in shaping the new era, is that of Covenant, which should displace contract as the primary way of conceptualising the difficulties faced by our society, in order to frame a new settlement that will overcome the underlying weaknesses in our economy and politics, and which any government must address if it is to be successful.

A covenant is a binding agreement that establishes a partnership between generations, interests and regions. It establishes legitimate and sovereign institutions which reinforce and uphold the obligations and benefits of Covenant across time and space. It binds people into a society built around the common good.

As a partnership that endures over time, no one part of the covenantal compact is sovereign: each part is essential for its functioning, being based on mutual respect and shared benefits in the form of power, responsibility and accountability.

It is not difficult to understand the power of Covenant in our polity. We are a hybrid nation, part contractual, part covenantal. For example, Parliament is a covenantal institution that is intergenerational, composed of representatives from different regions and interests. Its laws are binding unless repealed. The fuss around the Henry VIII Laws, for instance, is an indication of this. The Monarchy is covenantal and, indeed, the King as Head of State rules in Parliament, which is the source of both executive and legislative authority. The Bishops sit within it, as do the Law Lords, who, with the Attorney General, uphold the authority of the Common Law, which is also a covenantal inheritance and underwrites the authority and legitimacy of the law. We are an ancient country that is bound by ancient institutions. The old universities, self-governing corporations committed to the pursuit of knowledge, were once part of that covenant, as were the Church of England and the City of London: they are a plurality of institutions committed to the common good of the nation with specialist roles within it.

 

Covenant-Based Politics, Contract-Based Economy

Whereas our politics are covenantal, our economy is contractual. When the logic of a market economy has been injected into the rest of society, it continuously undermines the covenantal bonds: witness how the Prime Minister recently spoke of ‘an island of strangers’, an oddly evocative remark for such a prosaic man.

Due to the primacy of contract as a way of distributing power and authority, a very big problem has developed within our economy and society, which has now become a political problem. With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the sovereign prerogative was given to capital alone to decide on matters of strategy and investment within the economy, and this led to the degradation of work and labour – the commodification of the human being, the desecration of Creation. People felt a sense of humiliation and abandonment, which led to a polarised politics and despair.

The relationship between contract and capital has led to the domination of one part of society over another through concentration of ownership, and that is harmful for a society in the covenantal tradition. It has led to the explosion of debt, both personal and public, which is hostile to mutual dependence and leads to domination. It leads to an obscuring of the idea that we are stewards of our natural inheritance, not its owners. Covenant, by contrast, binds people in mutual obligation to the flourishing of our natural environment.

Trusts could be an existing way of conceptualising the covenantal approach to upholding the internal good of our environment, rather than its external value in the form of money. If forests, rivers and parks are endowed in the form of trusts to the care of local communities then the natural environment can be bound within the covenantal framework. If trusts were to be established for our utilities, they would offer an alternative to nationalisation or privatisation for the organising of utilities.

In practical terms, this means that capital would be required to build alliances with others, to negotiate a new settlement in which capital is important but not dominant. The changes in politics in recent years means that it needs to build coalitions with other businesses, with government and with society as equal partners in the covenantal coalition.

Capital is in some sense a shared inheritance that includes the labour and contribution of previous generations in the development of value. It is, however, fungible and privately owned and in its permanent demand for higher and quicker returns would feel constrained and limited by the obligations that Covenant demands. Capital can easily move out of relationships and start to exploit people and planet. It is a source of dynamism and value – but also of disruption and desecration. A clear example is its relationship to the elements of Creation itself, human beings and nature, which it considers as factors of production, to be used exclusively in the service of profit. In contrast, Covenant, by upholding a partnership through time, can ensure that the status and dignity of labour is upheld and the integrity of our natural environment preserved.

The covenant is built around the distinction between dependence and domination. We are all, by our nature, dependent on other people and our natural environment for our life and wellbeing. We are dependent on the fulfilment of mutual obligations and the honesty of the work of others.

Contract allows for the asymmetries of power to be reproduced and for the exclusion of the concerns of others to be upheld. Covenant, on the other hand, addresses the inequalities of power that contract upholds. It seeks to avoid the domination of any one part of society, of the economy, over other parts. This requires a new institutional settlement built around the idea of the common good, that we all benefit from the beneficial constraints that Covenant provides.

How Covenant Works For Us

Labour is in a mess and has lost the affections of its heartland voters. It is confused as to how to respond. It has little conception of how to build a winning coalition. It seems incapable of articulating what is wrong, how to change it or to speak in a language that resonates with voters.

The idea of Covenant can provide an organising principle of national restoration.

A covenant is a binding commitment to reconcile estranged interests in a decentralised institutional settlement that has multiple constituent elements:

• It is inter-generational, linking the past to the future, the old to the young, within the framework of shared institutions.
• It builds in debt relief and forgiveness in the form of relational obligations. Debt relief for small business can be tied to support for vocational colleges, union recognition and a living wage.
• The land is a partner and thus enables us to conceptualise nature, not as a commodity, but as an inheritance.
• It allows for the conceptualisation of labour, not as a commodity, but as a partner in vocational education and the governance of the firm.
• It brings together different tribes within the framework of strong local government and new institutions.
• It moves attention from projects to a durable political settlement.
• It addresses the fundamental problem of the loss of assets and institutions in the regions, particularly the small towns of Labour’s heartlands.
• It identifies the core problem as that of exclusion, abandonment and inequality and seeks to right that wrong through the endowment of assets and institutions. The most important of these are local banks and vocational colleges, within a framework of civic renewal as the driver of national renewal.

In summary, Covenant speaks to a durable new settlement within which place, participation and work play a fundamental role.