The Left Reflects on the Global Pandemic: Hilary Wainwright

The United Kingdom has had a poor record in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Hilary Wainwright attributes this to two factors in particular: Firstly, the arrogance of Boris Johnson, who was very late to recognise the seriousness of the disease and implement a lockdown, and secondly, the unpreparedness of the UK’s health system. In fact, Britain under Johnson shares these two characteristics with the United States under Trump, which helps explain why the coronavirus pandemic has hit both of these countries so hard.

In the fifth edition of our podcast series, Wainwright criticizes the mainstream discourse, that the pandemic is in some way making all people equal. During the lockdown, for example, inequality among UK citizens was striking. Workers and the working class are far more exposed to the virus, especially in large cities such as London. They live in small apartments located in densely populated areas. They shop in crowded supermarkets, without being able to take adequate protective measures. Many of them – particularly the more precarious – had to continue to travel to work, mostly using the highly congested underground. The situation was completely different for more affluent people living in middle-class areas.

Wainwright goes on to discuss, how the overwhelming issue of the pandemic, has left no space for debates regarding Brexit, neither in the general population nor within Labour. Despite its defeat in the election of Labour leadership, the Labour left (such as Corbyn, McDonell, Momentum, and The World Transformed) remained very active, intervening in the public arena with programmatic proposals for the post-coronavirus era.

At the same time, Wainwright describes how people are open to militant and radical ideas due to the crisis. This includes: State interventions in the economy, with the goal of meeting the needs of the people and rather than the goals of markets. The need to increase the funding of the NHS and of the rail system, together with the reduction of air travel, and the search for more ecological forms of transportation. She hopes that the movements, the trade-unions and the left will be more successful in dealing with the impending deep recession than they were during 2008 crisis, where the response came at the expense of the working people and to the benefit of banks.

Hilary Wainwright, British sociologist, political activist and socialist feminist. She is the editor of Red Pepper magazine. Her numerous books include Public Service Reform: But Not As We Know It!, Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy, and Arguments for a New Left: Answering the Free Market Right. Wainwright is research fellow of the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam).

interviewed by
Haris Golemis, Greek economist and political activist, former member of the Political Secretariat and the Central Committee of Syriza and former director of the Nicos Poulantzas Institute. He is now Scientific and Strategic Advisor to the Board of transform! europe, and Chief Editor of the transform! Yearbook.
moderated by
Angelina Giannopoulou, facilitator of transform! europe

transform! europe, the European network of political foundations and thinks tanks of the radical left, presents a series of interviews with left-wing thinkers to discuss these crucial issues and plan for the future we want to build.