Roy Jenkins and the Politics of Radical Moderation

In light of the frequent contention, amidst Brexit and associated populism, that British politics needs to become both ideologically ‘bolder’, and better connected with a neglected public, the seemingly archetypally elitist centrist Roy Jenkins may seem a curiously outmoded subject. This assumption appears shared by historians, who have neglected him. However, this article suggests that if Jenkins was indeed a self‐described ‘moderate’, like many British so‐called moderates, he saw that very moderation as underpinning a progressive, and indeed in its way radical, vision. In particular, Jenkins argued that by synthesizing objectives sometimes seen as conflicting – social equality with individual freedom, the relief of poverty with the fostering of affluence – one achieved more socially transformative outcomes than through pronounced ideological conflict. He illuminates the achievements of this ‘radical centre’ in British politics, and the unresolved, yet still pertinent, dilemmas of the ideological balances it sought. The article also challenges Jenkins's status as the epitome of a disconnected British elite. He had, in fact, much to say about the importance of ordinary people in shaping political and social progress. He was also often sophisticated in perceiving the citizenry's complex mix of progressivism and conservatism, engagement and drift, a mix he displayed himself. Instead, then, of the presently fashionable narrative of elite politicians betraying a virtuous, disillusioned mass, Jenkins's case points to a more connected relationship between leaders and led, in their often shared collection of national vices, yet also virtues. Here, the country's problems, and the means to their solution, then as now, lie in a complex, collective ‘us’, not in a singular malign ‘Other’.