I have always suspected that the Left-Right political spectrum is not a straight line, but a circle. One eventually leads to the other – and for various reasons.

The current debate is about free trade. Free market advocates (not least our ‘Global Britain’ deluded Brexiteers) lobby for open markets and unfettered free trade. But it has been clear for some time that while unfettered markets and open free trade probably increase wealth in the aggregate, the distributional effects are substantial. Wealth continues to accumulate at the top in developed countries and, increasingly, in emerging markets too.

International institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank – which have become bastions of neo-liberal economic dogma – have recognized this. Their recipe is greater in-country government transfers through the tax and welfare system.

So here we are. Let’s open markets and let them do their work. And then let’s deal with the consequences with high taxation and re-distribution. The perfect circle of Right and Left ideologies.

More about all this in our upcoming book: BACKLASH: Saving globalisation from itself

This is one of the many reasons why the radical centre rejects the Right-Left mantra. Neither of them work in today’s world. We need to break out of stagnant approaches and rejuvenate our systems.

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