It is still possible that the left will rise to the historical challenges that define the present. However, our rather dour conclusion is that it will not. All indications suggest that the mainstream left maintains a deep but often disavowed commitment to the present status quo. Across the West, it will be either the centrists or the mainstream right who will set the course for deglobalisation and the energy transition. The primacy of neoliberal thinking will continue, and everyday people will continue to suffer as a result. The influence of the liberal left may continue to be felt in some aspects of our cultural life and in a number of key institutions, but even here little is guaranteed. It seems likely that key figures in the vaguely composed field of ‘identity politics’ will move seamlessly into the sub-dominant elite tasked with administering the social system on behalf of the corporate and banking elites that are the true locus of entrenched privilege and power. In the absence of an informed, serious and ambitious left, animosity and conflict on the cultural field will continue to grow. The left today displays no desire to build a new economy in which all citizens are included by right, no drive to dispense with the diverse insecurities which weigh so heavily upon our present way of life, and no capacity to bond all citizens together in a project of political renewal and mutual betterment.

In the recent 2022 French presidential election, a deeply dispiriting battle took place between Macron’s unabashed neoliberal centrism and Le Pen’s updated right-wing nationalism. Macron’s victory, of course, failed to yield any sense that a majority of the French population are behind his depressingly familiar policy programme. Instead, the core message of the election was that the majority are not yet ready to countenance Le Pen as president. In the United States, Biden’s popularity has nosedived, and the prospect of another divisive election between Trump and whichever dispiritingly cautious neoliberal candidate emerges from within the Democratic Party draws nearer. In Britain, hope springs eternal as Labour has taken a slight lead in the polls.