ABSTRACT
In this chapter, it is argued that political parties – even oppositional ones – refer to a State, which, as has already been explained, does not ultimately exist. From this it is deduced that populism as such can never coincide with a political party. Nevertheless, it must be added that it is not impossible for populists to collaborate with political parties, exclusively on ‘tactical’ grounds (and partly as an effect of their imaginary status), on condition that they never identify directly with such parties. In this context, the Lacanian distinction between the imaginary and the real is mobilised. An empirical example is here used to demonstrate the point, namely the Labour Party in Britain and its populist phase under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, from 2015 to 2019.
