Is it okay not to add "and"?

Question

Pro-Europeans, sensible pragmatists, people who had earned respect across parliament, abase themselves. 

(link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/09/boris-johnson-tories-europeans-parliament)

I think "add" should be inserted between "pragmatists and people" as in "Pro-europeans, sensible pragmatists, and people who had..."

Is it okay not to add "and" ?

Or, perhaps,  "people" is referring to "sensible pragmatists" and "sensible pragmatists" is referring to "pro-europeans" appositively?

Answer 1

This is simply journalese, where omitting words when the meaning can still be grasped is common. In fact what the question quotes is a headline, where this tendency is even more marked. Much the same phrase appe3ars in the body of the article:

Remainers, passionate pro-Europeans, sensible pragmatists, people who over a lifetime have earned a measure of respect across parliament, tear off their clothes of respectability to abase themselves in pursuit of ... what? A job? Influence?

It is not absolutely clear if this is a list of four groups: remainers, pro-europeans, pragmatists, and "people who .. have earned ... " or if only the first three groups are intended, with the "people who" phrase a description of all three. The sense is not very different in either case. But that sows why using an 'and" here would indeed have been better writing -- it would have avoided the ambiguity re