Right back at ya!

I notice there is no clamour from the supposed ‘far-right’ to no-platform speakers, or to close down freedom of speech. Notable by its absence are the massed ranks of far-right protesters marching through London to demand that left-wing hate preachers are denied entry into the country. And I have yet to see far-right activists egging politicians, obstructing law-abiding businesses or demanding that swastika cakes be constructed and decorated by progressive artisan bakers.

Painted faces, unintelligible placards, flying the flags of despotic states or pseudo states? Nope, those right-wingers don’t much seem to go in for that kind of protest. Nor do they appear to have a penchant for infiltrating and disrupting debates, public meetings or getting in the way of ordinary people trying to go about their business. I’m guessing they also have no mechanisms for repeatedly flouting electoral rules or demanding better-than-equal representation in ballots.

I don’t see the right pleading the case to disallow votes for people who don’t hold the same views and just what are they thinking when they allow opposing opinions to be openly heard? When was the last time you saw a BBC vox pop consisting entirely of rabid right wingers spouting jingoistic claptrap? And I’m not saying it’s never happened, but when was the last time you saw a panel show being hosted by an avowedly right-wing presenter? And which famous media figure last said ‘Fuck Labour’ out loud without censure?

When did you last hear about how the right wing has an iron grip on the media and controls the message so that you only hear or see anything through the ideological filter of the far-right press? And how many left-wing Twitter accounts are routinely suspended for tweeting mildly left-wing things such as ‘punch a Nazi today’, or ‘all Brexit voters are racists’?

If the right wingers are masters of this sort of agit-prop, they are doing a hell of a job of looking like the very opposite. And damn those right-wing educators with their emphasis on standards and performance and excellence. Those discredited, stone-age principals will... will... most likely result in people working harder, earning more, living longer and all without the help of the state. Goddammit!

Those damned Nazis – come on, let’s say it to their faces - would punish criminals, police the streets, insist that those who come here abide by our rules and integrate into our society and make it harder for freeloaders to sponge on the largesse of the taxpayer. They would even – and this is unconscionable – put the country’s finances back in the black and deny our friends abroad the opportunity to take the piss and expatriate our national wealth.

Brave freedom fighters of Antifa... no fascism here, folks

But fortunately, comrades, this isn’t going to happen any time soon because a tiny troupe of freedom fighters is pushing back. Despite almost zero presence in political activism, society at large, local government, education and the world-wide media the left are managing to have their tiny voices heard. Even as the jack boots are stamping down, this band of angels with only love in their hearts is stamping back. The rise of the right? They are going to have to rise a little harder, I’m afraid.