Tuesday 28 May 2019

Bring out your dead

In the Alician wonderland of politics up is down, left is right and a rout can clearly be re-worded into a triumph. History can be Tippexed and typed over as if it never happened and the mere stroke of a pen can turn a surrender declaration into a heroic rallying cry to the troops. For what is the war in Westminster if it isn’t a war of words? It takes a special kind of reptile, of course, to perform these lexicological gymnastics, but in the search for the next political toad no stone ever goes unturned.

The full scale of the Europarl election destruction has yet to be realised, but as the smoke clears on the battlefield it is clear that the claims of victory by remainers is flimsy at best. To assert this they have to believe – actually believe – that everybody who didn’t vote for the Brexit Party definitely voted for remain... and by the usual convention this includes the non-votes of all who abstained. Even this morning, the BBC referred to Nigel Farage’s ‘strong performance’ as if the BP had come a brave second, instead of now being the biggest single party in the whole of the EU Parliament.

The losers are, of course, the two parties which have dominated UK politics for a century, but while Tories are beginning, slowly, to accept that their worst electoral defeat since the nineteenth century, some are still peddling the lies that brought them so low. Brandon Lewis, astonishingly, declared that their resounding thrashing signalled an electorate desperate for the Tories to come up with a deal. No, Brandon, they voted for Brexit because they want to leave the EU and nobody who has been paying attention expects any form of ‘deal’ to be palatable.

But on the Labour side it is possibly even worse. Adonis (to give him his full, earned title) even went so far as to feed his EU wet dream by tweeting that had Labour come out for remain it would have actually won overall because – and bear with me here on his tortuous logic – if you count Labour’s vote as a vote for remain, then remain won, so therefore if Labour managed this historic victory without even endorsing remain, imagine how many remainers would have abandoned the firm remain parties and lent their vote to the party which has yet to come out with any actual agreed policy on Brexit.

I think that what was what he was suggesting but then it is so hard to listen to Adonis without hearing the perpetual whine which accompanies all his utterances and the grinding of the gears as his towering intellect turns dross into gold; EU pension gold. If anything the very existence of a creature such as ‘Lord’ Adonis – conjured into life by the bizarre alchemy of Blair’s cronyism – shows us exactly why we should resist anti-democratic institutions wherever they raise their many heads. But at least, for now, there is small recompense to be found by remembering that Handy Andy remains an unelected squeaky gob on a stick.

Looks like a winner to me.

So what was the result, really, overall? Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen are claiming that zero MEPs elected for Change UK (or whatever their actual name is) is not a bad result for a party which didn’t exist a few months ago. People voted Green mostly because they have been in thrall to a hysterical Swedish child, not solely because of their EU stance. If you definitely wanted to remain in the EU, the Lib Dems were the only unequivocal vote for that position. They did well, but nowhere near the brand-new, single issue party which won, beyond any doubt outside the bubble. Whichever way you add all of this up you get the same number every time and the number is – we voted for Brexit, let’s get the fuck out of there.

Sunday 26 May 2019

Corbyn is not for Christmas

As the race hots up for the next sacrificial lamb to hop aboard the Conservative Party leadership altar, you would be forgiven if you considered that anybody running shows a monumental lack of judgment. Some of the participants are demonstrations of vainglorious ambition trumping competence, standing on records which are way short of exemplary; why, some of the candidates ought to be stuffed and exhibited as a warning to future generations. Whoever picks up the baton dropped by Tearful Theresa is unlikely to survive the next General Election.

But what of that next GE? Twitter lit up yesterday with gleeful prognostications under the hashtag #CorbynByChristmas. Seriously, there are still far too many deeply radicalised Corbynites out there, ready to bring a level of harm to life in the UK that would go far beyond anything Brexit might do. We could leave with no deal, have all pre-existing arrangements torn up, shut down trade and cooperation with Europe altogether and still manage to survive and recover far better than if we ever let in a Corbyn government.

The entire manifesto is a wish-list of proven malfeasance almost guaranteed to bring the country to its knees, but couched in the language of ‘caring’ and ‘kindness’ and equality. Pitched at people who feel aggrieved and disadvantaged in what used to be the most equitable and free society in the world, this is a devilishly tempting message, yet it involves curbing, at a whim, the freedoms of anybody who doesn’t toe the party line.

Make more money than we feel you should (regardless of how much tax you pay)? Then we will cut you down. Feel more comfortable among people more like yourself? Then we will force you to embrace traditions and cultures which you fear. Think that a traditional family unit best fits your vision of society? We will shame you in public and tell your employer that you are a bigot. Believe that Britain ought to hang onto its long tradition of Christian conservatism? Prepare to be ‘educated’ by the religious police. No cow will remain sacred, except those of Labour’s patron faith.

But it is economically – the most immediate and potentially most immediately devastating means of all – where the cult of Corbyn would do most harm. The Corbyn-McDonnell plan has a £Half-Trillion black hole at its heart and that is only at first glance. Labour would nationalise, regulate, restrict, control and condemn with a ruthlessness Mao himself would admire. Those who can would leave while they could; others would close down businesses and retire; criminality and the black market would thrive and corruption would pervade every public office, especially where the chosen people were invited to preside.

Comrade Corbyn is no joke

As our society crumbled and fell, we would be compelled to pledge allegiance to the party and sing the red flag on every public occasion. In the name of harmony difference would be legislated both for and against – some differences are more equal than others – and our history rewritten to demonise the very people who once made us the great nation we were. And as for that hashtag, sooner or later, Christmas itself would be abolished forever. Sleep peacefully tonight.

Saturday 25 May 2019

Long Live... er...

So, ding-dong Theresa’s gone? But, as she made clear, her successor isn’t going to find it any form of picnic and rebuilding the Conservative Party is a task beyond Boris Johnson’s thus far unimpressive diplomatic talents. Yes he will draw the crowds and yes he will pick up the sort of voters Mrs May could never reach, but he will lose sufficient numbers of the sitting MPs to make it impossible to carry the government through to the next scheduled election. What, with May’s disastrous 2017 snap election and the inevitability that Boris will piss off the DUP it is almost as if the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act had never happened

But who would want the job anyway? As Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member”. Why would you want to be the leader of only a half of a club while the other half loathe you and will plot against? So the undignified jostling for position that we are going to see in the next few weeks will just be a series of side events in the continued demise of our oldest political party.

Compromise, uniting both sides, finding consensus, bringing people together? Tosh; utter, unmitigated twaddle. If the Tories can’t themselves see that there are at least three parties in that unhappy marriage then they are doomed. Leavers, Remainers and fence-sitters seeking their next patronage make unhappy bedfellows. Maybe, in the past, Conservatism united patriotic people of many persuasions in the common good, a love of country has recently been decreed verboten.

Juncker called nationalists stupid. Verhofstadt regularly demands that national sovereignty be surrendered on the EU altar and metaphorical blood sacrifices are made to the holy edifice via the medium of political assassination... especially in the UK Tory Party. If anybody believes there is any form of settlement available at any time soon they are deluding themselves. And if anybody thinks that we can come to some form of amicable arrangement with the EU as long as we are part of it has obviously not been watching.

A Labour government is, of course, untenable. A disastrous combination of grievance politics, identity issues, perpetual class war and a bizarre belief that borrowing money to piss away is really investment, Labour doesn’t even have a cohesive vision, let alone a single realistic policy where it matters. Like Bill and Ted, all they have is ‘be excellent to one another’... ‘but not them’. If you want a party of division, the Labour amoeba is a natural home for you.

What of the Brexit Party, you ask? What indeed? From late tomorrow we will find out just how soundly they have scythed through the Conservative vote and when they take their seats in Europarl, they must surely become such a thorn in the EU’s side that the pressure to let us leave – and sod the ‘deal’ – will become irresistible. But then they will have achieved their only aim. But they could never become a cohesive party and Nigel Farage will surely never become an MP because, when it comes down to it, we still need a viable government and pretty much nobody will work with Mr Brexit.

At least there's no scandal...

So, where does all this leave us? Despite all the obvious evidence that the Tories ought to be finished, they are probably the only hope we have of ever getting out of the EU intact. And given that everybody has blotted their Latin grammar at some point during the interminable wrangling of the last three years they are going to have to be led by the least worst, rather than the best candidate. Somebody who doesn’t pose too much of a threat to the old guard but who can also appeal to the naifs. Somebody who the public can be persuaded is tolerable, for now; somebody they don’t all want to stab. For better or for worse, it’s going to have to be Boris, isn’t it?

Friday 24 May 2019

Who are the neo-Nazis?

Theresa May has at last resigned, but at least she has finally secured a lasting legacy - and one which will be celebrated for generations. By the Labour Party. The total breakdown of the Conservative and Unionists over the issue of Brexit has been spectacular, nail-biting and at times simply farcical stuff. But if Labour supporters are cheering this on they might also want to take time out to consider their own precarious legacy, for it is movements of the left, for whom Labour wants to fly all the flags, which have connived to altogether destroy the credibility of the press, Parliament and almost anybody in public life.

To say that leftists have double standards is to make hypocrisy sound as harmless as having a favourite flavour of milkshake. Of course, we all cry foul when our side is attacked and retaliation in kind is rarely the answer, but this past week has seen the ability to overcome cognitive dissonance being stretched to breaking point in some quarters. When Jeremy Corbyn was egged they were furious, yet when similar happened to Nigel Farage (or as the bien pensants now have it, just ‘Farage’) they cheered to the rafters.

Having spent the three years AC (After Cox) frenetically ranting about the rise of the right and politically motivated violence they barely flinch when charged with encouraging the same thing. In fact they openly mocked those who were conflating dairy-based assault with something worse, even as people like Tommy Robinson(NHRN) were facing down screaming, baying, brick-throwing mobs issuing death threats. What did police do? Not much; they have a right to counter protest, one silver commander opined.

While the left have reacted like hysterical children to every imaged slight, every slogan, every banner, every campaign talking point from those they label ‘the far right’, said far right has largely got on with the job and tried to peacefully make their point. And what has been the result? When a pensioner in Aldershot was milkshaked for supporting the Brexit Party they doubled down. Not only was this his just desserts[sic] it was obviously a fake.

Oh yes, Alastair Campbell, Emma Kennedy, Mike Stuchberry and others implied, suggested or downright insisted that this was staged by the ‘far right’ to stir up division and hate. It is only a couple of steps down Conspiracy Street and they will be imagining that we invented Nazism just so that a century later we could accuse the Labour Party of anti-Semitism. Talk about judging somebody by your own poor standards – if the right are as stupid as they insist we should barely be capable of spelling conspiracy, let alone plotting one.

But further, they insist that eligible voters have been turned away from polling stations. And no doubt, once the results are called, they will denounce every electoral official in the land for collusion with Russia. When you consider that they have been demanding a second referendum all along you would think they would have welcomed this, albeit accidental, opportunity to have their voice heard again. But the voice is week and wheezy, so they resort to what they do best – imagining that they really won, but were cheated.


When purple-faced, throbbing veined, distorted-featured, shrieking malcontents throw bottles and bricks and repeatedly close down debate, sabotage peaceful events, threaten physical violence and even death, yet imagine that it is not they who are the Nazis you know that all reason has been lost. One day, it is to be hoped, they may look at their badges, their masks, their paraphernalia, their slogans; they may take stock of the atrocities they have committed and the lies they have told; they might just wake up and see the illusions they constructed and ask themselves – were we the baddies?

Sunday 19 May 2019

EU Woes

Once again the Eurovision Song Contest was political and once again the UK’s place in the political pecking order in Europe was established. Nul points; last again. Just as in realpolitik the substance doesn’t matter; we could have had the best act in the competition but still we would have been judged on our level of buy-in to the project. In truth we know that Eurovision is a camp little exercise in frivolity, vacuity and daftness and we have always been rather too earnest about it all.

But the timing could not have been better. As inconsequential as success in Eurovision is to the wider and rather more serious issue of the EU, coming last in the run-up to the real Euro elections will have done nothing to dampen enthusiasm for Nigel Farage’s insurgent Brexit Party. Hopes run high for the BP, come Thursday, but I have to caution that for many people their optimism runs a risk of tipping over into fantasy. Yes, the Faragistas have a real chance of dominating the poll this week, but beyond that I fear it will be somewhat less ‘earthquakey’ than many will wish for.

In short, Nigel Farage is not becoming Prime Minister in any decade of this century, if only because the forces he rightly rails against have far more power than we, the people, can possibly muster. Yes, he will make a dent – he will certainly, I feel, fatally damage the Conservative Party – and yes, people will begin to disbelieve what they are told when the evidence they see goes against it, but I fear we will have to endure the setback of a decade of Labour wrecking before sense prevails again. I wish it were otherwise; I truly do, but...

The first step for a bona fide non-violent full scale Political Revolution is trust. And whereas people no longer place much trust in the old party system, the establishment has inflicted deadly wounds on the corpus of Farage himself. Fake tweets, accusations of dark money, the Russians! But worse than that, for a movement that seeks to attract and mobilise the disenfranchised, the seedy notion that somehow Nigel is getting rich out of it. It is true that every attack piece increases the determination of supporters but it also damages the chance that the undecided will come on-board. This is exactly how the ‘Democrats’ in the USA go for Trump.

And it matters not how popular Farage is with the crowd; what matters is how that translates into power and influence; this is the real problem. We rejected an alternative to our first-past-the-post system in 2011 and the electoral game strongly favours entrenched, if outmoded parties, almost regardless of who they put up for office. Brexit will take a few Tory seats but they will almost certainly run second to Labour, even in places where the new party is gaining huge support for the EU elections. Most people simply don’t turn out to elect MEPs and come a general election old habits die hard.

At best the Brexit Party might – might – get to be potential king-makers to a minority Labour Party, a role they cannot possibly accept as it means certain death to Brexit. As a new party they have undoubtedly hooked into the zeitgeist and the appetite to fight the same old politics is clear. But they now have to settle into the long war, build a real party, unite hugely disparate ideologies among their candidates and future MPs and develop policy which has a chance of appealing across the board.

Propping up the same old dinosaurs...

As much as I want change and as much as I heartily endorse our withdrawal from the EU, this alone is not enough. We need to tackle the enormous departure of our society as a whole from what once made us the model for democracy the world over; but the forces that caused our current national distress are deeply entrenched and will take generations to overcome. Tony Blair may have accelerated the decline, but he didn’t start it. And the Brexit Party are going to have to be even more influential than he was before any tectonic shift will begin. I’m not investing in any earthquake defences just yet.

Thursday 16 May 2019

What's the point?

They are coming for Tommy Robinson [NHRN] again. Of course they are; they are terrified that despite the serial no-platforming he still has purchase, he still has resonance and on a level playing field he has a real chance of being elected as an MEP. The reaction of the establishment, instinctively left-wing in structure, is to frantically ban, block, obstruct and smear. In fact hysteria is the constant feature of the loony left’s schtick; everything is portrayed in apocalyptic terms: last chance to: save the NHS, last chance to save the planet, last chance to resist the rise of the far-right..

The shrieking, keyboard-bashing, Guardianista-style commentators have it wrong – and they are so hostage to confirmation bias that they simply can’t see it - pursuing the far right fox as if it was real and not just a figment of their imagination. David Lammy, as a flag-bearer for the most extreme of wolf-criers, daily exceeds even his own propensity for hyperbole and regularly, if tacitly, urges direct action against the imaginary lupine hordes. John McDonnell is less subtle. Thuggish behaviour exists on both sides, but if you kill for animal rights you are a saint, while holding a Brexit banner makes you a Nazi, apparently. And Nazis deserve to be punched, right? When this is the narrative Tommy Robinson [NHRN] being ‘milkshaked’ becomes the act of a freedom fighter

The referendum was an act of direct democracy and certain people didn’t like it. Indeed the EU’s emptiest vessels have openly and loudly decried such blatant exercises of ‘populism’. “Let the people decide? Are you mad?” they cry. We have to decide if democracy is what we want because if we do want it we are inevitably going to get people voting in a way the elected heads disapprove. Trying to stifle the voices, shut down the debate, ban certain views, criminalise certain thoughts is expressly not democracy, it is totalitarianism and yes, this is exactly where socialism leads. If Tommy Robinson is the 'literally Hitler', then socialism is the direct road to full communism; a one-world open borders, ungovernable, chaotic, lowest common denominator planet, where a tiny minority rule over a vast human herd.

How about– and yes I’m going to say it – you just calm down dears. If somebody in a dead-end life in a boarded up street feels the local muslim community is taking over maybe they have a point? When four-year olds are being asked what gender they would like to be; when people think they are being abused and manipulated, marginalised and forgotten, maybe they have a point? When the British taxpayer, squeezed to buggery, wants to resist the too-rapid imposition of a fuel system which does not work for the majority and don’t want to pay yet more tax so that – once again – the better off benefit, maybe they have a point.

It's the same old question, 
but neither side really has the answer.

And when we say that the far right is nothing of the sort; when we point out that raising the spectre of Nazism is a hysterical propaganda move; when we recognise that the millions of working people voting to leave the grand socialist project are peacefully using their vote to express their dissatisfaction and reject the perpetual whining and impositions of the establishment and its leftist institutions... maybe we, too, have a point?

Wednesday 15 May 2019

Basic

While the great Brexit betrayal continues, with Theresa May apparently willing to collude with anybody who will help to avert Brexit while the toothless and very likely incontinent 1922 Committee look on impotent silence, I turn my thoughts to a parallel possible consequence of this whole sorry saga; a future Labour government. Never mind that they have yet to announce any coherent policy regarding the enacting of something called for by 17.4 million people, they still imagine they possess an ounce of credibility on economic matters.

Last week, for instance, they announced a policy to raise the minimum wage for the under 18s from £4.35 to £10. At a stroke, presumably, which is what employers will likely have. Given that the current minimum wage is £8.21 for over-25s, everybody will get the sugar. Oh, except for all those young people who will have become instantly unemployable. And all those slightly older but still less experienced workers who will be laid off.

How will Labour counteract this? I expect they will resort to their knee-jerk response of compulsion. After all, if their minimum wage plan is such a good idea, why not force employers to take on trainees regardless of the value they bring to the business and make it illegal to make people redundant. Then if the business starts to falter, will the red government also make it against the law to go bust? This is about as economically competent as Jeremy Corbyn’s assertion that getting money from a bank, then paying it back with interest isn’t borrowing.

And then just the week before, Labour were floating the Citizens Basic Income bollocks without any real clue as to what they were proposing. Of course we could have universal welfare; it still has to be paid for. But the CBI is fundamentally flawed on so many levels. Where is the socialist logic of paying rich people a basic income, out of the taxes they pay in order to give exactly the same basic income to poorer people? This is like those on the left who believe that taxes collected from those paid from the public purse is some form of income instead of a mere rebate on wages paid.

Welfare, workfare, charity, price-capping, job-guaranteeing, minimum standard of living, citizen’s basic income; these are all, on the surface, laudable societal corrections for those of low opportunity, aspiration or ability, but the principle objection remains - who pays for it? Oh, the rich? I see. And in Labour Land ‘the rich’ is anybody who pays more in tax already than they take out in a share of public services. I’m in that group; is there no end to our largesse? Is there no bottom to our pockets?

I want to like socialism – it should be likeable – but the opportunistic mammal that is man does not respond well to conformity. Yes, we are a herd animal and like leadership – man, we LOVE leadership – but we also have aspirations and ambitions of our own and are fiercely protective of our brood. So don’t pit my brood against yours; the natural winners will always win and the natural losers will rely on our charity. This may sound harsh but life isn’t fair and humans are not equal, no matter how much burden you place on the backs of the more able.


Forget Brexit and our frustrating battle against the pro-EU establishment. Forget the Remainer-Leaver antagonism. If you really want to pit half the population against the rest, all you will need to do is vote for Labour in the next general election; it will make Theresa May’s duplicitous, cack-handed premiership look like the good old days.

Sunday 12 May 2019

It's here. It's happening

It can be an act of defiance, bravery indeed, to dare to agree with somebody on social media. To do so is to take up arms for a cause, it seems, rather than just being the quiet nod of recognition intended. If you are for this then you are against me, etc. When did we get so polarised? So when I replied ‘Agreed’ to Jordan Peterson’s disavowal of the confected offence of ‘islamophobia’ in response to Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s piece about Christian ethnic cleansing from muslim lands I was immediately challenged to prove that islam is a threat.

The usual to and fro ensued and my interlocutor, on cue demanded ever more vigorously that I provide proof to support my antipathy. My response was that I would consider retracting my approval if he could prove to me that allah exists. The challenge, by the way, goes out to every other religion too. I am an all-inclusive atheist and god-botherers of all persuasions are welcome to proffer up the evidence, actual evidence, of the existence of a non-existent thing. In my turn I am free to consider them mentally deranged, or somewhat feeble.

But, joking aside, it is far from funny because the religion in question is fanatical and it has a proselytising mission to convert the world to islam, by whatever means necessary. Violent jihad is of course the headline grabber, but there are far more insidious moves in play. It matters not that there is no evidence for the existence of god, the existence of invasive theology is all around us, visible to all who would see it. No matter what you believe, islam is a clear and present threat to western democracies.

The news is dominated by danger. Every day brings some new and deadly fear. The response to the invisible threat of climate change; combating coastal erosion, flood plain defences, killing off cars, turning us all vegetarian and so on is far more vigorous than any response to an in-your-face and immediate invasion of people who are not like us. That observation does not make me either racist or xenophobic. It might make me islamophobic, but then it is entirely rational to be somewhat fearful of what is happening in our towns and cities.

The forces of order stand helpless as islamic enclaves spring up; totally segregated ‘communities’ which are treated with kid gloves as if they were fragile forest orchids that would wilt if exposed to the full daylight of forensic scrutiny. The rape gangs and the terror plots are the only things we are allowed to discuss, but even then only from the perspective of understanding, of seeking to educate and integrate so they eventually become as western as we are. But such sops to the mullahs is entirely missing the point.

The bombs and the honour killings, the rapes and the beheadings are merely the overt acts which instill fear. Meanwhile the everyday rape of our own culture continues apace. Every eyesore jerry-built mosque erected via bent planning permission and inadequate building control. Every high street given over entirely to islamic businesses with signs only in Arabic. Every ‘informal’ sharia zone, policing the dress, conduct and even the presence of non-muslims. Every defiant act of aggressive possession by street prayers stopping the traffic. The imposition of halal branding on the entire population. The shutting down of speakers openly against islam. Myriad other examples abound.

We come in peace...

This is the invasion that everybody sees but nobody will tackle. These are the acts of pushing the boundaries, testing the defences and finding them lacking. When people in Oldham, Burnley, Luton, Slough, Manchester, Birmingham and dozens of other towns and cities complain of an islamic takeover this is their daily reality. My Twitterlocutor said[sic]Just prove your allegations. Against Islam. I want explanation how Islam is a threat to your life, culture. Etc Prove the allegations you made” Well, there’s your answer, Abdul; islam is an open threat to the ways of life of literally billions of non-muslims the world over. That threat may not always be physical, but a cultural threat is still a threat. It is real, it is here and it is of great concern.

Saturday 11 May 2019

Power

So Guy Verhofstadt, 47th Prime Minister of Belgium, author of The United States of Europe and grand architect of federalism has been campaigning for the MEP elections alongside the most ironically-named party in British politics - the Liberal Democrats (if you discount Change UK, or whatever they are called today). The LibDems are, of course, far from liberal and intent on defying democracy, so Guy ought to feel snugly at home.

At the core of Verhofstadt’s political thesis is the ultimate transfer of sovereignty of all the countries of Europe to the caring stewardship of the oh-so-benign European Union. He wants nothing less than a country called Europe and pursues this end with a zeal which would be admirable were he, say, a philanthropist or an athlete, or an artist. But he is none of these things; he is instead a purveyor of a sinister and potentially dangerous ideology.

Eschewing nationalism and what he calls populism (you know; what we used to call democracy) he calls for people to abandon patriotic bonds with their home nation and replace them with a singular love for a new, bigger, more powerful country. This is literally what he wants; that people become citizens and patriots of a superpower. He repeats, time and again, that nationalism is what caused all of the wars in Europe, but somehow believes that a new supra-nationalism will bring peace. I can only assume he thinks the old nationalism was the wrong type of nationalism; much as 'true socialism has never been tried'.

This is ever the reasoning in the EU; the problems arising from uncurbed power can only be solved by devolving yet more power to the EU. The problems caused by the too-rapid integration and harmonisation of EU idealism can only be solved by the imposition of more and faster EU regulations and diktats. Even Tony Blair recognised that the rationale for the EU was not peace, but power, something he appears happy to subscribe to.

But the problems begin at the very first whiff of power and influence. It changes people; it distances them from those who put them in office. And if you somehow think this isn’t so, cast a glance in the direction of Alastair Campbell, Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Muammar Gaddafi, Adolf Hitler (obviously), Pol Pot and Tony Blair himself. And if you think this is outrageous – listing living influencers in the same sentence as tyrants and dictators – maybe you haven’t really understood the true nature of power.


If nationalism is such a bad thing, why do Euro-federalists want to be a nation? And when this single, giant nation becomes too powerful and begins to threaten the security and peace of neighbouring states, who will bring them to book? In other words, what will the EU do with the power and how can we be even slightly mollified by apparently peaceful intent? In the too-often quoted but inescapable 1984 another Blair writes “Power is inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing... Power is not a means; it is an end” It is time to put an end to this.

Wednesday 8 May 2019

Kippered

Nigel Farage has done it again. Whatever his detractors say – and I have been among them – the man has charisma and nobody pulls a crowd quite like the bloke they are calling the British Trump. Like Trump he is loathed by those among us who consider themselves better people; the more educated, the ’creative’, the more likely to be engaged in securing powers (not rights, powers) for minorities many were unaware even existed. Like Trump he is accused of various forms of extremism, clumsily labelled far-right and like Trump he continues to defy the political calculus of the establishment.

Listening last week to the Radio 4 analysis of the Spanish elections the result was being hailed as a glorious victory for the socialists and a defeat of the far right. In reality the socialist vote was dented but the soft-right vote was slashed, it’s deserters staying away in disappointed disgust, or else backing candidates whose common sense views (far-right, to the bien pensant commentators) chimed with their own experiences, their aspirations and, well, their down-to-earth view of society.

Society, if anything, should surely be an orderly collusion to include everybody, seek fairness and try and improve the lives of the many, not the few. The few, in this case, not being Jeremy Corbyn’s imagined barons, lording it over the peasants – they inhabit a totally different realm and many of the peasants adore them for it – but the societal outliers who currently, it appears, have far too much influence over political discourse. Misgender somebody and you can end up with a criminal record – on what planet is that a proportionate response?

Ask a former Labour voter why they no longer support the party and Brexit betrayal will be high on the list. But just as important will be the rationale of feeling displaced by ‘others’, people not like them. You can’t – at least you mustn’t – force people to accept too much change too quickly. That the left’s response to this is not to throttle back on the crusade but to criminalise the ‘othering’ of outsiders is to misread the mood so completely as to render many of their better and more honourable ideas equally facetious.

So, we are pushing back. Bully us so far and we shrug it off, but step over the line and don’t expect there not to be consequences. This is being repeated across the western world as people say ‘enough’. But the form of the message is just as important as the message itself; possibly more important. You could be a near saint, but should somebody manage to apply the merest shade of bigotry to your portrait the chances are it will stick and try as people might to understand the true character, they will never be able to unsee the metaphorical swastika, the emblem du jour of those who have appointed themselves as commissioners for the thought police. Examples of perfectly decent people cast as villains abound; scarcely a week goes by without some venerable sage being un-personed.

And this is, in part, the key to Farage’s current success. He has harnessed the mood and he is dead right about our dissatisfaction. But why didn’t he stick with Ukip, you may wonder? Remember the extent to which he was vilified by those oh-so-clever media types? Remember how he had to stand up and somehow account for some of the more outlandish proclamations of Ukip candidates who were often incompletely vetted and inadequately trained for the public stage? Remember the infighting, the succession of short-lived leaders?


I honestly believe he had no choice. And I honestly believe he thought that after the referendum vote, Ukip’s purpose had been achieved. He left and he didn’t leave a way back in and I think he was right. I like Gerard Batten and I think Tommy Robinson is a formidable player, but Ukip’s day is done, while the Brexit Party is fresh yet full of experienced, principled, known figures. The BP doesn’t need a broader prospectus, like Ukip before it, it has one job. I hope to see them do it.