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?

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.

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.

Power

So Guy Verhofstadt, 47^th 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.

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.