Why the time has come for apolitical England to rein in Camerlot, and reject EU federalism
Middle England tends to turn off when the syntaxical Left starts seeing fascists under the bed. But when the fascists are gleefully streaming out of the closet, it’s time to take their existence seriously. The Slog argues that only a big Brexit vote from Middle England will rid us of the syndrome in both Westminster and Brussels.
This is an appeal to Middle England. Not because I don’t like Scotland and Wales, but because ME is the core of my own country…and those who inhabit it tend to be the most difficult to alarm.
I’m not in the business of alarming people for the sake of it. But there’s something about the unhealthy level of citizen trust in the Whiteminster Government in Middle England that I find, er….alarming. So I was wondering whether it is any longer possible to alarm them.
I single this group out for various reasons. First up, an encouraging proportion of them were educated before 1980 – and so, if they chose to use it, the critical faculty is probably still intact. Second, the money they have and the circles within which they move tend to shelter them from the obvious reality of life in the less select suburbs of Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and London: so it seems only fair to spell that out clearly, but with the minimum of didactic political syntax.
And finally, these are the voters who are going to make a key difference to the ethico-economic questions that face us on every issue from the NHS through to Brexit via State pensions. While small in number compared to the bottom 30% of the electorate, that 30% does not on the whole elect, because they don’t vote….demotived as they are by a dangerous combination of desperation, disinterest, distraction and – lets call a spade a spade – dumbness.
Let’s start by looking at all the citizen protections that were gaily tossed away by the last two governments.
To one degree or another, they include Legal Aid, the right to boycott corporations, trial by jury, the right to non-violent, hate-free speech (however extreme some may find it), the right to campaign on all issues at all times, the right to vote forever after becoming an expat, the 24 hour habeas corpus Rule, no restriction of Rights when under suspicion, open courts in peacetime, the right to demonstrate without notice, freedom from phone tapping and internet surveillance, freedom from being photographed without knowledge, and the right to citizenship in perpetuity once granted.
This shot sort of sums up how most of Middle England feels about this:
The other line pushed on this one is “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to worry about”. Tony Blair at his unconsciously ironic best. More succinctly, former Mayor of London Boris Johnson tends to brand anything he thinks shouldn’t be in the public domain as “Just a load of leftwing poppycock”. For example, phone hacking on an industrial scale at the offices of News International. He was wrong; indeed, there is a strong case for alleging that he knew he was wrong. In other words, that he lied.
This is the core problem with all erosions of liberty and democracy: in unscrupulous hands, they are used to extend defence of the Realm to mean Defence of the Establishment. But if you think it’s just Leftie agitprop, then read what Britain’s top spook had to say when control freak Gordon Brown was in power. In 2009, Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, accused New Labour of “exploiting public fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties”. On the same day as her accusation, a report published by international jurists suggested that Britain and America led other countries in “actively undermining” the rule of law and “threatening civil liberties” in the guise of fighting terrorism.
Nor can one argue that such condemnation “comes from Leftist media”, because the facts are that thinking Leftwing media barely exist in the United Kingdom any more: the Independent’s print version has closed, and last January The Guardian sought to slash £54m in costs; this followed a review of its finances that found its rate of losses would wipe out the Trust capital that supports it by 2025. In 1965, the Daily Mirror sold 5.2m copies: today it sells under 20% of that figure. Just over a week ago, the Mirror’s great white hope New Day folded after just ten weeks.
The greatest single control in any pluralist political system is effective opposition. The evidence that both New Labour and the Camerlot Conservatives have sought to not just undermine but, effectively, destroy this principle, should say to all those with an understanding of stable democracy that British liberty is in danger. Fine, the current Labour Party’s inadequacy in this role is self-inflicted, but an independent BBC – that is, a State broadcaster free to broadcast what is sees as “the facts” – is seen right across the political spectrum as absolutely vital.
So why is the Conservative Party – exactly like Alistair Campbell in the previous government – so keen to bully the BBC, appoint HSBC Tory supporters to key roles involving a massive conflict of interest, and now demand political representation on the Board of BBC Governors?
For six years now – first through Jeremy Hunt, briefly via Sajid Javid and now John Whittingdale – this Conservative government has consistently tried to undermine the traditional ‘Trust’ position of the BBC. All of these three gentlemen (it should surely be obvious to every objective observer) have dark clouds in their past – Hunt in relation to Hotcourses, Javid via Deutsche Bank and Whittingdale with his Mistress Whiplash tendencies. If anything, the one thing they all lack is the Right Stuff when it comes to a national culture.
It’s here where we need to examine the reality of “a mandate”. The BBC had a clear mandate – among the population until twenty years ago – as by far the best producer of drama, documentary and news within the broadcast media in Britain. Bullied over Iraq, starved of funds, and running scared of blatant attempts to install Murdoch in its stead, it now finds itself become both bland and censorious at the same time….having been slammed by such pleasant public figures as Peter Mandelson, George Osborne and Michael Fallon.
Yet now it emerges that Mr Whittingdale plans to have the government directly appoint most members of a new body to run the corporation….in which only two or three members of a 13-strong unitary board, to replace the BBC Trust model, would be BBC executives – while the rest would be government appointees.
Whittingdale told the all-pervading Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times last week, “I don’t think the government appointing the BBC non-execs would compromise their independence.” Well of course not dear boy, of course not. Whip?
Staying with the media, the ‘recruitment’ of the media to conspiratorially further political aims is a step on from even the model of allowing those with mouths bigger than their wallets to run the show. This includes Whitehall-owned media (the pro-Brexit mailshot to every domicile in Britain), Brussels owned media (every website they run) and media controlled by massive Conservative donors such as the Bloomberg Group. All of these drone on endlessly about the dangers of Brexit and business support for staying in. Worse still, they blame long-term global recession and Osborne’s fiscal incompetence on ‘Brexit worries’ when last Month’s b2b poll shhowed no such concerns.
When the media start running propaganda as the norm, they might as well change their name to Izevestia or the Völkischer Beobachter. As George Orwell remarked, “It’s no longer news, it’s just PR” – and indeed, the Daily Telegraph has been caught red-handed selling its editorial space on precisely that basis….notably to HSBC.
In a more general sense, recruitment of the media is merely one significant example of creating Benito Mussolini’s definition of the corporate State – that is, one where the business, political, legal and military interests are joined at the hip. Nobody has done more than the Prime Minister to get up to his armpits in this excremental process, hiring the likes of Andy Coulson, hobnobbing with Rebekah Brooks, taking on Baron Green as Trade Minister, and using Philip Green to organise the 2015 Conservative Vote….some of which have ended up as police investigations and prosecutions.
Along the same ‘fascist’ lines, while cutting armed forces numbers and budgets Mr Cameron has renewed the Trident nuclear ‘defence’ system – hopelessly outdated and roughly akin to the Polish cavalry in 1940 – at enormous cost, become heavily involved in Libya, and bombed Syia….all in the cause of NATO aims, acting increasingly in the 21st century as a cover for the US oil and armaments industries. Here again we see business, politics, armed conflict and the media joined at the hip – most notably in Ukraine, where even the more liberal UK media still stick to the long-untenable position that Russia shot down the MH17.
Finally, I think it behoves Middle England to pause calmly for a moment, ignore the sloganising of the Socialist Worker, and ask whether the Ministers loyal to Camerlot in the current Cabinet really have the industrial, social and legal infrastructure of the ‘United’ Kingdom at heart….and equally, whether their actions display much respect for the average citizen.
Well over a million British women born between 1950 and 1956 have already had six years of their promised pension removed. Stephen Crabb claims the women “were told” in 1995 (not true: the DWP didn’t write to anyone until 2009, and many only in 2011) and have “breezed through life” without paying attention. By 2020, an estimated total of 3.2 million women will be affected, and 1 in 3 of them have neither partners nor private policies to help them escape destitution. Ultimately, having “time to prepare” is a weasel distraction behind which Crabb is happy to hide: a promise was made by the State 66 years ago, and the State broke it after 45 years: it was eight Governments breezing along here, not the women involved. The State knows it is wrong, but the citizen must pay for its dilatory behaviour. That, Middle England, is fascism.
Most of Middle England uses the NHS. A clear majority approve of it. The man currently running it as Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, is on the record in extended pamphlet form as saying he wants to demolish it. His second cousin Baroness Nettlestone is the leading lobbyist for the private sector in the House of Lords. To pummel junior doctors into line, Mr Hunt claimed their weekends off had created a “death crisis” in the NHS at such times. This has now proved – proved, mind you – to be a complete falsification….something in which Hunt has specialised throughout his business and political career. The Minister has tried to override all criticism by imposing a new contract on junior doctors. He now at last says he will meet them to negotiate….but not to take account of the “death crisis” invention. So the talks go nowhere, the strikes continue, and the bitterness builds.
Ultimately, these junior staff also have no legal appeal rights upon which to rely. If a combination of engineered insolvency and staff departures grind the NHS to a halt, Hunt’s second cousin (who ‘bequeathed’ him the Surrey SW constituency) will be in like Flynn. Once again, business, political ideology and neutered legal protection are marching together. That, Middle England, is fascism.
Over the last five Governments, we have seen Britain’s police forces steadily politicised and increasingly underfunded for the task of their real job: controlling and evidencing apolitical crime. The police action against Scargill and flying pickets was designed to control what many saw at the time as an attack on the State. It perhaps was, but every edge has a thin end: since then, the Met police have conspired with Newscorp to break laws relating to pre-release of arrests, evidence and named search warrants; knocked on doors to “follow up accusations of homophobia” (which isn’t a crime); falsely accused and furthered the prosecution of celebrities, few of which could be substantiated but all of which had a political/media element in there; dragged their feet and then sat upon key enquiries such as the Elm House child-trafficking scandal; invested hugely in water cannon and penning grids….both designed to control political demonstrations; and massively increased the number of surveillance cameras watching us. The MI6/Special Branch operations alongside GCHQ now openly admit that they work closely with ISPs to monitor written and verbal emails, tweets, Facebook editorials, photographs and Skye-style conversations.
The police are no longer controlling crime: they are controlling the populace. That, Middle England, is fascism
Middle England rarely collides with the criminal Courts. For over thirty years, families were broken up by the secret Family Courts…which are only now (and painfully slowly) being dismantled. In 2012, the Conservatives at last abolished so-called IPP imprisonments – where no crime is specified beyong the protection of the public. For years later, already jam-packed prisons are full of thousands of such prisoners who should be freed.
The right to a fully professional and equipped defence counsel in criminal trials has become a laughing stock. Junior, overworked and uncaring briefs regularly pitch up at trials and often fail to keep the CPS on a short legal leash. I have countless examples in my files here of cases where for instance Joint Enterprise bystanders have been sentenced to long prison terms on the basis of hearsay and exceptionally poor cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses. Janet Cunliffe’s son was banged up at age 16 on such a charge and he is technically blind. The Supreme Court has now ruled against the JE law: but Jan’s boy is still rotting in a prison cell.
A balanced, adversarial prosecution/defence Court system is one of the core foundations of British liberty. It is being undermined along with other already listed rocks that underpin citizen rights. And as for equality before the law….surely this has obviously become a farcical disgrace. Think openly for a second, Middle England:
- Do you think the Rebekah Brooks verdict reflected her real knowledge of phone hacking?
- Do you believe Piers Morgan never – not once – indulged in it?
- Do you think James Murdoch conspired to pay off those victims with proof of having been hacked by News International?
- Do you think Mayor Johnson helped or hindered the Elm House Met investigations?
- Do you think Philip Green and his wife conspired to minimise their exposure to BHS debt and didn’t know the pension fund was only half funded?
- Do you think Boris Johnson’s wife was assaulted in Spur Road, or got pissed over lunch and had an ill-advised knee-trembler with Graeme Stening?
- Do you think Tony Blair did or didn’t conspire to pervert the course of Justice over the BaE Saudi corruption investigation?
- Do you think Tony Blair told the truth to Parliament about WOMD in Iraq?
- Do you think the Chilcot enquiry is so ‘late’ appearing purely because of its complexity?
- Do you think Rupert Murdoch gave unperjured evidence to the Culture Media & Sport enquiry?
What we have today is a legal prosecution system biased in favour of the powerful and the State…and an élite of many colours perverting the course of prosecutions in order to protect itself – and hide the truth from those they’re supposed to represent. It has been going on since the late 1970s…and in some cases, since God was a sperm.
But it is getting worse, Middle England. And unless you want to go down in history as the British 2015 version of those Mittelklassedeutschen who let Hitler in the back door during 1933, it behoves you to take all the Party tribalism off the table and think about every British person’s liberty.
Think on this: the Conservative Government is passing illiberal laws now with a smaller electorate support level than the Nazis had then.
Think on this: the Germans had a written Constitution in 1933, and Hitler obliterated it – without changing a single clause – is three years flat. We’re still waiting for the Constitution Cameron proposed seven years ago.
Think on this: you may be like me tired of the Leninspart Left seeing fascists where there are only people who disagree with them. But here, I am taking the accepted technical term for ‘fascism’ and applying it to forty years of State actions….all evidenced in the British context.
I have many friends on the soft Left in the UK who think that Brexit will make the slide into fascism worse, because the Government will be uncontrolled by the EUCHR. I admit that, in theory, that is a downside risk…but I reject it for two reasons.
First, if Britain votes Leave on 23rd June, Camerlot as we know it today will implode. Most of those in the vanguard of fertilising fascism will lose their jobs – and the Conservative Party as a whole will split right down the middle. This can only give the disgruntled SNP and English-only Labour Parties the impetus they need to vote down a rejigged Tory Government. (If Middle England think that’s reason enough to vote Remain and abolish liberal democracy there, then it’s time we all packed up and went home).
Second, I see no sign at all in either the structure, federal intentions, or past actions of the EU and its all-powerful unelected European Commission-Eurogroupe-European Central Bank nexus to suggest that the European Union is anything other than a bigger UK Cabinet: one which the Black Knights of Camerlot feel at home with, and which is gagging just as hard to sign the TTIP trade agreement….the final piece in the Fascist World jigsaw.
Globalism is not the future. Financialised capitalism is not the future. The EU has no future at all beyond anarchic chaos. But if we vote to Stay – and the EU remains temporarily intact – then that chaos will breed fascism of both Left and Right: in France, in Greece, in Spain and in Italy. And the Camerlot brand of fascism will have yet further excuses to abandon any real semblance of liberal democracy.
So it’s down to you, Middle England. No pressure though….
The Slog 