Why are Remainers So Bloody Stubborn?

Another week and another failure of the Conservative Government to deliver Brexit. This sentence could have been written any time since 2018. On this occasion, it is the Letwin amendment, which simply stated that Parliament should see the Johnson deal set down and passed in legislation, before giving it a meaningful vote of support. The fear was not that Johnson deal would pass, but if it did not, then we would be leaving the Eu with no deal on the 31st of October. 

Predictably enough, there are again howls of complains from the rightwing press. Letwin, Corbyn (who has finally agreed to a second referendum) and Speaker John Bercow are the three main villains of the day. One irony of course is that Oliver Letwin said he will support Boris Johnson’s deal. His amendment is to ensure that if the legislation failed to pass through parliament before the end of October, that the United Kingdom would not leave with no deal in place. This is one of the reasons why the Letwin amendment passed: parliamentarians from all sides of the Brexit debate backed it in order to avoid the disaster that a no-deal exit would be, both for the UK and the EU. If the atmosphere had been more calm and rational in the Commons, perhaps the Johnson government would have accepted the point without demur. They did not. 

Grass root Leavers are understandably frustrated with this. “Why can’t we just leave?” they ask. They talk of their anger, and I am certain they are sincere. But I ask Leavers to stay for a moment, pull up a sandbag while I’ll try and explain how it looks from the other side. 

There are some Remainers who will never accept the outcome of the 2016 referendum. Honestly, I’m almost in that camp, but not quite. My own reason is that the public debate was not long enough: the Scottish referendum of 2014 ran for two years verses the three months for the EU referendum. Unlike the Scottish experience, three months was simply not enough to look in depth for either Leave or Remain cases. That level of examination has occurred since we had the vote in 2016. 

That is my own view, others with have their own reasons, whether to accept or reject the outcome. Let’s get to the basic fact: Leave won.

So, what was the question again? Ah yes: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

Right, so Leave won. I wasn’t happy about this but there was a level of leaving I would have accepted. Was I, or any other Remainer asked what this would be? No. Not in the slightest. The debate that followed, both in parliament and in the country, was “Your side lost: shut up.”

Well, no. What did not appear on the ballot paper was how we were going to leave. The Leave side promised many things, none of which they have been able to deliver. Without consulting the rest of us, they continued to argue and bicker as to the nature of their victory. Theresa May’s negotiations with the EU was purely in reference to her own party in parliament. It was only after its failure to pass through the Commons were other parties consulted. By then, it was too little, too late. 

The fundamental issue is that Leave won but then thought it was a winner-take-all game. Not once has there been any serious offer to engage the whole nation as to the nature of our leaving the EU. I would have settled for a Norwegian-style deal. I can see some Leavers being unhappy with that. So am I. But at least I was willing to compromise. Like Norway, it would have addressed the fisheries issue, which to me was the only real gripe the Leave campaign is justified over. What a Norwegian-style deal wouldn’t satisfy would be the issue of immigration from European countries. As I said through, we would all had to have compromise. The UK would have been free to have a flexible and changing relationship with the EU while avoiding most of the hard economic outcomes that leaving entails. 

Such consultations should have began soon after the 2016 referendum. They did not, so we find ourselves in the en passe yet again. I can see why Leavers would be deeply unhappy with the prospect of a second referendum. If you lost, and the polls suggest that you would this time, it is not as if you would shut up and go away either. So where do we go from here? 

As far as Remainers are concerned, what is at stake is the very nature of our nation. Leaving would most probably ultimately split the Union, both with Northern Ireland and Scotland. Leaving would also enable an economic and cultural revolution, with the Conservative Party (and Brexit auxiliaries) leading the change to a US-style Britain and an unregulated corporate society. Neither of these were on the 2016 ballot paper either. That is why Remainers are calling this a coup, a revolution. 

If Leavers really wanted to heal the country, the first thing you should do is stop telling Remainers to shut up and get over it. We will do neither. Hundreds of thousands of people marching through Westminster on Saturday, and 6.5million signatories to the petition to rescind Article 50 are testaments to this. Ah, but what about the 17.2 million you cry? You won the referendum to Leave: you did not win any majority, not even in Parliament, as to how the UK is going to leave. 

It is little wonder then that Remainers continue to campaign to stay in the EU. We have been offered no other alternative. 

At this time, I cannot see anything else but to go for another referendum. A lot of damage has been done and this is not going to heal easily. An election under the current first-past-the-post system will not be democratic enough because all it takes is about thirty five percent to get an effective majority. I am a bit surprised but a blog I wrote in 2018 on the nature of a second referendum, in its basic format of a two-stage question, has aged pretty well. The only difference now is that the Johnson Deal is closer to the Canada-style free trade deal than May’s deal. https://martinveart.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-second-eu-referendum-whats-on-ballot.html

If Leave won again, I would stop campaigning on the issue of EU membership and instead campaign on the future of our relationship of the EU. If Leavers lost, I would welcome their input on the nature of the Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union. What is totally clear is that whatever happens, none of us can return to business as usual. As a country we have changed. We really do have to start listening to each other.

Brexit: A Warning from History

Cavalry armies were famous for fooling their opponents through a manoeuvre known as the ‘feigned retreat’. For instance, during the Battle of Legnica in 1241 a combined force of Poles and Moravians fell into the trap of charging the Mongolian cavalry lines who, apparently, fled the field. Except the didn’t. The western horsemen were now separated from their supporting infantry, the Mongolian heavy cavalry turned and light horse archers enveloped the confused knights, now on tired horses. While they took some casualties in the ensuing fight, Mongolian victory was complete. 

What has this got to do with current UK politics, one may reasonably ask? Possibly nothing, possibly everything. The Johnson government has yet to win a victory in Westminster and seem to be in full retreat. Their first feint of going for an immediate election has be spotted and foiled. It seems the opposition is on the verge of victory and the Conservatives are in disarray. 

It is probable that the combined opposition, Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats and assorted independents and minor parties, will get the legislation through to stop a no-deal Brexit and force a further delay to leaving. Only then will a vote of confidence be called and an election ensue. Job’s a good’un, one may think. One may be wrong. 

The key manoeuvre which alarms me is the apparently suicidal move of Boris Johnson to eject all those MPs who oppose his government’s Brexit strategy. Let there be no mistake: this was a real night of the long knives. Theresa May worked bloody hard to keep her party together so it was a pre-announced and premeditated move of Johnson to purge his parliamentary party of any Remainers, or even people who genuinely want a deal with the EU. This has been achieved so it is doubtful that the Conservatives will leak any further MPs. While now a minority government, this group still are the most powerful unified force in Westminster. 

The battle is about to enter the most dangerous time. Now the Conservative Brexiters are in retreat. From whence are their auxiliary forces to come? If they can be won over, from Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party. 

At the moment, the Brexit Party appear to be the final nail in the Conservative Party’s coffin, as they threaten to split the Leaver vote. Since there are no longer any Remainers in the Conservative MP ranks, can Farage be tempted to ally with Johnson before the next general election? 
If the answer is yes, then the Remainer opposition will be in serious trouble. A united extreme right could well win with about thirty five to forty percent of the popular vote. 


What can be done to prevent such a disaster? To be forewarned is forearmed. If there are signs of Farage and Johnson either uniting their parties or forming pre-election pacts, then the best the English parties can do is either do the same (a doubtful preposition with a Corbyn-led Labour Party) or advise strong tactical voting of the Remainer vote to identify the Remainer MP most likely to win in their constituency. If on the other hand, the Brexit Party and Conservatives fail to unite: all with be well. Where they stand, Brexit candidates will split the Leave vote, Conservatives will fall and a Remain-dominated parliament will be returned.  
Note though I said English parties. In Scotland the dynamic is different. With the standing down of Ruth Davidson, it is unlikely that the Scottish Conservatives will survive the next Westminster vote. With the Brexit Party not a hugely strong force in Scotland, the main battle of the EU will be fought over the towns and fields of England.

Everything hinges on whether the Conservatives can be stopped from unifying with the Brexit Party. Stop that and the Battle for the EU will be won. There is now a majority for Remain across the United Kingdom so a second referendum should deliver this. But if a united Conservative-Brexit Party gain a majority in the next parliament, forget it. The barbarians win.

How To Feel British

Prime Minister-in-waiting, Boris Johnson, said this week that he wants immigrants to feel more British. This was swiftly followed up on Twitter by appeals on how this can be achieved. For instance, a French lady called Martha, currently living in York, made this appeal: “If any of my English followers have any tips on how to ‘feel British’, I’d appreciate receiving them.”

As a native Brit, being half-Irish / half-English, university educated in Wales, a previous resident of the Republic of Ireland and having lived in Scotland since 2000, I should have some insights to offer you Martha. 

One of the first things that an immigrant needs to learn is stop speaking your mind. If something is rubbish, for God’s sake do not complain openly about it, especially to the person responsible. Simply smile, say ‘It’s fine’ or ‘it happens’ and work around it, even if this is at some personal inconvenience. The time to complain is to your friends and colleagues afterwards, when the possibility for fixing the issue has long passed. Phrases like “Can you believe it?” or “what a jobsworth” can then be freely thrown around to anyone within earshot.

Conversely, if something is really good, never offer praise. It might be the most amazing pleasure one has ever experienced in life but the highest acceptable compliment is to nod and mutter “not bad.” If one must, a slight smile is permitted. 

In the workplace, never, ever volunteer or offer constructive criticism. If one can imagine being a sheep, and your place is in the centre of the flock, then just keep that image in mind at times of decision making or crises. Never allow oneself to take on greater responsibility, especially without extra pay. Acceptable answers to requests that should be made someone in a more senior position are “Sorry, I’ll have to speak to my boss” or “Out of my pay scale mate.” The reason for such negativity is that British employers seldom go in for this no-blame culture that is popular across Northern Europe. If something goes wrong, someone must be the cause of it. At best, ownership of a mistake will be a black mark against your record and can lead to something worse. Remember, in the television show The Apprentice, any time a candidate has owned responsibility for a failed task, Lord Sugar has fired their arse. 

Someone schooled in American English might have ended the previous sentence with “fired their ass”. This of course is a mistake and someone who has been educated in US English has to make the effort to adjust their language accordingly. Chips are crisps, not French Fries. Biscuits are not cookies. It is trousers and not pants and no, we Brits do not sit around on our fannies, as they are otherwise employed elsewhere on the female body. Make an effort to match one’s language to the local region and do not point out the glaring inconsistencies in a native speaker’s own usage of American English (see examples within this text). The British are seldom well educated in English grammar, making it extremely difficult for us to learn foreign languages as we usually have little idea what is happening with our own. As Tolstoy said, an Englishman in inevitably in the right because everything he says and does is right. This especially goes for spoken English. 

On a related topic however, we Brits love word play, especially when linked to cultural references. Such games can be downright silly but reduce the Brits to tears of laughter, much to the bemusement of foreigners in the group. As an immigrant, you might never get the joke. Don’t worry about it. English is the most public language in the world so perhaps it is only natural we have made it incomprehensible for our own amusement. My best advice would be just to relax, be happy to see us happy and when your finally do start getting the references, then your have finally cracked the English language. 

Do not take offence to the question “Where are you from?” as it really is a statement which means “You are not from round here, are you.” Owing to never having an East Anglian accent, it was a question that I was constantly asked when growing up in the town where I was born. Except in the largest and most cosmopolitan of cities, Brits has a curious sense of regional identity which is linked very strongly to accents. “Where are you from?” might mean that your accent comes from a town twenty miles away where the local inhabitants tend to have a bit of a funny accent and, therefore they don’t speak proper like we do. Yes, I know it is a pain answering this question and immigrants often feel it is a prequel for something nastier to follow but usually it isn’t. We Brits ask each other that same question all the time. Only when the question is followed up by something like “And when are you going back?” is rudeness or sarcasm justified as a response.

Now, perhaps the hardest thing to achieve for some immigrants is to enter into the British drinking culture. Those who are unable to drink alcohol for religious reasons are at a special disadvantage here. Outside the most formal of evenings, it is socially acceptable for Brits to get so drunk as to be a complete embarrassment to ourselves. Sorry about this but get used to it. Over the decades, many governments have tried to change things through taxation and tighter laws, drink-driving being a good example. Unless they are completely teetotal (a very rare thing for a Brit) or a recovering alcoholic (the only socially acceptable excuse not to drink), at some point you are going to see your British friends pissed - as in the English sense of being drunk and not the American of being angry. One understands that for the younger generation, illicit drugs are a socially acceptable alternative to booze, or even along with it. Either way, once work is done, us Brits love getting off our tits on abusing alcohol, or even several substances at the same time. 

There are many things to love about being in Britain. As an immigrant, that is why you are here. This is also the reason why I have not written about our virtues: they are well known, self evident and it is impolite to boast about such things. Instead I have written about the other side of being British: the negative and sometimes the self harming side. No nationality has a monopoly on either virtue or vice. Remember that it is often geography that forms a national personality and that Britain is a group of islands. Some of us Brits still seem to cling to this notion as some kind of comfort when, in today’s global world, being an island nation is a hindrance rather than any help. To understand the British, one has to see us, warts and all. If after doing so, you would prefer to live by your own cultural values instead of ours, I think most people would understand. I certainly will.

Why are the Liberal Democrats Back?

To the outsider, to those who do not pay attention to politics, the reason why the Liberal Democrats are back on the political scene is pretty obvious. Both Labour and the Conservatives are failing as parties and people are turning towards alternatives: be it Greens, SNP, Alliance, Plaid Cymru or Farage’s Brexit “Party”. Or even, *shudder*, the Liberal Democrats. On one level that is true. On the night of the EU elections, the Lib Dems came second. This could, and is being dismissed as a protest vote. A view from the inside of politics offers a different perspective.

The worse years of being a Lib Dem activist was not with the election disaster of 2015. I remember walking home from the Edinburgh count on a bright sunlit morning, smoking a cigar I had saved for the occasion. My emotions were mixed: sad that Nick Clegg had led the disaster and had stepped down. Sad for the many good Liberal Democrat MPs who had lost their jobs. Irritated that the (understandably jubilant) SNP had swept all but three of the Scottish seats before them. Angry but not surprised that the Conservatives had targeted all Liberal Democrat seats, even the ones that they knew they could not win – like Edinburgh West - in order to be rid as many Liberal Democrat MPs as possible. The Conservatives would rather have opposition MPs like Labour, or SNP here in Scotland, than someone they had to risk working with. My main emotion though was one of relief: the axe had finally fallen. Even the folk of the television show Gogglebox had called it: “Nick Clegg, dead man walking.”

It is the popular position to slight Nick Clegg but in reality he is a good guy who, while in government, made some bloody awful decisions. During his campaign for the leadership, he promised to get the Liberal Democrats into government within two elections. He did it first time, and subsequently we paid the price. 

I did not feel sorry for myself though. When I stood in 2015, I knew it was with no hope of winning. In the weeks running up to the 2010 I had written a blog, predicting the outcome of entering a coalition as junior partner with either party. The hardest thing for me to bear was being proved right, so soon after the 2010 election, and to continue campaigning for the Liberal Democrats knowing that we were stuffed. It was difficult to keep motivation up during those years. It felt perverse: Liberal Democrats are in power. We are making a difference: getting a lot of policies though and keeping at bay the worst excesses of the deep-blue nutters on the right of the Conservative Party. Why wasn’t I happy? Because no good deed goes unpunished and so it proved. 

It is natural perhaps that a lot of opponents, especially on the left, were gleeful on our downfall. Poor President Trump if he feels he is being victimised by the press and public opinion: try being a Liberal Democrat. I believed even our own esteemed former leader, the late Paddy Ashdown, described the party as “roadkill”. That should have been that for us. And yet. And yet…

The green shoots of recovery started instantly. As most jeered as they shovelled earth over the Lib Dem coffin, a small section of the UK public looked on with both horror and compassion.  Some of those people joined us and, for the first time in five years, the membership numbers of the Liberal Democrats soared. To the grizzled survivors like me, it felt like a miracle. It was Nick Clegg who later summed it up with a story. A few days after the defeat, a woman shouted across the street at him.  

“Nick, I’m sorry what happened to you and the party.” 

“Thank you. Thank you for your support!”
“Oh, I didn’t vote for you!”

In Edinburgh we had a large number of new folk join us. Most of them stayed and quite a few of our new (and high quality) activists that we have now, joined us since the rout of 2015. Even from the first days, the Liberal Democrat recovery was underway. 

Still, during the years 2016 and 2017, there was no breakthrough. Liberal Democrats campaigned and, slowly slowly, we started to regain lost ground. Although we did not gain many seats during the 2017 snap general elections, I think that one of the unintended consequences that it turned a lot of the new Liberal Democrat activists from raw, if enthusiastic recruits, into campaign-hardened veterans. What was just as important, there were some victories to show for the effort: we got three seats back from the SNP, including Edinburgh West. We Liberal Democrats took the opportunity given and in many areas, continue to campaign on the ground long after the other parties had packed up. The evidence for this was the start of local council victories in unlikely places such as Sunderland. Which, of course, leads us to consider the next reason for the recovery: Brexit.

Brexit is, and always has been, driven by the schism of the right. Although there was part of the Left (as personified by Jeremy Corbyn and before him, Tony Benn) who always objected to the EU on the grounds that it is a capitalist club (it is), the main political force against European Union comes from the economic right of the Conservative Party. It is their implacable hatred of EU regulation upon free market economics that led to the formation of UKIP. By itself, the freedom of billionaires to rip off the public is hardly a vote winner, so in order to gain popular support, the real flavour of the party was disguised by a heavy dose of nationalism and bigotry. Like all disasters, the reason for outcome are multiple. One was the foolishness of David Cameron, who thought that a bum’s rush of a three-month Brexit debate would be followed by victory, the death of UKIP and a return to business-as-usual. Another was that those backing Brexit had done deep preparation for the day that the referendum was called. New techniques of big data were used to target the electorate that felt ignored and did not usually vote. The SNP had used similar techniques for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum but, as I have stated previously, they had given a two-year-long debate so that people had an opportunity to discuss and understand the issues. With Brexit, that opportunity for public contemplation never occurred until after the vote. By heck, it has happened since though.

It is the Liberal Democrat consistency in stating the obvious: before the referendum and afterwards, that Brexit is a terrible idea, which has finally given the party its public identity. Before, the question before was “What are the Lib Dems for?” We have always had well-thought through policies by the container-load. We have always valued human rights over the power of the state. Our focus was upon the individual and families before power-blocks, be they unions or corporations. By itself though, that message is always too nuanced. Now, for good or ill, we have a clear identity: Liberal Democrats are the party of Europe. 

By ourselves though, Liberal Democrats are not yet strong enough to break through the first-past-the-post voting system. The last stage of our return requires the failure of the two main parties: Conservatives and Labour. They are both obliging in a most unexpected way. I do not have to run through the arguments: on her deal, Theresa May failed to consult with the whole parliament until it was far too late. What is truly amazing is the complete and utter failure of Labour to capitalise on the Conservative disarray. Corbyn simply had to say “We have tried: the government is unyielding and Parliament is deadlocked. It has to go back to a second referendum.” But no. Corbyn has steadfastly failed to move on Brexit and instead is sitting on the fence, much to the chagrin of most Labour activists. At the recent EU count of May 2019, held in the same venue as 2015, I was speaking to several senior Labour activists. I was told that Corbyn’s stance made it “like fighting with both hands tied behind your back.” Unlike previous counts, only a handful of Labour people bothered to turn out.

The largest parties to win that night were the nationalists, although neither the Brexit Party nor the SNP got anyway near fifty percent of the vote, important since both are claiming the vote is overwhelming support for their respective versions of nationalism. There is a map of Great Britain doing the rounds which shows that the SNP came top of the vote in all but a handful of Scottish constituencies, and Farage’s vehicle for self-promotion, the Brexit Party came top in most parts of England. An SNP supporter asks “Can you see the border now?” Frankly I cannot. Both the SNP and the Brexit Party are nationalist, popularist movements. I will give the SNP credit in being more decent that Farage but both are very much on the nationalist spectrum. 

The real border is now in people’s minds. Are you a nationalist or are you an internationalist? Do you want to define folk in terms of “us or them” or is there only “us”? The world is facing very real problems: can those problems wait until we have gained our freedom, put our country first, or do they need addressing right now, globally?

Owing to the Liberal Democrats putting people first, not insisting that the nation-state is the greatest good and wanting to address global problems right now, that we find ourselves being defined as anti-nationalist, and in a way that the Conservatives and Labour, with their old conflicts being built on wealth and class, can never do.  The popular nationalism has brought to the fore those who are internationalists. This movement is called social liberalism. The party for liberalism in the United Kingdom is the Liberal Democrats. 

Along with our own hard work, the ineptitude of the main two parties, it is the rise of nationalism and Brexit has brought us, the Liberal Democrats, back from the dead. 

Christchurch and Our Edinburgh Vigil

Another week, another massacre. Geography was one of the factors that made the Christchurch murder different. New Zealand a peaceful group of islands with no terrorist history. The terrorist came from the outside: a white supremacist from Australia who seems to have been radicalised overseas, possible in the UK. From the reaction of now-disgraced senator Fraser Anning, who wrote “The real cause of bloodshed on New Zealand streets today is the immigration program which allows Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” it seems that Australia have their own share of bigots and supremacists. Fair play though that, since he wrote those words on the day of the attack, Anning is now facing a national petition with over 800,000 signatures, demanding that he be removed from the Australian senate.

Today, along with hundreds of others, I attended a memorial vigil outside the Central Mosque of Edinburgh, organised by the Muslim Woman’s Association of Edinburgh. The many speakers covered a wide range of topics. The shock and sadness on hearing the news. The fear and anger that such attacks generate. The need to avoid hate and to overcome it with love. Others spoke more politically: the need to face down the rise in modern Nazism, the role in the likes of Steve Bannon in organising the Far Right on an international basis, and the enabling and normalisation of Islamophobia by senior politicians. Boris Johnson got special mention for comparing woman wearing the burka to letterboxes. Noted also was the media’s role in normalising the killer. ISIS terrorists do not appear on the front page of British newspapers with pictures of them as a sweet little boy, but this privilege was extended to the Christchurch murderer of (at the time of writing) fifty people. Contrary to what the speaker said though, this time it was the Daily Mirror who was guilty and not, as stated, the Daily Mail. 

 

The microphone was briefly offered to the crowd to share our thoughts and, some who know me, thought I would take advantage of the opportunity. Although I had no prepared words, it is true that I was tempted. Today though was not for me: it was for the people of New Zealand, it was for our Muslim neighbours and it is for us all: to listen, to sympathise and to understand. It is difficult sometimes to make sense of such vicious disregard for life and to comprehend that some who live among us can see others as somehow lesser or even as a threat. Of course people how hold extremist views are a potential threat should they decide to act upon them but they are few. The vast majority of us just want to get on with living our lives free from oppression and in peace. 

It is my view many of the speakers are correct: that there is an active movement to motivate the Far Right across the globe. Most countries in Europe now have their Far Right movements and in places like Poland and Hungary, extreme nationalist governments have taken power. Trump in the USA has more in common with President Putin in Russia than he has with Angela Merkel. In order for our own politicians not to seem extreme, there must be someone further along the political spectrum. With the Conservatives containing the European Research Group of about 80 MPs, a party-within-a-party, along with Theresa May’s own views on immigration and Home Secretary Sajid Javid willing to pay fast and loose with the rule of law, the only people further right is the likes of Britain First and so-called Tommy Robinson. The latter’s views are being normalised in order to make our current politicians seem moderate. 

Mr Jalal Chaudry of the Council of Ethnic Minority in Edinburgh questioned the use of the term of Islamic terrorism. If terrorism is not applied to actions done by white people: if such people are deemed as lone wolves, mad, crazy people, while any act of violence done by a Muslim is Islamic terrorism, the term “terrorist” should not be used. I disagree. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper gives an exact definition of terrorism. It is a curious thing though, that when I attempted to look up his exact words, the quotation has not turned up in the searches. So until I get hold of another copy of The Open Society, memory must serve. Terrorism is an act of violence intended to affect the political viewpoint of people beyond its immediate effect. This is a powerful definition because, as Popper goes on to explain, terrorism can be carried out by individuals, groups or by a nation-state. This latter aspect has led to the term terrorist being devalued. All states claim to act for the benefit of their own population and within the law. State actions can, the claim therefore goes, never be acts of terrorism. This is propaganda, as example of states carrying out acts of suppression against their own population are too numerous to note. However, the term terrorism has been solely applied by states against those that they disapprove of. More disturbing perhaps, the term is not applied to acts of violence that a particular state may be sympathetic too. Hence the concern that Islamic terrorism is a real threat while killings performed by white men sympathetic to the Far Right is usual ascribed, at least at first, to mental instability or individual examples of wickedness. There can be no mistake this time however, as the Christchurch killer emailed his political manifesto ahead of carrying out his act of evil against a gathering of defenceless men, women and children.

When it comes to acts of political violence, we must demand that the media cannot be partial to one side or the other. The term “terrorism” must be re-established and, if necessary, an explanation to the general readership must be made. Terrorism in the name of Islam exists, as does terrorism in the name of Irish republicanism (with the recent incendiary bombs being sent from Dublin to four or five targets in the United Kingdom) and as does, in this particular case, terrorism by the Far Right against Muslims. Jo Cox was murdered by a Nazi. At the time I called it straight away (before charges were laid) but was told to be not to be hasty as it could have been a lone nutter. The media does not give Islamic terrorists such benefit of the doubt. As a society, we must be consistent with our treatment of all politically-motivated violence.

As for my own personal reaction to the killings in Christchurch, I was greatly saddened. New Zealand is a peaceful nation that has partially detached itself from the militarism that is dominates the foreign policies of many other liberal-democratic nations – including the United Kingdom. A friend of mine commented that she felt that New Zealand had lost its innocence. I know what she means: I felt exactly the same when I heard the news of the Norwegian terrorist attack of 2011, which resulted in the death of seventy-seven people. 

Britain has a proud tradition of fighting Nazism and what it stands for. It is up to us all today, to continue that tradition because it is clear that the Far Right, or Alt-Right, is nothing more than modern Nazism. It is our responsibility, as Nazism is a combination of nationalism, corporate interest and racism that arose from the pseudo-science of eugenics. Fascism may have arisen in Italy and Nazism in Germany but the ideas that fed both came from across Europe and North America, including Great Britain. 

At today’s vigil, a young man took the microphone and tried to rouse the crowd with cries of “Never again! Never again!”. My response was, to be truthful, half-hearted. There is always going to be another time. As Nome Chomsky notes though, not only must we challenge the ideas that feed terrorism but also the situations that lead people to think they have nothing personally to lose by turning to violence. People who are secure and content do not pick up a gun. 

The problem of terrorism is ours and we must own it, no matter in doing so how uncomfortable the truths that we will face. Only by having the courage to do so can we continue to live in a society that can, on the whole, be called ‘free’.

Party Reaction to The Independent Group

First the Seven, then plus One and, at the time of writing, now joined by the Tory Three. Brexit has made strange times for politics is highlighting the flaws in our current political system. From both Labour and the Conservative sides, the emphasis has always been on “broad church politics”. What does this phrase really mean? It means that each of the larger parties are a coalition of views: a group of sub-spectrums within the larger political continuum. The latter is often described as horseshoe-shaped, as the extreme ends of left and right bend in towards each other. It is clear now that both main UK parties have moved so close to the respective ends of the horseshoe that they are shedding members, and now MPs, who are still in the middle zone. 

I was not at all surprised that it was the Labour members that broke first. Since taking leadership, Corbyn and his private party of loyalists, Momentum, have been moving the Labour Party from being mainly a social democratic party, operating policies of wealth redistribution underneath a capitalist liberal democratic framework, to that of being a democratic socialist party who want to break capitalism. If you doubt me on this, the evidence is on Corbyn’s views on the European Union. Like Tony Benn, Corbyn considers the EU as a capitalist club and, to be fair, he is right. There is no way that he is going to build socialism under EU rules and hence his supporting of Brexit. Hence also the hostility of Momentum to social democrats within their own party. It is also no surprise that as soon as the Eight broke with Labour, there were calls for by-elections from Corbyn, Labour and trade union leaders. This is predictable but what is amazing is the speed at which Labour has announced plans to make public deselection of MPs an easier process. Famed for his lethargy as an opposition leader, Brer Corbyn can certainly move rapidly when the faced with internal opposition.

Labour’s approach is certainly different from the Conservatives who, more wisely, are not seeking to distance themselves from their dissidents. Philip Hammond is certainly holding out the olive branch and there are few calls from the right for by-elections. I am not sure for the reason for this. Perhaps it is part party culture, perhaps it is early days and the figures are not clear enough to base a decision on. 

It can be argued of course that it is the Conservative desire to keep the right wing of British politics within a single part that has led to the whole debacle of Brexit. If they had simply let UKIP mutter in the wilderness, yes, they would have been weakened as a party but at least the country is not suffering as it is now. With about a month to go, there is only chaos in Westminster. I have previously written several Brexit blogs and this is not going to be another one. 

What Brexit has shown though is that both the Conservative and Labour parties are too big. The Conservatives are split along the fault lines of regulated capitalism and the unregulated marketplace. Labour, as previously described, has moved from social democracy to democratic socialism. The extremes of both parties are united in seeing the EU (regulated, capitalist and often social democratic) as the enemy of their respective ambitions. Both have also engaged with popular nationalism in order to gain support for their positions, with the right almost hiding their dreams of unregulated capitalist society behind the flag-waving and yellow jackets.

The independent group (I have seen the acronym TIG being used) are not, as yet, a political party. If they do form into one, a major hurdle with be the first-past-the-post voting system. FPTP is acting like a clamp, holding the two largest parties together. If it is ever unscrewed, Labour and Conservatives will fragment into the smaller parties that they really ought to be. 

What of the Liberal Democrats? Perhaps with some justice they are like the girlfriend in the meme: upset, confused and a bit outraged that TIG (here the girl in the red dress) is getting the attention of the media and public (the boyfriend). The Liberal Democrats have been here in the centre all along, telling whoever will listen that UK politics is broken and, unsurprisingly, being shouted down from right and left. While there is a certain satisfaction in being proved right, I don’t think we should worry for now. Certainly we should work with TIG to gain a People’s Vote. There may well be other areas of cooperation and mutual values. There are also areas where values will not overlap, especially on civil rights. That is as maybe.  The members of TIG will need time to adjust to being outside their respective two-party system. 

For now, let’s wait and see.