I have, of course, just one request this morning. It is that you please vote.
More especially it is that you please vote Anything But Conservative.
In many cases that will mean voting for your party of first preference.
But it can also mean holding one's nose and voting for the party most likely to beat the Tories in a whole range of marginal sears. So please check the tactical voting websites. I have, although I suspect my seat is no longer marginal and it is one of the very rare cases where advice on tactical voting cannot be given because it's simply not clear. In that case I am voting for the party who came second last time, and that's Labour. But, and I am quite happy to admit it, in the right place I can imagine voting for the Labour, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru, Alliance, SDLP and LibDem (if I had to) parties today. I wish the parties would themselves realise that.
And there is good reason for me feeling like this. I am genuinely fearful today. I do not mean I am nervous with anticipation. I have done that with regard to election results since 1970, which was the first I campaigned in in some way (for Labour, because I was committed to comprehensive education despite, or because of, being at a grammar school). Instead, I mean I am fearful. It actually woke me last night, and I am blessed with an ability to sleep in almost any situation.
I have already described much of my reason for that fear. The Conservative Party standing for election today is nothing like that I have known for nearly fifty years. It is not about one nation. It is not conservative. It is not committed to democracy. Or the rule of law. Or good order. And the concept of justice is wholly alien to it. As are the most basic ideas of civility, ethics, honesty and simple good manners.
Instead this is a fascist party. It is willing to discuss civil unrest as a threat if Brexit is not delivered. And it is willing, as its shallow manifesto makes all too clear, to throw away constitutional checks and balances. And it is more than willing to be racist - casting people who have been our neighbours, who have been living, working and contributing in our communities as well as being our friends and in many cases our families - as the ‘other' to be vilified to suit their own goal.
And what is that goal? Power, for a few. The few are mainly financial speculators. And power is to be used to increase their worth. That is what this is about. The only variation the modern Tory party offers to conventional fascism, which promotes the corporate state, is that it now promotes the rentier financial state. But the difference simply reflects the change in the dominant form of capitalism, and the rest of the ideology remains intact.
And I am genuinely fearful of this form of fascism.
For free speech. This is clearly threatened. Just look at the targeting of broadcasters.
For the future I'd democracy, which I suspect will be profoundly corrupted if the Tories win (watch fir 200 new peers and boundary changes in very short order, with more to follow).
Expect restrictions on unions too.
And then there will be the racist measures.
And the denial of freedoms at work.
And the blind-eye being turned to actual violence that will start in action against the likes of Extinctuon Rebelluon, but then spread rapidly.
Deportation as a punishment will become commonplace.
And the attacks on public services and those who work in them will grow. The argument will be they are failing so they must go.
And there will be indifference to poverty, and inequality, which is seen as necessary.
Fear too for our defenceless planet. Just when it needs us most there will be utter indifference.
I wish I felt I was over stating my case. My fear is I remain too much an optimist. It could be much worse than this.
In fact, very much worse than this.
So please vote.
It has never mattered more. We have to stop this fascist takeover. Or it will consume us for years to come.
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You are right remember this and i know it’s considered an hyperbole. Hitler was voted into office and power. Watch a The World at War series from the 1970s. It is happening here
I just voted Lib Dem. That said your blog post is utterly hysterical.
No it isn’t….
As a former counsellor, I have some knowledge of human behaviour. We tend to self inhibit our meaner impulses but when someone, especially in authority, legitimises those things e.g. as in group bullying, many will act on them. The darker side of human nature is not far away, especially if it makes them feel more powerful, if only vicariously.
It is how Fascism grows. A decent society is only achieved by constant vigilance and acting on that. I think Richard is pointing out a real danger.
I share your view on human behaviour
Here are links to two sober pieces by sensible people with long-held Conservative leanings saying very similar things.
* https://davidallengreen.com/2019/12/why-those-who-care-for-the-constitution-should-oppose-the-conservatives-at-the-general-election/
* https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/boris-johnson-destroy-britain-conservative-revolutionary-sect
I was quite shocked at how slyly pro-Tory some of the election coverage has been on the BBC in recent days. A sign of things to come perhaps. (My 17 year old, who of course does not get a vote until next year, noticed and commented on it on Newsnight last night. Glad to see the critical faculties were engaged.)
I have read both and have met Oborne during the campaign
I share their concerns
Andrew, Oborne is right to draw attention to the sordid war in Yemen. I wish Corbyn had taken the fight about “sympathy for terrorism’ to Johnson and pointed out that a committee of the UN might indict the USA, France and the UK for ‘complicity in war crimes’ over our support for the Saudi bombing campaign. Our country complicit in war crimes? Bombing of hospitals, refugee camps and other civilian targets? Not just words but helping the killing of civilians. And the media gives it scant attention. Even the Republican Senate of the US called for it to stop. Trump vetoed it.
Trump and Pompeo have now said Israeli settlements in the occupied areas are not illegal and OK by them. The EU and UN holds them to be illegal under international law, viz. the Geneva convention. The UK has said nothing. The EU spokewoman has condemned the declaration. Is that to be our new foreign policy along with an ‘overhaul ‘ to the aid budget as reported today?
Johnson needs to be exposed for the hypocrite he is. He repeats the smear ‘Corby is a friend of terrorists like Hamas and the IRA’ without mentioning the fact that all but a small handful of the states of the UN support a Palestinian state or abstain in the vote. Or that Corbyn spoke to the political wing of the Irish nationalists, not the paramilitaries. John Hume did speak to them and got a Noble prize. The ‘Loyalist’ paramilitaries who also murdered, get a free pass.
A foreign policy which approves or abets the breaking of international law comes ever closer to what Richard referred to-Fascism.
sorry to hog your page and I may have said this before.
Almost all the Islamist terrorism in Europe is inspired by the teaching of the Wahhabi cult in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. I am not saying by the governments but they allow these groups to spread their perverted version of Islam and often the funding for the terrorism comes from there too.
Yet our governments ignore these facts (and we can be sure our intelligence people tell them ) and Trump even spoke of ‘shared values’ in Ridyah in 2017. Apart from their hostility to journalists who oppose them (not even Trump murders them to be fair) I can’t think what they are, unless it is the oil, armaments and banking interests. Oh, and the need to cripple the Iranian economy because of a treaty everyone agrees Iran did not break.
After the Manchester bombing , Corbyn gave a speech where he mentioned the need for ‘difficult conversations with Saudi Arabia.’ I have not seen any comments on that by any other politician but I am willing to be corrected.
I see the real threat to our security coming from being America’s poodle, not from Corbyn. After all, he doesn’t deal with the Russians to the extent that it is necessary for Downing Street to refuse to publish the report on Russian involvement in our politics.
Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou
For the blog and platform for comments.
Everything that can be done is done.
Now for the people to decide the fate not only of the UK, but in my opinion the whole western world and it’s mutated psyche.
I’ll be back about the msm and La Kuensberg being the messenger shooting herself in the foot later but here is the pathetic Groaniad and if I may use the fav press phrase ffs:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/12/from-a-thumping-tory-win-to-a-corbyn-coalition-four-election-scenarios
The Groaniad continues IT’S gaslighting of the voters — just like the beeb, LBC msm and social and alt-media are when it should be ‘purdah’
What about the 5th scenario?
A Labour majority?
Bring on the Leveson 2 storm and sink all their boats!
🙂
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/12/the-most-crucial-constituencies-and-how-you-should-vote-in-them-to-block-the-tories/
A stumning long list if anyone is still wondering.
I too am fearful for what will happen under a majority Tory government. I don’t think referring to fascism is overstating it.
Craig
I’ve been miserable and anxious for some time now, and quite honestly, I think this election and the direction of travel is a large cause of it.
When I think about the election, I switch between fear, despair and cautious optimism quite frequently, but the best I am hoping for is a hung parliament which would finish off Johnson. I don’t dare to dream any more. I really dread to think what five more years of Conservative Government will be like. What will they not dare to do? Who will stop them? The moderates? The courts? Activists? Riots on the streets?
I fear the more opposition they face, the more they will dredge the depths of political discourse, opportunism, authoritarianism. In Johnson, I don’t see any indication of him being constrained by either any form of morality, his own party, or the bulk of the media. The only way I see him being brought down is if he makes such a catastrophe of Brexit that it leads to a major recession and crash with serious repercussions. If the backbenchers feel that he has become a liability to their future careers, maybe they will act. But then who would replace him?
I think Jo Swinson has a lot to answer for in her repeated refusals to even consider working with Corbyn, and the shooting down of tactical voting. I’m not exonerating Labour on that, but when you see the Lib Dem HQ insisting on standing a candidate in Canterbury, when the previous one had the grace to stand down, it’s not a good sign at all. In not working smartly together, both Parties have lost sight of what is at stake.
For the Lib Dems this campaign was an open goal. But Swinson has had an absolute stinker of a campaign, and has completely misread the situation.
Normally on an election night I would stay up till about 1 am to get a feel for where things are heading. I don’t know if I dare tonight. I might just go to bed and wait until the morning. I might not be able to sleep. I might drown my sorrows. I fear the worst and hope for damage limitation, but I don’t dare to dream.
So I’m not alone then
No, you are not alone – many of us have watched this play out since BoJo came to play with Dom – it is entirely sinister.
My aged father who is life long Labour (as far as I can tell), will be voting Tory today. He didn’t serve in WWII (slightly too young), nor did National Service (protected occupation). He thinks GB/UK/England (probably the latter..) can make it through any tough times ahead – my heart sinks..
It’s such weird thinking….
I’ve been this morning. SNP all the way. Busiest I’ve seen the polling station in 14 years here. Our candidate had eyewateringly slim majority in 2017 so here’s hoping normal service will be resumed shortly = Perth and North Perthshire. Holding my breath.
Richard wrote of his fears for “….democracy, which I suspect will be profoundly corrupted if the Tories win (watch fir 200 new peers and boundary changes in very short order, with more to follow).”
In Scotland we got a stark forewarning of this: Yesterday’s Herald carried a political comment article written by Johnson which clearly states (twice) that he will prevent the people of Scotland from expressing an opinion on the future of our nation, in his words, “for good”.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18092822.boris-johnson-block-indyref2-deliver-good-brexit-scotland/
Note that he is talking of preventing any referendum to determine the opinion of the Scots people, never mind actually seeking to gain independence . He will decide what is best for the Scots, not the Scots. Such demonstrably undemocratic thinking reminds me of living in Brasil in the 1970s under a military dictatorship. That is what the Brasilian people had to put up with and it is profoundly worrying for such thinking to be voiced in a supposed democracy by a politician who may be UK’s Prime Minister by tomorrow morning.
Scotland will rebel, I think
Couldn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours last night,
I can’t help thinking of the mid 1990’s, ‘the bastards’ had emerged, brought down the Tories idol Thatcher and were making John Major’s life miserable,
‘the bastards’ had been banging on about the EU from 1992 onwards, the EU really is like kryptonite to mouth frothing, swivel eyed, gammon faced, Tory, loons,
it’s their perfect ‘go to’ for cockwombling,
the Wombles used to spend every day searching around Wimbledon Common for things people had discarded and putting them to good use,
Cockwombles spend everyday searching for things to be a cock about,
after more than a decade of Tory rule they had become truly revolting, even the papers couldn’t ignore scandal after sleaze after scandal,
the most bizarre was the new ‘tory rising star’ Stephen Milligan who died in a tragic wanking accident,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan#Death
people in general were getting frankly sick of them and it led to Tony Bliar sweeping to victory after John Smiths sudden and unexpected death,
I sincerely hope we are approaching a turning point where the Tories are just too revolting and incompetent to tolerate any more,
I remember Ian Hislop on HIGNFY in the latter part of the Tony Bliar era saying effectively that the only reason people kept voting for Bliar was because they knew the only alternative was the Tories and they were easily remembered at that time as being several magnitudes more revolting than New Labour,
I really do wish Corbyn well, apparently wherever he appears in public he’s treated like a rockstar, he is the sort of change a lot of people are yearning for,
I just hope that if he does well this election he doesn’t succumb to some sudden, unexpected ‘heart attack’ or decides to go for a quiet country walk like David Kelly,
if you think the media has had it in for Corbyn over the last few years expect it to go bonkers if he does well this election,
they are afraid of change, very afraid, don’t be surprised if things get very nasty in the near future,
if Corbyn does get to form a minority govt. I suspect we might see something similar to the alleged military coup against Harold Wilson in 1974,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_conspiracy_theories#Alleged_1974_military_coup_plot
The Gauntlet.
Our hanging chard election.
I’ll wait till 3.30 before admitting defeat.
All the extra voters are metropolitan. The brexit party have played a spoiler by only standing in seats tories could win. Two cheeks of the same arse.
Low turnout adding to damage.
Farage earned his.
The Gauntlet was mighty.
The mudslinging stuck.
The gaslighting worked.
Yup the Blairite cheek of the empire has survived.
The membership will not restore them to power.
The country is further divided.
The ex Labour peeps aren’t going to see anything to show for buying the lie.
This is not any longer the post war social democratic country left to us.
This was the last chance to restore it.
The Hard brexit zombie lives.
Goodnight. Sorry.
It is grim