I posted this comment on Twitter last night:
I want to know why it is that peacefully demonstrating against the activities of those who are destroying our planet is now considered to be extremism by the government.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) February 8, 2021
There was, of course, a context for doing this. As The Guardian noted in the last day or so:
The government has reportedly ordered an investigation into the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum, with a peer tasked with offering recommendations to the prime minister and home secretary.
The review will be led by John Woodcock, the former Labour MP who now sits in the upper chamber as Lord Walney and was appointed as the government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption last November.
Let's be clear: the government is right to note that we face an extremist threat. Fascism is growing in out society. Threats are commonplace. I have no time for them. They are utterly unacceptable, from wherever they come.
But let's also be clear that as far as I can see the only left wing extremists that will be found are likely to be, in the government's opinion, Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. Both take action to affirm the right to live in freedom of fear.
In contrast, on the right what we are seeing is the active promotion of fear. Oppression of others is the stock-in-trade of the right.
So, we have one supposed extremism wing affirming the right to life free from fear and discrimination in all its forms, and the other extreme seeking to do the exact opposite.
And what that very strongly suggest to me is that we are not comparing like with like. In fact, the analogy is deliberately a falsehood in itself and part of the process of oppression in its own right.
I am not suggesting I always agree with all protest methods used by XR and BLM, because I can have my own views on what is appropriate. But have I ever spotted what might fairly vibe called extremism in their actions? No, is my fair response to that.
But I do see oppression and violence, and violent threats coming from the right. So shall we not equate the two, whilst always condemning all those who use such methods?
I cannot help that feel that just as the government is cracking down on charities to oppress the proper statement of history to prevent exposure of those who oppressed in pursuit of profit, so too is the government now seeking to use right wing violence as an excuse to oppress those who want to curtail those who still do the same thing. And that is utterly unacceptable, but a clear indication of the world we now live in.
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Two possible reasons for the current action.
a) The toryscum gov is unable to muster coherent arguments against strong criticism from those orgs identified/political views identified. So ban them or manufacture reasons to do so from Liarite scum like Halfcock/discreidt them lump them with other “extremists”.
b) “oh look there’s a squirrel” – Brexit is a disaster, Covid let’s not talk about it . So the toryscum decide to manufacturer something that is not there.
Probably a combo of the above. & doubtless more actions will come down the track aimed at generating fear, uncertainty and doubt.
“The Government has reportedly ordered an investigation into the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum”
Start with the PM and cabinet.
Then the ERG.
Then the hijacking of the Tory Party by English Nationalists and the purge of one-nation Tories.
The Tory Party clearly isn’t the same party of just five years ago and it was quite extreme then.
Is there an extreme left anymore? The only militant tendency I see is the ERG in the Tory Party.
One things for certain, the Tory Party will not be investigated.
Sounds like a Tory attempt at McCarthyism.
Yes the government is only too keen to clamp down on civil liberties when protests take place that expose present and past injustices. Their woeful record on tackling climate change and their desire to airbrush out of history any criticism of the atrocities that took place in the British Empire are entirely unacceptable in a democratic society.
“Oppression of others is the stock-in-trade of the right.”
Why is it then the most oppressive regimes are of and from the left?
North Korea. China. Cuba. Venezuala. Zimbabwe. Myanmar.
Grow up
We are talking about the UK
“We are talking about the UK”
So why did you spend so much time talking about Trump?
Trump had only to discard a tissue on the pavement for you to launch into a tirade against him. Yet when someone mentions brutal left wing regimes such as North Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe or Myanmar suddenly it’s not relevant.
As for Black Lives Matter;
What I saw in terms of that movement was not aligned with what I believe in. They were burning churches and Bibles. I can’t support that
Did I discuss Trump in the article?
Did it talk about anything but the UK?
And since when have BLM in the UK been burning churches or bibles?
Since when did you thin not telling the truth made your case?
Since when did Christianity suggest oppression come to that?
So I suppose John McDonnell (and others on the left) praising terrorists and saying Esther McVey should be lynched is just fine?
Or why is it that whenever the left get together to “peacefully” demonstrate against something they end up rioting, defacing or damaging statues, attacking the the police, destroying public property and the like.
Or the anti-semitism prevalent on the far left – including BLM by the way.
It’s not just the far right. The left has a huge problem with extremism. You just agree with their motives and can’t see that your side are as bad if not worse than the other side.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw the first stones Richard – a lot of people would describe you and the policies you put forward as very authoritarian, to be kind.
You might, but that only shows how far to the right and lacking in objectivity you are
I propose what. any a Tory government once supported. You know, things like decent public services and the rule of law when it comes to paying tax. You have a problem with that?
I seem to recall 27 police officers were injured in the ‘peaceful’ BLM demonstrations in London.
You are excusing that?
No
No more than I excuse police aggression in breaking up a peaceful demonstration
Do you excuse police aggression”
Why?
@ Dave Edwards
Donald Trump was never taught the American Pledge of Allegiance! Here it is:-
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
It should be obvious you can’t have “liberty and justice for all” in the United States unless you support its Constitutional Democracy System. Trump did his best as a fascist to undermine this system in the same way that communists do. Clear now both extreme right and left are as bad as each other?
It’s time
the govt stopped taking lessons from Trump.
A few years ago I attended Prevent training with the bouncers of Prince of Wales Road. Far left, environmentalists and far right were included in the list of threats as though they were equivalent, and there was no opportunity to ask questions. Such as how many people have been killed, injured or otherwise harmed by environmentalists or socialists?
Quite so Lesley
Sadly I believe it not unfair to say the country is dominated by individuals who don’t really think very much in any depth and just regurgitate the shallow platitudes fed to them by a predominantly right-wing media. You only have to look at the comments section of Guardian articles (a supposedly thinking person’s broadsheet) to see how many individuals fail to get the content point or points in an article or the content in comments responses by others who do!
Surely the conservatives do not mean XR, since Stanley Johnson has joined their protests.
They probably mean BLM, and other animal rights activists and environment groups, such as Peta and Green Peace. They are all on the police terrorist watch list along with a group that is against selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. Also on the terrorist watchlist is the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition. Corbyn is in trouble.
Antifa and Class war activists are an absolute menace and like to dish it out. They are a small minority but cause the problem for the perception of left wing protests.
OK, where is antifa in the UK
And where is your evidence?
Whether they call themselves Antifa or class war or whatever they go to pretty much any peaceful in central London and they turn up dressed in black, ski masks and try to cause trouble mainly with the police. I see it often. They smash windows and cause whatever damage they can. They hijacked the BLM protests too. Absolute pests..most likely posh middle class kids “rebelling” against whatever. They are a pain and are rife and it is ridiculous to excuse their behaviour or pretend they dont exist.
I don’t condone violence
Equally, I am saying you are making this up
“Class war activists are an absolute menace and like to dish it out. They are a small minority but cause the problem for the perception of left wing protests.”
I assume that you refer to current & previous toryscum governments who are indeed an absolute menace and have conducted class warfare – witness the 120,000 dead due to the extremist Gidiots “austerity” measures aimed directly at “the poor” who fall into the bottom class in what passes for UK society. Thsi reinforces your point that toryscum class war activiists “like to dish it out”. One could also observe – without any consequences.
You are also correct in that these vicious class warriors are a minority, but sadly a vocal one with most of the media behind them.
Concluding, you are correct that this causes problems for left wing protests because, through the “hyper-normalisation” which the media and the toryscum gov implement – this makes left wing protests look somehow radical – whereas for the most part they reflect the views of +/- 75% of the people of this country.
I’m so glad that we can agree.
The more repressive and regressive governments become the more protest will become aggressive. The current UK government lacks moral behaviour towards its citizens, supports cronyism, aims to control the press and is willing to bend and change the law to achieve its aims of perpetual power. When that happens protest will increase because the government suppresses legitimate protest within the norms of political behaviour. If the government wishes to stop violent protest it needs to stop the illegal capture of power it is bent on indulging in because when populations can no longer express their political views and feel that they are getting a fair hearing then violence will ensue. If the citizens feel that they can no longer remove politicians from power by legitimate means the only option left is protest.
It’s false equivalence, and is straight out of the Trumpian/Republican playbook in the US, Richard.
For example, last week in defending the QAnon, conspiracy theorist Republican Congresswomen, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right in the US, including various people on Fox News, were citing Congresswomen Ilhan Omar as the ‘left’ equivalent. No matter that Omar has never produced a poster of herself holding a gun, clearly in a threatening pose against opposition politicians; or spoken in support of the left equivalent of QAnon (not least because there isn’t one); or alleged that the Californian forest fires were caused by space lasers and some kind of Jewish plot; or that some of the school shootings in the US were ‘false flag’ events meant to stir up opposition to gun ownership (therefore an attack on the ‘sainted’ Second Amendment); or that some aspects of the 9/11 tragedy were fake; and on and on. See here for a brief recap:
https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/flashback-marjorie-taylor-greene-s-past-hateful-comments-100560453897
And of course, in 2020 the left ‘demon’ in US politics was Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and her support for a Green New Deal, as if this was some kind of dangerous socialist attempt to ruin the US, whereas in fact even if such a policy came to pass it wouldn’t be anywhere near in the same league as what Trump and his supporters were advocating, which, as we all witnessed on 6th January, was an insurection that had it been successful – and that was clearly the intent of many of those involved – would have delivered an authoritarian government and signalled the end of 230 or so years of US democracy.
Getting back to the UK, we’ve already witnessed the attacks on the academic carrying out research for the National Trust; on so called ‘woke’ culture; and on virtually any expert who comments on Covid who has any link in their past to any policy position/idea that isn’t right of centre, or dares to say anything that might in any way imply Johnson and co are not particualry good at what they do.
This will undoubtedly continue for the next three years. Indeed, we can expect it to ramp up as the need to find distractions from the continuing inability of government to sort the impact of Covid, allied with the ongoing need to distract from the increasingly obvious negatives of Brexit, but with few obvious positives (I wonder if any UK fishemen have been able to validate Rees Mogg’s claim that fish in British waters are now happier), increases.
There are many differences between the US and UK systems of politics and government, and of society more generally, of course. These will all have a bearing on the nature and degree of the authoritarian turn that is now a central feature of the current government. But one thing that the right in the US and in the UK share – as does the right anywhere else in the world – is their single-minded pursuit of power and that, ultimately, everything else is secondary. That’s why right wing extremism is almost always more threatening and destructive of democracy and of all the freedoms and benefits that go with it than almost anything we ever find on the left. I wonder if Lord Walney’s investigation will have the balls to call that out?
This kind of thing has has happened on many occasions
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0B8W2nkd80E
Incidentally I am part of the working class, are you?
These were student protests most likely attracting the right wing as much as the left
No I am not working class: by most definti09ons I cannot be
But I sure as heck remember my granny’s tin bath hung behind the kitchen door when I was a child – the only bath she had
So stop playing silly games with me
I think we need to remember factual history don’t we?
In the 20th century at least, the UK has not had the sort political terrorism that we have seen Italy, Germany or the Basque country has it really?
I remember my father telling me that during the First World War, food was so short in the Shires that there was very often open rebellion over the issue that was heavily supressed by the War Cabinet at the time. But that was over food and lack of well being – not because they were ‘Left’.
OK – we had the IRA and Unionist terror groups in Ireland which was awful but that was resolutely about nationalism wasn’t it – not the Left? And the black shirts were resolutely Right weren’t they?
We’ve had a bit of Welsh nationalism too in the form of the burning down some cottages. And yes, the Scots liked to smash up Wembley – especially if they won a home international. And who hasn’t walked into a Cornish pub and heard the locals muttering ‘Emmits’ (or however its spelt) at their displeasure of the rich incomers buying up property and forcing locals out by putting up house prices That’s about economic inequality – not about being ‘Left’.
But c’mon…………..the English Left are a mild bunch really. I’ve seen better football Firms (hooligans) organising punch ups and racial chants at football matches than any Left winger holding a meeting and getting through in a reasonable time.
You know, it’s not past the Tories to bring this up now as they begin to tighten the financial screws again and reek more havoc in people’s lives.
But there is one thing I have noticed within my extended family amongst even the more well heeled – their language describing their feelings about Johnson and BREXIT and the handling of Covid is becoming more violent. And these are people who read the Independent, subscribe to Which? and find the Guardian too left wing!!
Something interesting is happening to our society at the moment – maybe like a certain Mr Oborne, the penny is dropping as to who exactly and what exactly is going on. I hope so.
All we need is the right sort of political leadership and vision to capitalise on it. And it won’t be the Left as we know it. Or the Left at all judging by how much pleasure they derive from undermining each other.
I’m sure that those clever but twisted individuals in the Tory party know this. That’s why they keep throwing hand grenades like ‘Left-wing extremism’ into us.
Thanks PSR
UK democracy in danger from the left when Prince Charles blatantly undermines it? You have to be exceedingly myopic not to understand how corrupt the system really is in the UK!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charles-vetted-laws-that-stop-his-tenants-buying-their-homes
Of course, if you don’t mind me going out on a limb here;
It could be a precursor because they know that people will reach their breaking point;
awareness is dawning that everything people are suffering is due to ideology rather than necessity;
Corruption and cronyism is continuing despite the theft of literally hundreds of billions of £ making people more and more angry;
So by creating a witch hunt for the radical left boogie man they can justify (A) the ratcheting up the next level of restrictions of civil liberties and (B) erosion of accountability on their march towards absolute power.
No, it’s not a problem. I don’t see anyone marching to overthrow the government and install anything that might be called left wing. The ruling classes in these islands have never tolerated dissent that might displace them and have mainly reacted with vicious violence – from the Peasants’ Revolt to the Miners’ Strike. More recently they have just created laws to emasculate any groups, such as Unions, that might threaten the status quo.
One of the problems with our political settlement, apart from the fact that it is not democracy, (FPTP, HoL, Safe Seats, Monarchy, influence of private schools, corporate capture etc, ) is that there are virtually no mechanisms for ordinary citizens who don’t want to join the stultifying strait-jacket of political parties, to influence how the country is run. Even Local Govt is all about party politics.
There are no citizens’ assemblies which could channel alternative visions, propose changes and a mechanism for having them properly discussed at an executive level and even implemented. Politicians should be servants of the people not the other way round, and most politicians are servants of their parties and ignore their electorate.
One of Scheidel’s great levellers was pandemic. I don’t, so far, see much levelling or signs of State collapse, despite 120K deaths and rising.
Agreed
Good points. I’ve been reading about liberalism and socialism recently. Trying to improve my understanding of the underlying principles of both political movements. There is a great degree of overlap between the two, which I think is healthy. The overlap occurs as both traditions seek to improve the lot of the majority (equality, justice etc). Where the major difference occurs is in the understanding of power in a capitalist system. These two political movements really need to work together, but at the moment the liberal camp, which has dominated the 20th century is too fixated on the socialist challenge to their own hegemony (liberal minded folk are still the majority in the British Establishment) and really not paying enough attention to the current right wing movement within the Conservative party, which is an incoherent combination of authoritarianism (social oppression) and the laissez faire approach to managing risk (individualizing risk). Liberal moral philosophy, which is still how most of us in the West understand society, is being undermined severely by the imported US alt right, Randian, ideology. I am surprised at how supine the liberal hegemony has been in the face of this assault.
Agreed
Hence this blog
And the reactions it creates
The reference to Scheidel is well made. What we require to do (certainly what we need to do in Scotland, for I have given up on the prospect in the UK long ago); is to demonstrate that fair distribution of resources, goods and services throughout the population, as citizens (not as corporate fictions, or institutions, or as designated ‘hard working’ used as a badge for special privileges, or as special interest entitlements, who determine and siphon all the benefits to themselves as the only ‘full’ citizens of the state), can be achieved within a libertarian framework, without relying on a post-traumatic event brought only in the hoof-prints of Scheidel’s ‘four horsemen’; to introduce an environment for real (rather than only nominal) reform.
I quite like Ash Sarkar’s take on the Establishment’s silencing of the left. She sees it as a Gramcian project by government and other Establishment figures to reformulate our social norms. Racism good, socialism bad, business good, public service bad. It is a project that has been going on for a while, but now it is more overt.
Agreed
‘there are no citizens assemblies’…
There is hope; interest in , and activism around, Citizen Assembly has rapidly increased over the last decade. Check out the now international Sortition Foundation, and the work of Brett Hennig, His book ‘The End of Politicians’ , introduces the key ideas behind Citizen Assembly/ Sortition, and is also a brilliantly readable history of the changing ideas and practices that constitute ‘democracy’. It will give you ammunition to talk and think about the chief alternative to the present state of malaise and corruption – and may cheer you up
[…] By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist. He has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK […]
I used to go on many CND demonstrations and anti Vietnam war ones from the 1960s onwards . I never saw any anarchist or Class war people break a single window. A lot of shouting yes, but most of them were ardently in agreement with non-violent protest. The only arrests made were for “obstruction”.