There were ugly scenes near parliament last night. Keir Starmer and David Lammy were threatened. People said Keir Starmer should be hung for supporting paedophiles, which he very clearly has not. The mood of those making the accusations was ugly and the threat of violence very real.
As everyone of fair mind knows, none of this would have happened without the accusation having been made by Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer had failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile. This accusation was false. As is very clear, Johnson has yet to apologise for making it, because of which his head of policy resigned.
As Starmer said at Prime Minister's Questions last week, Johnson knew what he was doing when he used a trope usually associated with fascist groups. There was no mistaking his intention. And now we see the consequence.
The time to recognise that we face a threat from fascism has arrived. I have been saying this for a while, and only with care, and with good reason. Starmer has been right to name it. I am told that John McDonnell made the same accusation in a speech he made last Saturday, and again, I think correctly. We cannot beat this enemy unless we name it.
Fascism is, of course, government against the will of the people. That is, of course not to deny that some will support it, and that through threat others will have their opposition silenced. That does not change the fact that this is government against, and not for, the people.
Such a government is for corporate interests. Again though, it is not for all corporate interests. It is for those who are willing to align with that government. That this has been happening is all too obvious during the course of the coronavirus crisis.
What characterises such governments are a number of things. There are persistent, repeated, and very obvious lies that are told time and again until the point arrives where they are accepted as truth even though they very obviously are not. This is happening and people like the Speaker in the House of Commons are refusing to prevent it. Parliament now upholds the liar and oppresses those who seek to hold them to account. That is a very dangerous position to have reached.
There is a suspension of the rule of law. The refusal of the Met to investigate so many issues, including the Downing Street parties, looks very like that.
There is a simultaneous abuse of the law to oppress those seeking to protest. The behaviour of the Met at the Sarah Everard vigil was an example of that.
The threat of violence goes further. Many might have thought that Johnson was joking when he said that it would take a brigade of tanks to remove him from Downing Street, but I am not at all convinced that he was.
And then there is the erosion of freedoms, whether to vote, or to move at will, or to protest, or to live free from fear. These are happening, steadily.
And whilst all this is happening the threats grow. They were seen on the street yesterday. And not by chance. Johnson incited what happened, and still will not apologise.
I hope Starmer returns to this issue at Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow. He has, once more, to call this out. He has to name it for what it is. We have to say what we are facing and fighting now. It is fascism, and Johnson is in favour of it, despite which his Cabinet will not quit.
Fascism is the danger we now face.
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Hoyle is a disaster of a speaker.
A great wet lettuce if there ever was one.
On the basis that the opposition wasn’t yet being openly suppressed, jailed and so forth, I’d thought a diagnosis of fascism was premature. I may be prepared to think again.
Hang on…..
You want to wait until the coup is complete before you can spot fascism?
Indifference like that precisely what lets fascists in
No.
I’m here because I think you’re a conscience with following, more correct than not. Indifference is not the problem.
If I say I’m Scottish, maybe my position will become a little clearer. I’ve pulled back from most of the political coverage I used to follow because it was becoming emotionally exhausting, depressing and worse. Nowadays, I’m so used to dialling back from the hyperbole on some sites and in the mainstream media – almost as a survival strategy – that it’s my default setting, perhaps even with your measured language. Anyway, I’ve been against the Tories for as long as long as I can remember and despite my country not having voted for tory government in my lifetime, here we are with yet another worse-the-the-last Tory government. Johnson is just the cherry on top, the status quo laughing in our faces.
There will be fascism before there is realisation it is fascism that must be opposed, that is just the way it is with the media we have. Even then, with the Labour and SNP track records as they stand, it’s hard to believe they’ll do anything but try to manage the descent with more caring language.
I’ll vote and argue for something better, but whether they’re bought and paid for, or afraid of the fight, there’s little I expect of the current established opposition.
Interesting to note that the Mail, Express and Telegraph are the papers NOT leading with the Starmer story. That’s just editorial choice, of course and in no way orchestrated! To their credit, SOME Tories are demanding an apology, but it is scandalous and worrying that most are not. Copycat Trumpism, pure and simple. This is leading somewhere bad at breakneck speed.
I agree Paulhenry.
Hannah Arendt asserted that those prone to using fascism (politicians using fascist divide and conquer tactics – in a world today where all politicians are seen ‘as the same’ – and members of society susceptible to it messages) means that fascism is actually always there amongst us – just waiting for an opportunity.
It’s always with us and we are always at risk in ANY society it would seem.
My view is that we are in a crossover position now – we are in transition to a fascist state which means that the old and new will co-habit for a while but there can only be one victor.
But make no mistake therefore that fascism is here NOW and it can only get stronger if we let it.
The Tories really don’t care what tactics they use to destroy Clem Attlee’s legacy believe you me.
If he plays true to type there will be no full apology from Johnson or clear statement of the truth – that is part of the playbook . The Republican Party still says the election was stolen. These tropes are released deliberately to run free and sully politics. Johnson intended ‘Starmer/Paedophile/Saville’ to be linked in the public mind from now on. The fact he was even aware of this ‘Q-anon’-type conspiracy theory and prepared to use it on the spur of the moment – more or less condemns this regime. If he doesn’t apologise hasnt he again ‘misled’ (lied to) Parliament? Chris Patton says this is no longer the ‘Conservative’ Party.
The specific accusation that I heard was in relation to Keir’s involvement with Julian Assange abuse. I checked it out and there are grounds to ask that question. That was the link in the guardian. Keir is no better than Johnson and that is what people can see.
So, you are willing to lie here to support fascism?
You are denying the truth
Fascists are not welcome on this site
13 signs of fascism.
The UK seems to have ticked quite a few off the list.
1.Powerful and continuing nationalism.
2.Disdain for human rights.
3.Identification of enemies as a unifying cause.
4.Supremacy of the military
5.Rampant sexism.
6.Controlled mass media.
7.Obsession with national security.
8.Religion and government intertwined.
9.Corporate power protected
Labor [sic] power suppressed.
10.Disdain for intellectuals & the arts.
11.Obsession with crime & punishment.
12.Rampant cronyism & corruption.
13.Fraudulent elections.
There is no “brigade of tanks” left in the British army. There are three regiments equipped with around 50 Challenger 2 main battle tanks each – Kings Hussars, Queens Hussars, and Royal Tank Regiment – distributed among three armoured infantry brigades, plus some in reserve – around 200 in all, but only 150 will be upgraded to Challenger 3 standard. And various other units equipped with lightly armed and armoured reconnaissance or fighting vehicles.
I suppose if you pulled them all together you might just scrape one tank brigade.
Thank goodness there is little prospect of us fighting against the Russians, who have literally thousands.
I watched a 2 minute clip on Twitter. My impression was one of fury, not about Savile, but about the lack of fight in Labour, over the weak opposition to the Tory attacks (on the NHS, the working men and women, etc). I heard words like constitution, New World Order, traitor, Freemason, ignoring what is going on, etc. uttered as cries of despair and frustration. I go along with all of those. Perhaps not the hostility, but certainly the mood.
Johnson and Savile is a dead cat, and the BBC Today certainly used it effectively as such.
I shall look for the complete tape.
Then you are also deliberately lying and are now banned
Odd how many on the left could not hear what was very clearly said
I am not a fascist, nor do I support fascism. I am not an anti vaxxer and I do not support their cause, but they have a right to protest.
I saw some news coverage, it was not very clear what was going on. It was described as a group of anti vaxxers protesting, but I certainly heard references to Julian Assange. I think I may have spotted Piers Corbyn in the protest. I suspect that Piers and Boris do not support the same political values.
I heard the news this morning where a Labour MP claimed it was a hostile environment and there were vile comments made. I saw no fascist flags or emblems. I saw no punches or missiles thrown: it was to my mind an angry protest. It is the type of protest that the Tories are proposing to ban which to my mind is a bigger threat towards fascism.
I do oppose Johnson’s accusation in the Commons against Starmer, this was the tactic of a desperate man clutching at straws. But he also may have let the cat out of the bag with his reference to journalists, much more significant than his comment on Savile, which is why lots of his Party have turned against him. Johnathon Cook and Craig Murray explain this in a brilliant analysis that suggests there are far more worrying signs of moves to fascism than this incident.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2022-02-07/boris-johnson-smears-starmer-corbyn/?fbclid=IwAR1N3jHncrtflfqwJUDOPfTYKj8FRlUAszFWgOIr0eX3Yp9MVuOy2_3kmJo
So the left-wing idiots, as you clearly are, are no=w aligning with the right to oppose Statmer?
This is an outright lie that you are posting here
You are are banned
Anyone like you will be
Richard you may disagree, but I’m afraid I don’t see what the lie is here. What are you alleging?
You referenced ABL John McD saying the Johnson regime is proto-fascist. You also wrote a piece recently with similar import referencing Umberto Eco. I think your general worries about fascism are entirely justified. I share them, but…
A caveat first, I’ve been out of the country and haven’t seen the footage. The “but” though is that I don’t see a rebuttal of the comments made by Cook and Murray, which appear to me well argued. The suggestion from Cook and Murray is that (for once) the PM may actually have told the truth: ie that as head of the CPS Starmer will have had a role in the pursuit of Julian Assange, and the decision not to prosecute Savile. I think for them (and in Murray’s case this seems to be based on years of experience from the inside of how these things work) to suppose that high profile cases like those don’t get input from up the chain is for the birds.
I’ll take no position on their comments, but it seems to me they deserve more consideration than you are giving them.
As for what happened on the street, as I say I haven’t seen what happened, but I understand that though people were angry, there was no violence. If that is right, good.
As a general comment I would add that to me the right to harangue elected politicians is an important one in a democracy, and would hope you agreed.
Another left wing excuser of attacks on democracy
As for Cook and Murray, I have no time for them either and never have. I have never pretended otherwise
Sorry – but those on the left trying to frame Starmer for Savile are joining in the campaign against democracy and have no place here
From now on it is straightforward deletion
The left when it meets the far right is just as dangerous
First here is the footage of a demonstrator clearly angry at Starmer, and following him at very close range, he doesn’t mention Saville, but shouts angrily about Julian Assange, if you also listen very carefully there is little reference if any from the rest of the crowd about saville, but lots calling him traitor, perhaps referring to assange being extradited to the US. https://skwawkbox.org/2022/02/07/video-starmer-flees-shouts-of-traitor-and-questions-about-targeting-of-assange-and-journalism/
There is also a smoking gun here that can’t be dismissed as oversight, on a nationally important trial of Julian Assange, do we really believe that he didn’t know what was happening in this case. https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2017/nov/10/uk-prosecutors-admit-destroying-key-emails-from-julian-assange-case?ref=mainstreem
I could go on about other issues if you wish where his track record in the CPS doesn’t put him in a good light, suffice it to say, honesty is not one of Starmer’s known attributes.
If we are to fight fascism, then we need people like Julian Assange to be out there telling us what our corrupt establishment are doing. Why do you think for example that the corrupt mass media focused on Saville rather than Julian Assange??
I met Assange once
I felt him one of the most insincere people I had ever met
I did not trust him and refused to go near his data
Nothing has ever made me change my mind
And you have joined the banned list
Let me repeat that those who oppose democracy by supporting violent protest in support of fascist tropes are not welcome here
“All that is required for evil to flourish is for men to stand by and do nothing”.
So who is doing something?
Certainly not Hoyle, the Commons Speaker.
Certainly not the Monarch.
Certainly not the leadership of the Civil Service.
Certainly not the leadership of the Police.
Certainly not the bulk of the Conservative party in Parliament and the country.
Certainly not much of the press and other media.
Websites such as this, and others of the awkward squad, are most of what we have left.
To show you how dirty things can get, on Channel 4 last night was a Tory female MP and Kathy Newman bemoaning the misogyny concerning Carrie Johnson’s treatment at the hands of men.
The Tory MP – a member of a party that has hurt more women more than any party in living memory since 2010, and (for example) thinks it OK for female prisoners to give birth to still born babies in prison toilets or handcuffed to beds seemed to think that defending Britain’s answer to Marie Antoinette was more important than acknowledging her complicity with her party’s cruelty.
And this is what will happen – fascists will turn the tables on progressives using our own language and lenses of conscience (our ‘wokeness’ if you will) to make themselves look like the victim. They will abuse our language and claim victimhood even when they are aggressors.
For my part, anyone in the Tory party is fair game. They have gone past the limits of indecency and debased themselves a long time ago and all are in my opinion valid targets for ridicule. A decent person would not associate themselves with them. The party and its MPs really are the enemy within.
PSR, the BBC News this afternoon pointed out that Ree-Smogg was whispering to Johnson while Starmer was speaking. It was when Johnson got up to speak that he invoked the Saville reference. I am not claiming cause and effect, but it does seem to be a rather sinister coincidence.
It was perhaps too simple to recognise and make fun of the ‘Trumpolini’ pose on the balcony. And too easy to gloat about his ignorant supporters who didn’t realise what happened to Il Duce afterwards.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-coronavirus-white-house-mussolini-a4564571.html
So let’s please take Richard Murphy’s concerns very seriously but also cast our net wider.
Here’s a lively, spirited talk from 2019 by the Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran. She’s moved from 3 years ago using the terms populism and authoritarianism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zq5BNTPcmw
Now saying Fascism. And talking (below) with Ben Rhodes about who really controls “democracies”? As well as embarrassment when talking about love and common humanity and how fascism is about hatred.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwXZLRAFflA
Reading this reminded me off an essay written by a certain wannabe politician.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK_qUg1XMAAJPb0?format=jpg&name=large
But it begs the question about who is being duped. Is it the writer himself perhaps? Are there others behind the scenes?
Wee correction there. It should have read “But it begs the question about who is the duper”. (Is that a word?)
It works
The duper dupes the duped
I think Richard that while we support everything you say about the rise and need for resistance to fascism, it might be advisable to clarify more objectively what you suggest you heard that John McDonnell said.
I am told he described the Johnson regime as proto-fascist
So those coming on here suggesting this is legitimate protest are surely missing something. If this a legitimate protest about the failings of Starmer how does that benefit anyone. Starmer currently has no power. If they want to replace him with another Corbyn style leader then voting support evaporates so no gain there and no power in the form of government. All their so called protest does is shore up the corrupt incumbents. If they really cared about the rights of the individual and those of the working man then their protest would be against Johnson and their right wing agenda to keep the populace in their place. Whatever this protest was it is not a legitimate attempt to support anyone. At best it is ill conceived at worse it is Fascism in action hiding under the guise of a protest by “the people”. It is manipulation to ensure that enough confusion reigns to corrupt politics and allow populism and other tropes to thrive.
Crush the saboteurs, enemies of the people. Just a couple of examples of inciting headlines in our awful right-wing press. Three years ago we had high level national securtiy staff, and MPs going on national TV saying the opposition leader was a danger to the security of the nation. Soldiers took target practice on an image of him and no one did much more than shrug. Two MPs murdered in the last five years and things have only gotten worse.
This fascistic approach to politics has been going on a while. The right wing media actively promote it.
And the problem is it’s working for them
It helped get the Tories an 80+ seat majority and it could keep them in power for a long time.
Yes it’s likely Johnson will be replaced before any election, but I have zero faith whoever it is won’t employ the same tactics. It has consistently been show to work for them. There are no consequences to lying as an MP, and no consequences to printing lies in a national newspaper.
There’s been some push back this time but only because Starmer is popular amongst his own MP’s and the media class and Johnson is, at the moment, the opposite.
Another clue that we are indeed a fascist society I think is the way we have treated the disabled?
Tonight on R4 I heard about the struggles there were to get blind people to be able to vote – a total lack of facilities and enablement. It was quite shocking actually.
There was just no willingness by this Government to tackle this problem by all accounts.
This has become an awful country to live and die in.
Any sign of showing that you are in hardship is looked down upon, and the attitudes to immigrants, the poor, those with mental health is either disdain or an opportunity to make money yet there are a lot of people running foodbanks and other volunteering going on I know and things would be much worse without this generosity.
But, Pilgrim (slightly askew?) , if everything at serious fault is a symptom of or can be labelled “Fascism”, then what is not Fascism?
I don’t dismiss the issues you raise.
I assume you refer among other evidence to this report.
https://www.rnib.org.uk/news/campaigning/Turned-out-report-voting/)
And I am embarrassed to write that – formerly – taking part in local politics for many years – including 16 years as an elected borough councillor – I cannot remember this being raised and checked. But the report shows that steps are being taken in partnership with blind and partially sighted people to tackle this.
We don’t live in a country where the governing parties and organisations are systematically and deliberately, making it harder if not impossible for large numbers of voters to exercise their right to vote. (With the possible exception of checks on multiple voting, which are strongly challenged).
Alan, that’s incorrect. This government is pushing through an Elections Bill that is clearly intended to prevent large numbers of people that it believes are very unlikely to vote tory, from exercising their right to vote. That is, requiring voters to turn up at the voting booth with various forms of ID on the wholly spurious grounds of voter fraud, which is virtually non-existent in the UK.
It is exactly the same as the measures being pursued in the US by Trump’s fascist followers. The UK (assuming the Scots and Welsh don’t go for independence sooner or later) is moving towards the kind of ‘democracy’ you see in Poland, Hungary or Turkey. All of which are distinctly fascist in tone.
Richard has pointed this out before.
In his recent book, “How to Stop Fascism”, Paul Mason describes the gradual and multi-channeled rise of fascism in Italy and then Germany in the 20th century and vividly contrasts this with the situation in UK today. There is little doubt that we face an imminent threat to our democracy. He would definitely agree with your position.
Thanks