The far-right rioted again last night.
Fuelled by racial hatred, misinformation, disinformation, and utterly inappropriate comments from Farage, hundreds rioted in London and Hartlepool.
It is important to note that the numbers are small.
It is as important to note that these actions are as clearly co-ordinated as was the rioting in Southport the day before.
What we are seeing is deliberate provocation, fuelled by racial hatred.
It was the cynical manipulation of that sentiment that led to Brexit, and all the divisions that flowed from it.
These sentiments mimic the racist attacks of Trump and others on Obama in the US, which sentiment is now being viciously turned on Kamala Harris by the spreading of total untruths. Trump's aim there would appear to be to make racism acceptable.
And this is how fascism works. Undoubted, and even justified, grievances that people have are inflamed by the blaming of ‘others', who are usually immigrants or people considered to be members of ethnic minorities, who are blamed for the perceived injustice. The solution then ceases to be the resolution of the injustice and turns into hatred of the ‘other'.
That works for those fomenting the hatred.
It is only too late that those used by the creators of fascist narratives to create the disruption in society realise that they are the actual ‘other' those creating the fascist sentiment might actually dislike most of all, and for whom they can all easily become expendable, as Putin is proving.
What is the answer to this? I keep saying it is to root out the cause of the grievances in our society. We do have inequality. We have government failing to invest in regions. We have fear about climate change. And in areas where unemployment is a threat and wages are low of course there is economic vulnerability.
It is a falsehood to pretend these things cannot be addressed. They could be. But that would upset those who have become very comfortable after years of austerity. There is a significant class who have done very well from Osborne and all who have followed him, with it looking horribly like Reeves wants to join their number right now.
We cannot defeat the far-right without changing the economy we have, which delivers far too much reward to too few. The balance has to be reset. But will that happen? That's the question, because it's not the rioters who will really deliver fascism, even if that is what they want. It's those who sit by in comfort and refuse to change anything so that those treated unfairly get a fair share who will really deliver fascism.
What will the comfortable classes do?
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It is very wise for you to link these events with what has been previously identified on this blog as the continuing failure of the Neo-liberal ideology. An ideology that has run its course and is in some sort of zombie stage. It’s only answer is more of the same – and in that, its self interest is reified, and its real objective exposed.
People want answers and change and there is that frustration in these events here too. However, quite how the raiding of a local shop in Southport and the stealing of its contents counts as a statement of political frustration is beyond me and always will be.
My only additional comment is that we cannot defeat the right until we have dealt with the same things that enabled BREXIT and the Johnson government: the cynical use of social media and how it is funded. The dis-information wars.
This issue has still not been dealt with in our politics and really needs to be or this sort of thing is likely to continue and also get worse.
Corrupt Scammer & Co drop second stage of Leveson Inquiry presumably to keep Rupert Murdoch happy:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/31/gordon-brown-tom-watson-news-international-william-lewis-rupert-murdoch
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jul/25/keir-starmer-confirms-he-has-no-plans-to-revive-second-stage-of-leveson-inquiry
What chance now of keeping the media accountable in regard to not promoting racism?
Thank you.
The minute that Corbyn announced plans for a government led by him to have Leveson II conducted and media regulation updated, he painted a target on his back. This said, as London university college research showed, the Grauniad was the lead in tormenting Corbyn.
Fun fact: Before 2015, no allegations of anti-semitism were levelled at Corbyn. Soon after his election as opposition leader, the character assassination began. One can track online.
Yes thank you. It’s been a long history of lambs to the slaughter in this country! Pre-election supporters of Scammer & Co are now in for an extenuated and painful period of disillusionment!
I agree with all that Colonel – what happened to Corbyn is a tale that needs to come out into the open for all our sakes.
I knew Corbyn a bit, and met all his immediate family. I never thought him anti-Semitic. I think he was naive about the existence of anti-semitism in Labour, but I think he just could not imagine how anyone could be anti-Semitic. That was his problem.
Thank you for a wisely warning article!
Might Neoliberal austerity have been and be an intro to full bloom fascism?
Might the 1988 and 2010 Education Acts have facilitated and facilitate forms of mass education which made and make students un-analytically questioning, limited in enquiring for themselves and, basically, unhealthily tolerant of what they are told and what is done for/to them?
Good question to which the answer is almost certainly yes
Yes …. And no.
I think there is no doubt that the demands of GCSE’s are less than ‘back in the day’ … Ditto Standard Grades…. Previously, school exams were targeted at an exclusively academic route. The rest were fodder for local commerce – decision made v early in their lives.
However, I think there is no doubt that young people at school recently are so much more caring, tolerant, supportive and considerate than many of my school cohort ever were.
Is it the “academic” achievement of basic secondary education that is the issue …. Are the thugs lacking an ability to analyse … Or have they been encouraged by others who seek to gain by their hostility? The disenfranchised are easily manipulated …. But the “neds” at my school had an easier path to follow into adulthood than today’s school students.
It is too simplistic to blame the curriculum for this complex issue.
Thanks
There is a misinformation and disinformation expert who I follow on social media. He is pretty clear that this is a case of misinformation. The riots were not the intent of the originator. A journalist by the name Katherine Denkinson has done some excellent work uncovering the story. I suggest to look up her articles on the matter. Much better written than what I could do. And the story is much bigger and worse than I imagined yesterday.
Those that are to blame will not take responsibility. And they well deny that the far right exists even when I and others see the riots and hatred on the streets.
The choice is clear, the comfortably off either invest in barbed wire, guns and ammunition or the NHS, housing, education and transport.
Thank you, Clive.
I live in Buckinghamshire and have observed gated communities spring around the Thames valley.
My parents migrated from Mauritius 60 years ago. There are many Europeans and South Africans and even some Americans moving into gated communities there as sugar cane production is reduced. They are bringing their money and families, so an entire support system of schools, hospitals, professional services firms, amenities etc. is developing around them.
A wise lady at a church I used to attend said “we minister to the down-and-outs but what about the up-and-outs?”
I do reflect on that sometimes. These folk are frightened (hence the gates), lonely (because of the gates)….. it is actually quite sad.
Was she a Quaker?
@Clive Parry: Or as someone once said, the church should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!
No, CofE…. which is surprising to me coming from a Welsh Methodist background. I have attended Quaker meetings and found the silence most uplifting….. reminds me of my grandfather who said “if I hadn’t been born a Methodist I would be a Quaker”.
Slightly frightening to realize how we are all prisoners of our upbringing.
I was brought up CoE from a Catholic father and Baptist mother…
No, it makes no sense
“The solution then ceases to be the resolution of the injustice and turns into hatred of the ‘other’.”
@Clive Parry – You are correct that “the choice is clear”. The resolution of the injustice has to start with the government both in the UK and USA.
Today is Earth Overshoot Day…
Yet another persistent failing of capitalism and specifically neoliberalism.
So much for the free market involving the optimal allocation of resources.
In the UK Overshoot Day is 3rd June.
We continue to ignore resource allocation and over consumption at our children and grandchildren’s peril.
https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/
Outside of other issues, “deathwatch beetle capitalism” is still pretending in many quarters that global warming isn’t happening!
The ‘comfortable classes’ have always had a collective hang up about talking about money. By extension those hang ups apply to inequality. It can be subtle, but it is pervasive and deflecting. That sets the tone for those you are hung out by inquality.
“When someone says ‘It’s not the money, it’s the principle,’ nine times out of ten, it’s the money.”
Unlike those who create mayhem, the comfortable classes, in my view, have no easy way to exert a countervaling pressure. I hope we would all acknowledge that the social media are a force multiplier. A very small number of people can plan to create trouble and advertising it is free and easy via the social media. I suspect that identifying such adverts is far from easy, given that the response time needed to be effective is really in the 10’s of minutes. One of their objectives is always to hit the national news, international reports are a bonus – icing on the cake.
I agree that changing the economy, so that everyone has a significant stake in it, would be a way forward. It would certainly be worth trying. But sadly, at the moment, I don’t see that there is the political will within the established parties to make the necessary changes.
The comfortable classes would need to have some topic/subject around which to unite. Reform UK managed it; in my view, they took advantage of a coincidence of events very skilfully. I just don’t see the conditions for that to happen to correct the mal-distribrution of resource available to the general public. Perhaps, I just lack imagination and will power to make such things happen…..
The comfortable classes control the media and unite about prserving their status. That is their power and they use it.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Bit late to the blog today due to office matters.
On my way in, a friend who lives in what was the 2012 Olympic village reports that, overnight, Muslim neighbours have been attacked and their flats sprayed with graffitti.
That is grim
“a friend who lives in what was the 2012 Olympic village reports that, overnight, Muslim neighbours have been attacked and their flats sprayed with graffitti.”
Richard – before publishing that post, did you check that the report was accurate or are you happy to spread what might turn out to be misinformation?
I trust that source
From The Independent: Identity of Stabbing Suspect Revealed,
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/southport-stabbing-court-murder-hearing-b2589422.html?lid=l481u5tvgnhr&utm_medium=email&utm_source=braze&utm_campaign=Southport%20identity%20Breaking%20Newsletter%2001-08-24&utm_term=IND_Breaking_Newsletter
Colonel Smithers
Thanks for this, as Richard says – it’s grim news indeed.
But will be headline news tonight? Although it ought to be, as we all need the wake-up call, I somehow doubt it.
This sounds uncomfortably reminiscent of Kristallnacht.
Similar attacks happening in Northern Ireland. The syntax and the use of Irish Only would suggest the racists gangs in the UK may he working with the Irish Lives Matter racist gangs in Ireland. https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/irish-only-sprayed-on-home-of-72-year-old-woman-living-alone-in-co-derry-village-O4EQKQZR55HMJLUWJPGDXZISFU/
The social conditions that you describe as enabling fascism also feed into the massive iceberg that is mental ill-health which may, just may, be a determinant in the tragic killing of those poor little girls.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Today’s post should be read in conjunction, again, with yesterday’s post about the BBC.
First, may I thank John S Warren, Andy Crow and Ralph Cunningham for engaging with me.
It was good of Ralph to highlight the Johnson clan. Further to John’s comment about connections and the permanent Tory state, let share some more fun facts: Jo Johnson is married to one of the Grauniad’s many toffs, Amelia Gentleman. On the evening that England played in a European Championship match, Farage tweeted a photo of himself in an England jersey at a pub. He was actually in a box with Jo Johnson at Lord’s, watching a county match. A friend’s firm has the next door box and often sees the pair as Jo Johnson and Farage are friends. My friend remarked about man of the people and all that, when sending me a photo from across the balcony. The Johnsons went to the same Brussels school as Uschi von der Leyen, but did not overlap.
I think we well see more of this scapegoating as the system crumbles and the elite closes ranks. It’s interesting how many of the people I come across who fear and forecasted this, especially from Brexit onwards, are former civil servants who worked for that elite.
@ Andy: Sara Lanier lives in Northern Ireland, I think, and chimes in intermittently. Sara and I have exchanged comments about settler states.
Might the attached help to inform and, possibly, persuade?
https://equalitytrust.org.uk/evidence-base/the-spirit-level-at-15/#:~:text=The%20Spirit%20Level%20at%2015%20shows%20for%20the%20first%20time,half%20of%20all%20global%20emissions.
According to “The Equality Trust”, the richest 50 families in the U. K. hold more wealth than half the entire population.
Thank you, Steve.
I reckon that the figure is an understatement.
I used to work for Coutts and either at school or other work places, came across families, usually aristocrat or Victorian business, who do not make and have never made the Sunday Times rich list. These types like it that way. As we say in French, “Vivre mieux. Vivre tranquillement.”
The royal family must have chuckled when the media reported that the PM and his family were wealthier than the royals.
James Rathbone: Trajectories – worth a read, written in 1998 and set in 2035 – it predicts a very bleak future for the UK, an increasingly feral country, in which those outside gate communities are regarded, by the gov, as only fit for elimination, with the climate disaster making things increasingly horrible.
Just reported on the BBC South news: https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/hampshire-news/intimidating-protest-breaks-out-aldershot-29656108. It’s not the first time there. Some years ago, there was similar in Bicester.
You wrote, Richard, ‘Whilst no-one can ultimately prevent crimes…, a great deal of suffering in our society can be relieved. We need a government intent on doing that, with the explicit goal of reducing differences within our society. That is the only way to defeat the far-right.’
So, first, there is the obvious need to reduce inequality *within* nations (Taxing Wealth 2024)
Second, and less obvious perhaps, inequality *between* nations must also be seriously addressed.
Third, Richard wrote ‘We have fear about climate change.’
We do – but, though the scientists have been telling us for decades, few of us can see the urgency of it. We are accustomed to our cars and flying abroad for holidays. It’s not yet urgent for us. IT MUST BE – AND SOON.
In the near future – five years at most – the imminent danger of climate catastrophe caused by CO2e emissions in wealthy countries like ours (we have already had far more than our fair share) must be reduced dramatically
As I love my grandchildren, I recommend: a) Halt all non-essential flights immediately. b) Over-night, reduce 70 mph and 60 mph speed limits to 50mph. c) Reduce all other speed limits by 10 mph. d) Announce further cuts to come and plan to reorganise our societies to reduce the need for so much travel. e) Abolish standing charges and ration water, gas, electricity and motor fuel by escalating prices. f) Taxes on houses to be based on ‘floor spare per occupant’ – with lowish charges for dwellings close to the lower limits, escalating increases above – and additional homes added to the first.
These measures will bring make more homes available to those in often desperate need. House building is energy intensive – as is heating, especially of large homes.
I don’t want much. Just a habitable planet for my descendants – which will require the same for everyone else’s progeny.
Oxfam is calling for a systemic and wide-ranging increase in taxation of the super-rich to claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering. Decades of tax cuts for the richest and corporations have fuelled inequality, with the poorest people in many countries paying higher tax rates than billionaires. Elon Musk paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.27 percent from 2014 to 2018, according to ProPublica.
Oxfam’s research shows that the ultra-rich are the biggest individual contributors to the climate crisis. The richest billionaires, through their polluting investments, are emitting a million times more carbon than the average person. The wealthiest 1 percent of humanity are responsible for twice as many emissions as the poorest 50 percent and by 2030, their carbon footprints are set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.
Finally, Monbiot wrote ‘Who is brave enough to back Brazil’s global tax on billionaires? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/31/brazil-global-tax-billionaires-super-rich ‘The structure of the Covid bailouts ensured that the big banks gained massively, often at the expense of small businesses. Executive pay and dividends for shareholders soared, while lowlier workers lost incomes and livelihoods. … a 2% global tax on the wealth of the world’s billionaires … would affect just 3,000 of the super-rich, it would raise around $250bn (£195bn): a significant contribution either to global climate funds or to poverty alleviation. Radical? Not at all. According to calculations by Oxfam, the wealth of billionaires has been growing so fast in recent years that maintaining it at a constant level would have required an annual tax of 12.8%.’ … So here’s the test the G20 governments face: 3,000 versus 8 billion. Do their loyalties lie with 0.00004% of the world’s population, or with the rest? If your government seeks to block the Brazilian proposal, you will have your answer.’
Thank you
A lot to agree with
Am in agreement with this analysis, though I think inequality can only be truly resolved on a supranational level.
I have seen nothing better than the UN sustainable development goals as a template.
They are both comprehensive and coherent.
The prescriptions are well thought through and every nation will be familiar, having signed up to them, even if only theoretically.
The real problems arise in how to disempower the enormous vested interests in property and corporate inertia, as well as the surfeit of unenlightened self interest of the oligarchic elite, and worse still, in their praetorian technocracies.
Global political leadership is pretty dire across the board, often easily bought, and Pax Americana is unstable and ignorant.
And there’s the rub. I can see absolutely no way of achieving the eminently sensible and logical sustainable development goals in the light of the controlling elites’ strangleholds on decision making.
I also think the elite feel they can dodge the existential threats posed by climate change, and disaster capitalism is so profitable there is little or no incentive for behavioural transformation.
There will be a tipping point. My hope is it will not be too late.
I remember a review of a Biography of MacMillan where it was stated that his main political aim was to ensure that he and his class didnt end up hung from lamposts.
Possibly Something a new generation of politicians should take notice of.
There are various suggestions on this page about the way in which the situation might be changed/improved for the UK to have a more equal society. Much of what is written, I can see the sense of the measures proposed.
What concerns me is the question about how these measures can be brought into existence.
Effectively all require political measures to be implemented with an act(s) of parliament. People have to vote for them. Political parties need to put them in their manifesto. At present, I see little chance that this will happen. One driver might be some calamity/disaster of sufficient magnitude to make the wider population both realise and then accept the need for change, and then apply pressure for change, forcing politicians to act. But this is not a route to wish for really.
Education would be a better route. For this, mainstream media support is probably essential, but I really cannot see it happening any time soon. Can anyone lift the gloom that has settled around me as a result of Richard’s well-posed question?
Education is my chosen route
I have no idea if it will work but I will try.
Richard asked, ‘What will the comfortable classes do?’ He has added that ‘Education is my chosen route.’
I speculate (perhaps it is just hope) that few will want fascism.
Neither One-nation Tories, LINO, Attlee-type-Labour nor Lib Dem will want it.
Climate impacts will be difficult to ignore.
If the current government fails to implement PR and takes no bold climate action, the right-wing, funded by the billionaires and their press, look as though they will win the next election and keep power while the planet cooks many of us.
However, if the current government introduces effective PR, reduces inequality a lot and takes energetic climate action, then at the next election there will be a good chance of a coalition led by what will inevitably be a smaller number of Labour MPs. They will be pushed Attlee-wards by resurgent Greens. Lib-Dems will be more solid.
This last scenario will have more chance of existing and flourishing if this government commits to funding the social services. A cracking good education system could encourage children to fully develop their personalities and interests in art, craft and music as well as the academic side. All this as well as youth clubs and excellent medical services could be funded by wealth taxes as recommended by …
Our hope is on the Opposition then, but not the official opposition.
If I may riff a little from the themes of my original post this morning Aurelien has an essay that really must be read – ‘No Left Turn’.
The reason why these events are taking place is because simply because change has not taken place quickly enough, nor is it even likely. Politics is mostly for itself and a small hinterland of rich investors. As long as this sort of politics benefits them, nothing else seems to matter.
And we are left with the consequences. But we will not get some mystical left wing revolution. No – what you’ll get is a right wing one instead because our hyper-individualised society is ripe for it.
“What will the comfortable classes do?”
Vote for the following nonsense?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/26/rachel-reeves-says-labour-would-not-return-country-to-austerity
Thank you Richard. A very good article with very good content and timing. It is true that inequalities encourage a turn towards fascism. But income and wealth inequality is a consequence rather than a cause. It is a consequence of the way the capitalist system works. So wouldn’t it be more accurate to blame capitalism first?
Have you not noticed my long running narrative on neoliberalism?
What will the comfortable classes do? They will keep calm and carry on, or they might just be a tad worried behind the net curtains of their gated communities.
What will the super rich 0.1% do? They will keep calm and carry on, playing with their super yachts and PJs, and those with a touch of anxiety with have their lifeboat ready (perhaps a large alpine or coastal property in New Zealand).
A slide into fascism won’t bother them as long as the profits keep flowing.
Almost everyone who posts on this blog knows of solutions to our social and economic problems, but we are now living in states whose political systems Sheldon Wolin termed “inverted totalitarianism.”
The electorate can choose between two brands of neoliberalism, scarcely distinguishable even by the wrapping.
One faint light on the horizon is the long slow process of rebuilding unions we see taking place in the US. The gains seem pathetically small, but for those on low wages, they are a saviour:
“Alongside a majority of her fellow union members, Gonzalez voted on Monday to approve an agreement that raised wages from $19.90 an hour to $24 an hour, a boost she called “life changing,” especially as she’s expecting twins.”
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/story/2024-07-30/latest-contract-win-for-disney-workers-caps-big-wage-gains-after-years-of-struggle
The only power workers have over the oligarchs is the strike, and over the government and the oligarchs, the general strike.
But then as Thomas Piketty has shown, the trend towards increasing inequality has only been broken by war.
Did I miss a definition of the ‘comfortable classes’? If so, would anyone mind explaining this term to me?
Read the piece. A GCSE student should be able to work out the definition from what I say.
Sarah,
You didn’t miss the definition – not sure it was necessary. However, I believe I can help you, by referring to one of Douglas Adams’ observations:
“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question ‘How can we eat?’ the second by the question ‘Why do we eat?’ and the third by the question ‘Where shall we have lunch?”
We have a group of people in our society who have regressed to the “How can we eat” phase – they are not comfortable. The “Where shall we have lunch”, and “why do we eat” are comfortable. Sadly, it is unlikely we’ll be able to watch repeats of the “end of our society/universe” whilst we eat our selected lunch, as they did in another part of Douglas Adams’ writings.
🙂