Tories – Wis[s]e Words

How the Tories abuse ethnic minority people as PR shields

Published on October 7, 2023Leave a comment

I hate to link to the notoriously transphobic Guardian, but occassionally they do have articles you cannot ignore. in this case it’s a short article about ex-employee Preeti Kathrecha suing the Equality and Human Rights Commission for unfair dismissal and race discrimination. In the process, she dropped this gem about the controversial inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour party:

She also claimed that she was asked to sign off the executive summary of the inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour party, without being allowed access to the underlying evidence, because the EHRC wanted the signoff from a BAME employee. She refused to do so, describing the request as “upsetting, disrespectful and humiliating”.

Which fits to a t the way the Tories use ethnical minorities as poster children for their most cruel policies. Rishi Sunak, chosen as PM to clean up the mess that Boris Johnson and Liz Truss left behind, tightening the austerity screws again. Suella Braverman, spouting National Front rhetoric about migrants, but if criticised has the press holloring about how you dare to expect a daughter of migrants not to be racist. Sunak again, spouting transphobia in his conference speech. A predictable pattern of using the brownest faces in the party to shield far right policies from scrutiny.

That it also occurred with that EHRC report into Labour antisemitism is telling. The report itself barely found any evidence of antisemitism in the party, certainly no systemic antisemitism. Nor did it find evidence that Corbyn and his allies were antisemitic. But it was certainly publicised as vindicating the ongoing smear campaign against him and Labour. Having a BAME employee sign off on it would’ve strengthened that impression.

The cowardice of the BBC

Published on March 11, 2023Leave a comment

This doesn’t mean what Jake Kanter here thinks it means:

This story is not what it first seems.

Wild Isles was *always* a five-part series.

The sixth film is a BBC acquisition for iPlayer. It was *never* going to be shown on telly.

The film stars Attenborough but was made for the RSPB and WWF, not the BBC.

Earlier this week The Guardian (link in linked tweet) reported that the sixth episode of David Attenborough’s new wildlife series, Wild Islands, would not be broadcast but only be available on the iPlayer, as the BBC feared a Tory backlash against it content. Because while the first five episodes showcased the natural beauty and wonders of the UK, the sixth one would focus on the environmental damage done to it and what should be done to fix it. Something the Tories, eager to let raw sewage flow into Britain’s rivers, were expected to be annoyed by. According to Jake’s Twitter thread this is wrong though. It wasn’t that the sixth episode was suddenly withdrawn because the BBC got cold feet, it was never intended to be broadcast at all! Thereby proving that The Guardian‘s story was nonsense.

Does it though?

Seems to me deciding from the start to treat this episode differently, pretending it’s not part of the series, just inspired by it, refusing to broadcast it, is actually worse. Attenborough’s wild life series have always had an environmental component to them, so why treat this one differently? Is it only fear of provoking the Tories or is it a cynical move made by the BBC leadership, now riddled with Tories themselves? it’s not just appeasement but complicity. The BBC is happy to suppress this sort of stuff because its management are Tories themselves.

It’s grim up north

Published on September 4, 2022Leave a comment

This Arte documentary looks at the impact Brexit has had on cities like Grimsby and Hull, but in the process makes it very clear that Brexit was just the final nail in the coffin after decades of neglect and decay.

It’s easy to be judgmental about somebody like Darren Kenyon, the fisherman featured here. How could he have been so stupid as to believe the lies told about Brexit? How could he have voted to cut his own throat? It’s easy and tempting to do so because it absolves everybody else. Your own fault, you shouldn’t have been so stupid as to trust the Tories. You made your bed, now lie in it. But the reality is that Darren’s company was in trouble long before he voted for Brexit, one of the few fishing companies left in a town that once had thousands. Through decisions made and policies created beyond his control, Darren and thousands like him, not just fishers were left to struggle. No wonder they went for Brexit when it was explicitly sold to them as the one thing that could take away all those obstacles. Somebody like Darren, who started work at 13, not “very educational” as he puts it himself, but who managed to create a small, thriving business with his own hands yet sees it threatened by forces beyond his control, was primed to believe the promises Brexit and Boris Johnson made.

As such Darren and all the other Brexit voters like them are the least culpable for this disaster. Their fault was to trust the media and politicians who lied to them. Decades of tabloid lies about the EU and politicians blaming everything bad on it, but who steal the credit for the good it brought set the stage for the referendum. Then the media, from the BBC on down failed completely to educate and inform, at best just parroting what both sides said with few attempts to actually determine the truth. And even in those rare cases where this was attempted, it once again was reduced to “experts say X but these politicians disagree, we’ll let you figure it out”.

Worse, once Brexit was a reality and the only issue in question was how damaging it was going to be, the media and the political establishment did its upmost best to make it as damaging and hardcore as possible, while sinking any chance of an alternative. It was deemed more important to keep a mild social democrat out of Number 10 then it was to make sure the country wasn’t entirely fucked over. Time and again chances to get a soft Brexit were missed and the end result was the clown show that was the 2019 election, where Boris Johnson was shitefested over the finish line by an united press and political establishment determined to see off the threat of Corbynism. That three years later it has ended with hyperinflation, a crumbling economy and a health service on the edge of collapse is the price they would pay all over again if asked.

On the remain side there’s this annoying tendency to blame Brexit for all of the UK’s woes, but at best it’s a catalysor of already existing trends. Back in 2001 I was doing leafletting in the then elections for the Socialist Alliance in Plymouth and getting to see some of its estates was shocking. A level of poverty I’d never seen in the Netherlands. Again, reading between the lines in this documentary it’s clear that the poverty and misery in places like Grimsby and Hull aren’t recent either, but have been present for decades. This is why people voted for Brexit because it promised to change things and people were desparate enough to take that gamble. We shouldn’t blame them for it.

The sheer hypocrisy

Published on January 15, 2022Leave a comment

You can’t help but sympathise with the guy being interviewed here, a funeral officer who at the height of the Covid pandemic had had to stop people from saying their last farewells, now feeling a fool for having done so when the government that set the rules never had any intent to obey them themselves

What sticks in the craw is that’s James O’Brien he’s talking to, who with his employer LBC was one of the people responsible for destroying the one credible alternative to a Johnson led Tory government back in 2019. What sticks in the craw is that all of the press currently falling over themselves to explain what a bad ‘un Boris Johnson is and who could’ve guessed, could’ve told us that in 2019 but refused to. What sticks in the craw is the pretence that having an office party is what made Johnson bad, that the failed and utterly corrupt covid strategy of the government as a whole isn’t an issue. That for the second time in a decade the Tories are responsible for mass deaths amongst the most vulnerable, first through austerity, second through herd immunity is ignored or outright denied even. But the chance at taking down a prime minister who has become an embarassment without doing damage to the larger Tory project by using this trivial issue has the same people who championed him two years ago chomping at the bit.

First Cameron, then May, now Johnson. The media install Tory prime ministers to do their dirty jobs, then discards them when no longer needed, but never questions the legitimacy of the Tories as a whole. That fate is left for anything that challenges the established order. Tell me, if democracy means that the press is allowed to ruthlessly monster anybody they take a dislike to, that only those candidates and parties acceptable to it are allowed anywhere near power and that allowance can be withdrawn at any time, how much of a democracy is the United Kingdom still?

Why blame Corbyn for Brexit?

Published on October 27, 2018Leave a comment

Because it’s easy and you don’t have to think about actually fixing Brexit or convincing Tory rebels to not vote Tory if you can just pin the blame on somebody you already dislike anyway. And boy does Continuity Remain hate Jeremy Corbyn. Unsurprisingly, as the most visible remainers tend to be the sort of people who think everything would be all right if the UK just got back to how it was on 22 June 2016. The crux of the matter is that Brexit is the result of internal Tory politics and can never be turned back or even done properly with them in power. Yet Continuity Remain remains fixated on Labour and Corbyn. Case in point:

Yawn. Nah sweetie, St Jeremy whipping his MPs to support the government means he shares the blameg

To be fair, Sunny Singh isn’t anywhere near as bad as Jo Maugham, who is basically a Tory who uses Brexit as an excuse to put the boot into Labour, but she comes closes. And I thought it would be interesting to look at how she uses Corbyn imposing a three line whip on the Article 50 notification vote to justify her focus on Labour/Corbyn. It’s the clearest Continuity Remain has come to articulating why Corbyn could’ve stopped Brexit, or is to blame for it. The idea that Corbyn, if only he opposed properly and had instructed his MPs to vote no on any Brexit vote would’ve prevented it is of course a fallacy, but it’s a good idea to investigate why this is. Other than that the Tories are in power and hence it’s on them, but that’s apparantly not enough for Sigh and other remainers.

So let’s go back to that vote, in January 2017 and what the context is when it tooks place. As you know, Bob, the EU membership referendum took place on 23 June 2016, with all major political parties campaigning for Remain, but various prominent Tories campaigning for Leave, which narrowly won. Prime minister Cameron immediately said “not it” and Theresa May won the subsequent leadership election. At the time of the referendum and the subsequent Article 50 vote in January 2017, the Tories had an absolute majority in Parliament. Jeremy Corbyn had to face a leadership challenge in September 2016 which he won handily, increasing his share of the vote even, but with a substantial part of the parliamentary Labour Party disloyal to his leadership. Both before and after the referendum, all political parties said they would accept the results of the referendum.

So could Labour have stopped the withdrawal from the EU?

No.

Even of Corbyn had whipped his party to vote against Brexit, everybody had followed the whip and the other opposition parties in Parliament had done the same –ignoring the fact that Sinn Féin doesn’t even sit– the Tories still would’ve won the vote because the Tories had an absolute majority in Parliament. No escape looking for Tory rebels either; in the actual vote only Kenneth Clarke voted against his party. So it wouldn’t have stopped Brexit, but what would be the consequences had Corbyn voted against?

So Corbyn had won re-election as Laboru leader, but was still in a weak position; perhaps there would be another challenge? Even without this, Theresa May was confident enough to call for a new election after the withdrawal notification had been sent to the EU. Polls looked good for the Tories, with Labour looking in disarray and the LibDems having been obliterated in the previous elections. In the end this proved to be a rare mistake on the part of Theresa May, as Labour bounced back thanks to Corbyn and Momentum, gained thirty seats and destroyed the Tory majority, leaving them dependent on the DUP. But you can imagine what would’ve happened if Labour had voted against Brexit.

Because of course a fair chunk of Labour voters were also Leave voters and had Labour “betrayed” them by rejecting the result of the referendum and voted against leaving the EU, they would not vote for them again. Consider also the hostile media environment for Labour and how much worse it would’ve been. Labour would lose the election, the Tories would’ve won an unassailable majority, Corbyn would be gone as leader and we would’ve had to depend on Owen bloody Smith to lead the opposition. That surely would’ve made everything better, regurgitated Blairism to inspire the kids.

Corbyn and Labour were right to respect the outcome of the referendum, just on basic democratic grounds. Nothing erodes trust in democracy more than calling and then ignoring a referendum. You can argue the wisdom of calling for one — and it’s clear this was something Cameron only did to placate Euroskeptic Tory MPs–, but once it’s there you need to respect the outcome.

But Corbyn also realises that the more important problem is to get the Tories out of power, because without doing so nothing can improve and you certainly can’t stop Brexit. Furthermore, just getting back to 22 June 2016 isn’t good enough: everything that Brexit is supposed to cause was already happening because the Tories are in power. Hollowing out of the NHS and social security to the tune of a 100,000 people with disabilities having died as a result, selling of the country to the Americans and dodgy Middle Eastern or Russian business men, all of this was going on before Brexit too.

But for those Remainers more worried about not being able to take the Eurostar to Paris anymore this sort of consideration is foreign. They want to stop Brexit but don’t want Labour in power either, hence the pretence that Corbyn alone is to blame for Brexit and the ritual condemnation of him everything something new and awful about Brexit is revealed. Because doing anything constructive might drive the Tories out of power and we can’t have that.

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