Fascism Wrapped in Red, White and Blue
The UK’s descent into fascism has been rapidly accelerating over the last year, yet Mhairi Black was the first UK politician to publicly acknowledge the elephant on the 18th of May, in her speech to the House of Commons. Too many senior opposition figures have sat by, pretending they couldn’t see the 5-tonne beast in the room, even as it set about ripping up the floorboards and tearing down the walls. Black’s speech was commendable, but long overdue.
The writing has been on the wall for months now and there should be no more surprises at the increasingly desperate depths to which this Johnson government will plumb. Not in the name of economic growth, as Black suggested, but in the name of maintaining power.
The writing was on the wall when they started criminalising protests. The writing was on the wall when they took control of the Electoral Commission and when they introduced mandatory voter ID to exclude working-class and minority voters. The writing was on the wall when they granted themselves new powers to over-rule the verdicts of judicial reviews. The writing was on the wall when they criminalised the right to seek asylum in our country. The writing was on the wall when they let 180,000 of our most vulnerable citizens die because a few party donors wanted to keep maximising their own profits. The writing was on the wall when they siphoned off £billions in public money to their friends and relatives through their illegal priority-lane PPE contracts and the failed track and trace system. The writing is on every wall around every corner now. As they attempt to deport refugees to a country with an even more questionable stance on human rights than their own and the department of propaganda demonise workers fighting for their rights, the writing is on every wall around every corner and is there for all to see.
The writing has been on the wall for a long-time. Yet, senior opposition figures have largely remained quiet on these increasingly frequent, precision attacks to the fundamental nature of our democracy. All the while they were happily thickening the smokescreen, by engaging in never ending debates over the semantics of party-gate.
If you were still rejecting the evidence in front of your eyes and ears, as Murdoch’s most-essential command, note that Johnson has now fully assumed the role of Supreme Leader of the DPR-UK by changing the ministerial code to allow rule breaking MPs to stay in post. Having already “beefed up” his office in the previous week, to personally take direct control of every domestic-policy department in Whitehall, this should concern everyone in the UK. These are the actions of a narcissistic dictator with one aim, self-preservation.
Make no mistake, there is a full-scale, multi-faceted assault on our democracy underway, and largely in plain sight. It has been bought and paid for by Russians and libertarian anarcho-capitalists, wrapped up by the Tufton Street think-tank syndicate and delivered by an increasingly desperate Johnson, sliding into an elected dictatorship.
It began with the imported anguish of the 2016 referendum campaign. Baseless lies were interchangeably wrapping the front pages and the sides of buses, promising us lower taxes, more funding for the NHS, less red-tape for business and lower prices for food and energy. All laughably distant prospects in the harsh reality of Great Brexit in 2022. Recent months have now seen Johnson and his party of blundering sycophants move with increasing speed, under the cover of party-gate headlines and manufactured culture wars, to prepare the floor for the next phase of the Brexit plan, as written by Shanker Singham of the IEA London.
That plan is the complete deregulation of Britain in search of profit. The deregulation of food safety standards banning the use of carcinogenic pesticides; of environmental standards banning the dumping of raw sewage in our rivers; of employment standards that provide us with a minimum wage, maternity leave and sick-pay; of anything that can be exploited for profit. The frightening roll-back in our rights, regulations and protections has been accelerating with haste in recent months, but it has only just begun.
Imagine a Britain without state-run healthcare, schools, or a police force. Imagine a Britain with no minimum wage, no minimum working age, and no benefits. You won’t have to imagine it much longer, because this is Singham’s, the ERG’s and increasingly Johnson’s vision for Britain as he tries to cling to power.
This is, and always has been, what Brexit is truly about. Isolating the UK from the scrutiny of the international community, whilst exploiting the population of Britain for the obscene profits of a handful of (mainly) foreign interests.
Johnson was never a committed Brexit idealogue, as exemplified by the infamous pro-EU Telegraph column. I doubt that he has secretly always been a fascist either, albeit he is now embracing it with open arms. But here we are, 4 countries and 68 million people locked into the self-sabotaging, economic death-spiral that is Brexit. In part, because one man wanted to be King and saw an easy means to realise his hollow ambitions, with a little help from his friends.
His attraction to the ease of right-wing populism, his lack of political ideology and unbridled greed made him a sitting duck for the foreign corporate interests who have bought our country. More could have and should have been done to stop the UK’s institutional fire-sale and subsequent descent into fascism within the traditional structures of power. It is possibly too late for an effective opposition in Westminster to do anything about it now. This will not end with the demise of Johnson, as welcome as that will be, this new-found ideology is embedded deep in the modern Tory party.
It might not be the easily recognisable military-centric face of fascism from the 1930’s, goose-stepping and saluting through European cities, but the warning signs are all there. From an increasingly nationalist rhetoric to a disdain for human rights, a controlled media and an obsession with crime and punishment, these are the warning signs of fascism, and we are witness to them now. These are the warning signs of fascism, and they are present in our Conservative government. These are the warning signs of fascism, and they are wrapped in red, white and blue.
Welcome to Britain, in 2022.
Cormack Lawson
