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forum
The Reform Party and the UK’s lurch towards fascism
I posted an earlier version of this a while back - inspired to do update following THAT discussion about all things ULEZ.
The “manifesto”, in terms of transport, only mentions stopping HS2, but there’s plenty on the usual right-wing obsessions: Brexit, immigration, veterans and climate change. I had another look because I worry about the ongoing decline of the two main political parties.
If the Cons stay wedded to Brexit, then we will go into the next GE with all the widespread impoverishment Brexit has ushered in - not helped by Covid, Putin, etc. People generally vote according to their pockets. I don’t get Labour’s current position on Europe either, but let’s see how that evolves, and even the Cons may also evolve, or even pivot, but time is already running out for them.
Several roads now lead to the horrors of a further lurch to the right in this country. Let’s hope Labour get the GE landslide the polls are predicting - but we’re still at least a year out from the real campaigning beginning.
A cycling angle? With the Reform Party and its ilk, Facebook Steve and Nextdoor Dave attain real political influence. It’s not spelt out in the manifesto, but you can see where this is probably heading and what it is likely to mean for cycling. You can bet that this lot are very much "on the side of hard working drivers" etc.
As you all know, Dave’s going to “sort the traffic” and no doubt show them lazy planners how it’s done: Steve thinks the Council are corrupt, the police blinkered and is, if he can fit it in to his busy schedule he’s going to “teach them Lycra’s a thing or two.” It won’t concern him that his Mondeo is 3 months out of MoT or that Mrs Steve sometimes drives the kids in it uninsured.
As vulnerable road users, vulnerable people, we rely a great deal on the rule of law for protection. The rule of law means that we understand what the laws are, they are in general fair, and how they are applied and to whom is even-handed and consistent.
The fascist position is broadly the opposite - it’s all off-the-cuff to support today’s particular agenda - that’s why the Iain Duncan-Smith “happy to see ULEZ infra vandalised” comment is, as an example, so very worrying. In the Conservatives, here is a party happy to send signals to enable the mob to attack RNLI stations, beat up immigrants, shout at teachers, doctors etc.
This right-wing stuff works by allowing/enabling significant privileged groups to to think of themselves as the downtrodden underdog and here is a way to fight back. The pro Brexit campaign played on people’s ignorance, fears and prejudices exactly as this does.
It’s all about freedom, innit, less regulation, less tax burden, and damn the climate. There’s more polar bears now, so it’s fine. Let’s have open-cast coal mining, lithium mining and fracking. The section on climate change stumbles around like a Friday night drunk, trying to explain he wasn't being racist to the barman - a denier position emerges, unsurprisingly.
In places, the mask really slips: “We must keep divisive woke ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology out of the classroom.” - to be honest, I don’t even know what those two are.
The standard enemies are put up - the civil service, the BBC. Amid all the thrust and parry, there’s nothing about making a better, more inclusive and cohesive world to live in; arts, sports and culture don’t feature in this barstool view of the world: a dullard’s grim vision.
Don’t be a member of the wrong sort of minority would be my advice, should any of this come to pass.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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No no no! It's because he was oppressed and had his country stolen from him (legitimate grievances) - he's basically a refugee! (Indeed he apparently suggested claiming asylum in the US at one point). Must be something drastic anyway because "England 'till I die" apparently.
It's certainly not just because he derailed himself from a more conventional career via a violent assault and has subsequently made a a life of ... well, folks can read his career, convictions (beliefs and criminal ones) and where some of the money comes from on e.g. Wikipedia. Who knows, he could be reading this and it is alleged (by dodgy types e.g. by the BBC, UK courts etc.) that he and/or friends have sometimes turned up to "remonstrate" with those he feels are out of order!
Just read the wikipedia article
I had half expected him to be another privately educated 'man of the people' (eg. Farage) and am slightly disappointed that he isn't (shows my own prejudices, I guess).
No, it's not that case - I believe he "puts his
fistsmoney whereyourhis mouth is".You can be forgiven - he is double barrelled after all.
You would think so, but Robert Jenrick described his support on the BBC on Sunday.
Whether he believes that or is saying because he thinks it will go down well with the Tory member I don't know, but when you think that through both options are terrifying.
One number to watch for will be how many Tory members are left.
The last published number I saw was 172k in 2022, and reports closer to 100k.
RefUKs claimed 65k came from somewhere, and I don't see the Tories staying ahead of LDs (90k+ 2023) or GPEW (60k last month).
They do know he isn't the President, right?
that is what unfortunately happens with protests, they almost always turn violent.
Lots in the news at the moment about Musk
trying to buy the UK toowanting to donate massive funds to Reform UK…I don't think it matters so much in this context, as a former president and candidate for the next presidency an attack on him is still seen as an attack on the office of president. Americans also have much more respect for their former leaders than we generally do as well, I don't think anyone would consider addressing Liz Truss or Boris Johnson as "prime minister" now but even though it's technically incorrect it's very much commonplace for anyone who has held the office of president to be addressed as "Mr. President" for the rest of their lives.
wrong on a couple of counts - virtually none of this is in any sense protest - there's a "cause" put up to rally people to (could be almost anything) and then because it is aimless thuggery it soon turns violent and to looting and vandalism.
second point is that JSO protests for example are pretty peaceful by comparison - a bit of orange liquid, a disruptive sit-in - very little about singling out members of ethnic minorities and harassing, bullying and assaulting them.
With all that money, he could wipe out hunger/homelessness/diseases, but instead he's trying to promote fascism wherever he can.
Billionaires are mainly (with maybe one or two exceptions) thoroughly evil people who gain their money by exploiting people around them or who work for them. It's like some kind of hoarding disease, but instead of treating them in hospitals, society elevates them to some kind of deity to be worshipped/emulated etc.
I wonder how many billionaires we'd have to kill to get the rest of them to behave?
I see we have a running mate now - brilliant. It must have been like this in Europe in the 1930s, watching a country risk descending into this madness and seemingly nothing to put the brakes on.
I've lost track of what Trump stands for now, like what he wants to be different in the world if he (God spare us) wins in a few months' time.
any violence at JSO protests is normally from (surpise) drivers. Be interesting to see if any of these rioters, or the instigators of the riots face sanctions as severe as environemental protestors are facing.
He's tackling the disease of liberal democracy.
Who proclaimed last week that since Labour won the election the UK is now the world's premier nuclear-armed Islamist power. VP Pence wasn't exactly a model of reason but by all accounts did mitigate and moderate some of the Donald's wilder ideas, looks like Vance will be an encourager and an enabler for them.
I read that Vance was rabidly opposed to Trump a couple of short years ago, said he was an American Hitler, that sort of thing.
Yep, also called Trump an "idiot", "reprehensible" and described himself as a "never Trumper".
Why, it's almost as if Vance has no principles at all and will go wherever he can sniff the possibility of power…*
*See also "Farage"
Because Trump is a reflective leader who values challenge from those around him?
One commentator says it's what's passes for humour at the moment. We've got a few months to "kiss and make up with Europe, at least be allowed to sleep in the spare room, catastrophising as I am that they will win.
About 20 years ago, I was lucky enough to go on a work trip to Stormont to meet the civil servants who work there. It's no panacea, but these are the guys that sit down with fanatical (and often deluded) people and somehow, with the patience of many saints, manage to leave all the rhetoric and positioning at the door and pin down "what is important to you, out of what is possible to do, what do you want to get done?"
Free speech innit? And surely smart and industrious people should benefit from their labours? Or are you some kind of commie who wants to requisition all the stored nuts for the collective drey? That will just drag everyone down down to a subsistence level while rewarding a small cadre of squirrels who devote their time to getting ahead in the committees and keeping everyone else fighting.
We know how that ends - increasingly cynical and apathetic squirrels, growing corruption, worsening leaders, until the system falls apart. And then the capitalists will pick the bones clean anyway!
Smart and industrious? Sounds like you're a believer in meritocracies, but I think we're in more of a hereditary aristocracy.
I pity the poor squirrels that have to hunt for acorns in trees that "belong" to the squirrel lords and pay their tithe of tasty treats over to them
With all that money, he could
wipe out hunger/homelessness/diseasesbuy a pair of KOM hubsAnybody got one? -especially interested in the rear
Really absolutely the opposite, there are thousands of protests every year in the UK and very few turn violent, and even when violence does occur it's usually on a small scale involving a tiny minority of protesters. It's a moot as to whether the current events should really even be described as protests, they are effectively groups of people whose intention from the outset is to riot, it's hardly a case of peaceful protest turning violent.
Policemen who are probably about as right wing as the rioters in general. In the states they would just stand back and let the "protesters" storm the capital, but here in the UK they are a lot more professional and will actually defend the mosques etc, even if deep down they sympathise with some of the protestors concerns
lets say there are 4 camps of voters
The attempt may push group 2 to be more likely to vote, which could swing the numbers
I think you've just taken something you don't like - riots - and blamed it on other things you don't like.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the other recent instances of violent disorder.
This article was in The Times today, it raises some interesting points about how our society reacts to violent disorder.
https://unherd.com/2024/08/how-britain-ignored-its-ethnic-conflict/
FWIW I think if you marginalise any group for long enough you'll get riots.
The white working class get a pretty terrible deal on just about any measurable metric. That leads to anger which is often, as in these recent riots, horribly misdirected.
I don't know where to begin to state just how much I disagree with every single point of those policies.
However, the screwing around with education is a classic fascists' trick. They claim that they want to "ensure balance", but will then ignore all non-white, non-male contributions to art, science, music, politics, philosophy etc.
Basically, they're just a bunch of nasty, racist, white supremacists.
At least it wasn't statues this time, right?
I am not a sociologist and I'm sure this is a vast oversimplification ... but I suspect the white working class (especially white working class men) isn't actually at the bottom of the pile.
It often seems to be it's actually not those who really are at the bottom who get the most punchy. (Reasons easy to guess at).
"Disadvantage" is an inherently relative perception (because humans) unless you're an academic. Of course "doing well relative to most of the world and indeed history" has almost no effect on people's feelings. (Mind you - if we all were suddenly starving that might generate some action).
I think pretty much all human societies / systems are built around some inequality. I suspect our current system (current strain of "businessism") has contributed to multiplying the distances between top and bottom. At the same time as it has given many lower down a bit more power e.g. being able to look up incorrect news on the internet then drive to a riot...
Talking of that - is this a bit "hard-working-drivers" (to link the topic back to transport)?
Was thinking that every few years - going back in my memory - there seem to be sporadic riots over what to outside observers seems "not very much". I was wondering about the correlation between unseasonal weather (especially heat) and the same?
What other recent instances of violent disorder are you thinking of? (Hoping to avoid the danger of getting into a "these ones are worse than that one" which is likely pointless).
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