Social meejah doubtless play a role in getting the mob onto the streets; but essentially what's going on is spontaneous and barely organised. We've seen variants of it before, with "summer riots" in Brixton and other areas over the years, and of course the 2011 "Tottenham" vintage. On those earlier occasions it was the nastier end of the leftist spectrum that was kinda hoping it contained the seeds of the revolution; but no, just opportunistic hot-weather looting and anarchy.
Starmer (and many others) should be hoping that's what we're faced with now, though a lot of their own rhetoric - which we'll come on to - isn't helping. One obvious scenario is that in a few weeks time it really is all over bar the backlog at the magistrates' courts, tempered by whatever scope the prison system has these days for exacting 2011-vintage Starmerite-DPP justice.
Otherwise, to be blunt, it carries on until someone gets killed: that's the horrible truth**. What happens thereafter hinges entirely on the precise circumstances of that dread event: we could all come up with scenarios.
If - and it's not certain - it does carry on, how does it get framed by the London-liberal-progressive consensus? The two tribes clash not just on the streets (with the Police in the role of King's Champion, maybe also with some lefty violence adding to the mix), but also in the ideo-conceptual space.
We know what the kneejerk left-liberal framing is, because it's all around us. "Tiny thuggish minority" is the opening gambit, as it was (correctly) in 2011: but they couldn't help themselves moving directly on to "organised by the far right". And this is where the utter stupidity of the left starts to become plain.
Yes, you'll be able to find some stuff in social meejah that can be labelled "organisation" if you're dumb enough to frame it that way; but what you won't find is a nationwide organising committee - because there isn't one (yet). There isn't a political party involved, either. The left cannot understand this - because their world is full of organising committees and micro-parties, and they assume that's how stuff gets started. (Similarly, they always refer to 'capitalism' as if it is a political movement rather than what it actually is, namely is a feature of human behaviour.) They really, truly don't want to consider the possibility of political spontaneity from the proletariat: they insist on, and believe in, having monopoly powers over that. They are itching to have a proper little fascist party to demonise. While they wait, it's just arm-waving at the notional "far right": they don't want it to be as difficult to deal with as would be Actual Proletarian Discontent.
To the extent any party is even vaguely in the frame, it's Reform (of course). But only peripherally so, because Farage is manifestly keen not to be outflanked by anything whatsoever to his right. His recent performances scream this so loudly, it ought to be really obvious to anyone. His strategy is to monopolise the right flank of British politics (whilst staying firmly on the polite side of outright violence), and roll up the Tories from right to left until he has a workable Parliamentary block: he desperately wants to avoid the irritant / potential stumbling-block of there being any genuine 'political' organisation to his right.
The point is: there's no such thing - yet. What if the left somehow goads one into being? It wouldn't be very good politics because if Reform gets outflanked in that way, eventually it gets subsumed by the Tories as happened with the Brexit Party in 2019: and the 2029 election looks rather different.
But long before 2029 is in view, what happens if a micro-party forms, that is more than just an instantly-outlawed EDL? The answer is: it starts to have demands, and offers itself as the entity you need to negotiate with if you want the (ex hypothesi) continuing violence to stop! Which leftist dickhead wants that to be the dynamics of the situation?
But they just can't help themselves. In their uncomprehending denial of genuinely widespread discontent that could lead to widespread non-organised action, their doctrine effectively insists on framing its way into having a concrete bogey - of no genuine substance, but possible actual existence in a formal sort of way. An actual group of people with a name. A British gilets jaunes, if you like: coherent enough to have an identity (of a rather amorphous and hard-to-treat-with kind).
One interesting potential outcome is that Starmer might act as though he is indeed responding to concrete demands from a putative political entity, and preemptively start trying to appease it with whatever he kind-of guesses its demands might be. (He won't need to try very hard to figure that out.) Funnily enough, the marxist left absolutely understands this situation: it never had any difficulty understanding the impetus behind Brexit.
Right now, however, Starmer seems to be parlaying events into a belated attempt to re-gather the lost Muslim vote. He has to be careful, because a parallel development is likely to be the formation of Muslim self-defence groups which he'd quickly need to distance himself from, and eventually to act against.
The Tories? They can sit this one out because of course they have already been outflanked on the right. Their task is to devise a mirror-image of Farage's strategy: a plan for rolling up Reform from left to right.
Genuine pragmatism from Starmer would be to drop the 'far right' rhetoric (and tell the Beeb to follow suit); give the Police a pay rise; and carry through with the other line we've heard from ministers, which is to draw parallels with football hooliganism - and act accordingly. Then go gangbusters - literally - on the small boats issue (it's in the Manifesto!). Get some money into the hands of responsible metro mayors, with significant strings attached. Oh, and drop all ideas of votes for 16 year-olds.
ND
UPDATE: see the last section of this lefty broadcast for a manifestation the left-tactical debate I'm talking about here.
_______________
** when I was a local councillor I sat for a while on the Road Safety Committee. Residents were forever coming forward with their demands for additional safety measures, always under the banner "Does Somebody Have To Get Killed Before You Do Anything About This?" Basically, sadly, the answer is "Yes".
43 comments:
Pure guesswork but I suspect the widespread distrust of the governing class might be pinned on five things in particular.
(i) The scale of immigration, illegal and legal. Lots of people may remember Jack Straw (was it?) admitting that the point of it was to destroy the old Britain.
(ii) The failure to use Brexit to best effect.
(iii) The abuse of the population during the pandemic.
(iv) Policing that is not even-handed - for example the police forces that wouldn't investigate the Pakistani rape gangs because it was a racially sensitive issue. The Leeds police running away from a Romanian Gypsy and Pakistani mob.
So you have lots of fuel and oxygen that need only a source of ignition: the murder of those poor wee girls in Southport maybe.
Added to the problem is that nobody can trust the media any more. Is my guess at what happened in Leeds a bit off? If so, no wonder - how am I to find out what happened when the media suppresses so much?
Otherwise, to be blunt, it carries on until someone gets killed: that's the horrible truth**.
...but three girls have already been killed......
It's a 2 way street.
It will also colour the responses from the Conservatives and their candidates for leadership. Will they respond with more immigrant rhetoric and forever be associated with these events? How they respond to Starmer will also be interesting.
It's a pivotal moment in politics.
I don't fancy the Torie's chances of 'rolling up' Reform from left to right. Cleverley was on Today this morning speaking in favour of censorship. Of course, he didn't frame it that way, but the essence was how to stop Social Media carrying stuff he didn't approve of. The Tories are doomed unless they have a sudden outbreak of self-awareness.
The irony of the Southport murders triggering this is, is that I suspect it'll be a failing of the mental health services. The kid's family look to be well integrated (as a lot of African immigrants tend towards), and he even appeared in Children in Need as Dr Who.
Southport does have issues with refugees - knife fights between "guests" at some of the refugee dumping grounds is a frequent occurrence.
I disagree with the lack of organisation though, the EDL grew out of hooligan units, and they organised rucks between one another on a weekly basis to get get their weekend warrior jollies on.
It's a different, more practical, lets-get-down-to-it, organising type vs the cabal of sociology students getting moist at thoughts of revolution, but its not entirely spontaneous.
Starmer need to tread a bit carefully here, not everyone is involved is someone looking for a ruck, some of it is venting by a section of society ignored by the government until they want their votes.
The anti-immigrant rhetoric may play a part, but there are genuine grievances too, ones that have been ignored by successive governments of every stripe, and Brexit should have been regarded as a warning shot to do something meaningful.
The UK has pretty much decided the poorer areas are great dumping grounds to drop refugees off and forget about them. They also dump anybody they regard as socially inconvenient, and forget about them too, much to the delight of the locals who have to deal with the consequences.
These riots are another venting, but there is only so much pressure relief in that, and unless governments start taking these problems seriously the risk of something much, much worse increases.
"a parallel development is likely to be the formation of Muslim self-defence groups"
There was (alleged) video from Middlesborough of police horses charging (Brit) protestors, the police followed by a lot of young Muslim guys in black.
https://t.me/intelslava/64255
I’d agree with everything there, the only point I’d add is that, when it comes to the left and parties, groups, committees etc. in addition to the role they perform Nick identifies above, there’s also another important function.
Groups allow the left to demonise people without the problems caused by demonising actual populations. For example, you don’t win friends and influence people by saying “the U.K. is a capitalist running dog and is full of racist bigotry”. But if you come up with a group (“far right”, “elite warmongers”, “capitalistic imperialists” — you really can be as inventive as you like here, no-one has taken names so no-one can check the veracity of your claims about the existence of these groups or their supposed members) then you can insult the members of that group, assign blame to them, demand retribution on them and so on without risking annoying their audience.
Plus groups can be rehabilitated (the “far right” has become something of a champion of the working class and its economic welfare by supporting Russia against Ukraine, for example) or demonised (the EU, previously the darling of the far left, now trash-talked for the same reason as the “far right” is lauded) as the need arises. And you can get away with things being said about groups you simply can’t get away with saying about race, religion and other protected characteristics (see the recent adoption of “zionists” for a worked example of how you can say things about a group you’d never dare to say about a race or creed).
OT, but I noted the other day that we've stopped hearing about fusion, which has been ten years away for 50 years now.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/03/is-the-dream-of-nuclear-fusion-dead-why-the-international-experimental-reactor-is-in-big-trouble
DAD - point very much taken
Diogenes - yes, and of course within their little micro-context, some of the Tory leadership candidates are trying to avoid being outflanked on the right too
CH - this morning on the 'Global' radio stable's news feed this morning, they were labeling the unrest "anti-immigration". That's an interesting step closer to reality, and a shade more difficult for Starmer to handle without making some of the 'concessions' being sought, and thereby pissing off the knee-jerk progressives. Let's see if this is picked up elsewhere
anon - that fusion story is two-edged: it says that the Iter project has been rendered obsolescent by more recent developments elsewhere. That's not quite the same as fusion being dead
"That's not quite the same as fusion being dead"
It's never even been alive as a practical proposition for the generation of electricity. And that's been true since I first started reading about it in New Scientist in the sixties. Always just forty years away.
Love the Iter website, and looking at the specs for the Tokamak.
10,000 tonnes of superconducting magnets! 16,000m3 vacuum chamber made from 3800t of steel!!
etc. etc.
I suspect it's true purpose is to do with keeping lots of physicists, scientists, engineers and bureaucrats gainfully employed. Will be most surprised if we get a working reactor (continual net positive energy ouput) within my lifetime.
Maybe they ought to get Elon and the SpaceX lot to give the plans the once over and see if they have any suggestions?
Even with the claimed "break-even" on fusion energy production, the reality is they still haven't scraped even 1% of what is necessary for real world electricity generation. Given the costs involved, it can't be practical. It would be cheaper to gamble a much smaller amount of money on aneutronic Hydrogen-Boron fusion via lasers.
Meanwhile, in the real world, it is reported that China is building a molten-salt Thorium-powered reactor. Why aren't we the ones doing that?
Just in case this post does not disappear like all mine have been ding again for some time
Ladeez and gemmun. I give you the "Far Right"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0suswOO2E
Charles
If I was in Government I would be praying for rain. I suspect that everyone in power knows what the reasons for these riots are but they are quite incapable of admitting it or doing anything about it. It is too early to talk of a change of govt but I suspect that this mob won’t last 5 years or even close. I suspect economic incompetence, net zero stupidity and the inability to understand what the electorate wants will undo them.
It is going to be interesting, hopefully they will be gone quite quickly, the problem is that there is no one with any obvious talent to replace them.
It's quite something to see the Guardian (and even more the commentariat on the rare item where commenting's allowed) getting all hang'em and flog'em with what remains of the British working class. Apparently we have plenty of prison places now ...
I said the other day this was a good election to lose, and I hadn't even considered "events, dear boy, events".
I'm not so flapped about the markets, a big correction methinks, but Intel news is scary. We seem to be getting closer to the point of inflection where more and more people realise the US isn't #1 any more, and countries hasten to make their accommodations with China. Turkey will be very interesting, a bellwether if ever there was one.
Now Israel are threatening to bomb Iran's nuclear plants ... never rains but it pours. That might even draw a strongly worded statement from Starmer!
We already know Starmer's strongly worded comment on Israel's actions.
"They do have that right, yes."
@ Jeremy Poynton
Yeah, funny pissed up guy on that interview.
However, what's not so funny is that he identifies rape gangs 13 years ago when TPTB were still denying it was a thing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0suswOO2E&t=77s
Perhaps you'd like to make a joke about that as well? Perhaps follow up with something about the stabbed children in Southport?
Well said @Matt.
Perhaps @Jeremy Poynton would also like to explain why BLM rioting is "justified and reasonable" and any reaction by the White Working Classes is automatically demonised as "racist/far-right/neo-Nazi/name your smear"?
I seem to remember a couple of BNP guys were put on trial at Leeds Crown Court for addressing a local meeting where the BBC had a tape recorder.
The race relations laws were perhaps deliberately badly framed.
"with the intention to stir up racial hatred" - in other words
a) truth is no defence
b) they can apparently read your mind
The Leeds guys were acquitted by the jury, but "the process in the punishment" and it very much depends on the jury picks.
Meanwhile, you can sell these with absolutely no intention to stir up racial hatred:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/market/mediocre_white_man
Just wondering why our police and Starmer aren't "taking the knee" as a show of respect for the dead and injured girls?
They were happy to do that for a crackhead criminal, and an American one at that.
The two tier system comes from fear, which is why in places like Rochdale you could expect social services to descend like the Four Horsemen when spurious claims of Satanic child sex abuse get raised, but a group of mostly Asian men were able to operate for years with evidence ignored and actively buried.
While the "bobbies on the beat" share blame for it, the ones actively seeking to ignore it were the ones in positions of responsibility, and prized not upsetting communities over doing their job, and, in many cases, never even bothered to ask those communities if they even wanted that. You didn't need to be Nostradamus, or even Mystic Meg, to figure out that wasn't going to end well. If you give racists an excuse, they'll take it, and those impacted will be just grateful at least someone is taking notice.
If the Tommy Robinson acolytes were targeting the mostly white, mostly middle class, types who are actually responsible for all this, I'd have a bit more tolerance for their antics.
As it is, I don't see this quietening down for a few weeks yet, the Tories left the prison state in quite a mess.
He won't do it, but Starmer giving the nod to dropping the rioters off, along with the racist chanters, the anti-semite chanters, the XR and JSO crowd, on an empty Scottish island or two, with food, tents, propane heaters and instructions to mind the anthrax, would sharpen a few minds.
And their families could wait for a Scottish or ferry or two, once built, to take them for visits. Might be quicker swimming, mind.
@ Caeser
Radical!
Of course the race relations laws were deliberately badly framed. They were draughted with the intention of providing a way to shut-up and imprison anyone the establishment does not like.
Lessons had been learned from Berlin in the 1920s and early 30s. Josef Goebells was for ever publishing stories about "owned" Weimar politicians. Bernard Weiss (political chief of the Berlin Police) kept on dragging him into court. Unfortunately for Weiss and his bosses the law to nail Goebells did not exist.
"Matt said...
@ Jeremy Poynton
Yeah, funny pissed up guy on that interview.
However, what's not so funny is that he identifies rape gangs 13 years ago when TPTB were still denying it was a thing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ0suswOO2E&t=77s
Perhaps you'd like to make a joke about that as well? Perhaps follow up with something about the stabbed children in Southport?
5:08 pm"
Worth noting that the Police first went for Tommy Robinson when he reported rape gangs in Luton.
New comment format! Perhaps for the first time in a long time my comments won't disappear into the ether...
"Wildgoose
Well said @Matt.
Perhaps @Jeremy Poynton would also like to explain why BLM rioting is "justified and reasonable" and any reaction by the White Working Classes is automatically demonised as "racist/far-right/neo-Nazi/name your smear"?"
Smear? Where did I smear anyone? I'm in complete agreement with you on what you say above. Sorry, you got me there. Posting a video is a "smear"? Really?
Matt - my comment publishing that video which you have completely misinterpreted was to the effect that this is the "far right" that Starmer is banging on about.
Feel free to apologise
I would suspect that many would agree with this, posted on X. Of course, feel free to misinterpret it in anyway that suits you...
I suppose my answer to anyone who calls me "far right" is, give me a reason not to be. Why should consent to becoming an ethnic minority in my own country? Why should I consent to an alien religion spouting its bile? Why should I simply shrug off our cities turning into lawless multicultural slums?
Why should I put up with MPs and councillors who care more about Gaza than hospital waiting lists and potholes? Why should I accept that immigration cheats have better housing support than my own countrymen? Why should I accept that machete weilding Somalis are just "part and parcel" of living in a big city? Why should I accept longer commutes, and more expensive, smaller housing?
Why should I accept honour killings, FGM, acid attacks, inbreeding, forced marriage and child grooming? Why should I accept teachers being hounded out of their jobs? Why should I accept the intimidation of Jews? Why should I accept a political class who puts white British people last in any priorities?
Why should I tolerate drag queen strip teases in front of kids? Why should I accept the sexualisation of children under the LGBTQ flag? Why should I accept rapists in women's prisons? Why should I be compelled to describe a rapist with female pronouns? Why should I accept Pride flags replacing the Union flag on public buildings?
Why should I accept harmful gender ideology and "white privilege" being preached by the state broadcaster? Why should I accept the debasement of every public institution? Why should I accept my own history being rewritten? Why should I pretend that primitive stone-age values are equal to my own? Why should I accept being smeared for defending the values of my own people?
Why should I accept the funnelling money into foreign wars? Why should my money be used to prop up third world kleptocracies? Why should I accept the total abandonment of border controls? Why should [ accept second class citizenship in my own country? Why should I bow to foreign
courts and international treaties I had no say in?
Why should I accept black junkies literally getting away with murder? Why should I accept that we can't deport foreign criminals? Why should we be forced to house them? Why should we accept that prime real estate in the capital is given to the least productive immigrants? Why should I accept London becoming a foreign city? Why should I accept devolved regimes gaslighting me and politicising the public sphere?
Why shouldn't I be angry that war memorials and statues of our most accomplished leaders are threatened by mobs of foreigners and communist agitators? Why should I accept national museums and culture being made into regime propaganda weapons?
Why should I accept ISIS flags on our city streets? Why should I tolerate Muslims chanting genocidal slogans being chanted on our streets? Why should I accept living under a decadent,
ignorant, virtue-signalling regime that hates me for merely existing? Why should I tolerate any of this?
Will be interesting to see if blogger (G) allows the above to stand. If we disappear shortly, you'll know why.
@ Elby the Beserk
Do you have a specific multiple personality I should apologise to?
OT, but Ukrainian troops under NATO instruction have gone a fair way (and at speed) into Russia and have control of the station whence gas heads to Europe, it's thought a target might be to capture a nuclear power station.
What I'm not so sure of is if this is a Stalingrad moment (in reverse), or if it's the Third Battle of Kharkov in reverse, where von Manstein recaptured a lot of the territory being fought over now.
Haha @jeza aka elby
for once I agree with your rants, if not the content … you don’t need to agree to anything.
Stick it to ‘em. Which is unfortunately playing out in our cities.
Keep up keeping up.
That is all we can do. Peace.
Anon, not sure everything needs to be mapped onto a historical precedent; although when it can be done convincingly, it can offer useful insights
what's interesting to me about this (apparently significant) Ukrainian incursion is
(i) they - the Ukr side - are following Soviet doctrine! Many writers have suggested it was unwise (see 2023 offensive campaign) to attempt to school them in western military ways, when so many of their senior officers would already be very well educated in a different school. Or they may have found some kind of workable synthesis.
(ii) they seem to have managed Surprise: certainly tactical (generally possible if you put in enough care & attention) but maybe even strategic (unusual - but very desirable). Remember, this is a chess game where both sides can usually see all the opponent's pieces - the perennial Russian challenge out on the flatlands, and one which in the west (Eu, USA) we don't really have, the battlegrounds being characterised so much by extensive geographical relief features
Is the forthcoming US election a factor in the UKR move or is it simply another move on the chessboard?
Back on the subject, there was a particularly British response to the riots last night in Brighton when some purported "right wing" EDL supporters were met by an Oompah band and a phalanx of drag queens. Perhaps the French mime artists were kept in reserve.
Wonder if NATO could learn from this?
It's amazing how anti-immigration protesters are apparently all "far-right rioters".
Then there are the good guys, the "counter-protesters" - even though there were very few protests last night. Isn't ND a Croydon chap - anything happen at Lunar House, if that's still in use?
My recollection was that being where it was, a fair chunk of the staff were on the take to let people in. Maybe I'm being unfair.
Isn't it time for Sir Tier Karma to resolve the whole matter by taking the knee?
Has anyone looked at the theme song of the labour party the 'Red Flag. Appears threatening to me
The working class
can kiss my arse
I've got the foreman's job at last
If comrades all
are gathered here
we'll pawn the flag and buy some beer
I was just about to post that Anonymous. Croydon - unreported rioting.
The breakout star of all of this rioting is two tier policing "How would you like us to police this ?" (to community leaders)
The fact is that we have a parallel society and the police live in fear of it and must seek its cooperation. It could easily overwhelm the police and what's left of the military.
I believe what will follow is tit-for-tat sectarian violence. After the next BAME atrocity there will be a backlash atrocity.
Accepting that the British are awful and intolerant people who can now say that mass immigration has been a success ?
That was not to say that I agree that the British are awful and intolerant people but let's just go with that. What fool thought it was a good idea either way ? One does not have to win the racism argument to now declare it a disaster.
The common denominator both here and in Vienna is the divisive.... Taylor Swift of course ! Abandon her concerts and all will be well.
Oh. And those Christian voices that told Axel to do it.
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