UKC

A very interesting, and worrying, analysis of the post-Brexit intentions of this government from an old-school One Nation Tory:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n04/ferdinand-mount/apres-brexit

”These early months, even years, are typical of authoritarian regimes settling in and seeking to gain the confidence of voters nervous of what they have let themselves in for.”

A long article and sometimes a bit heavy(at least for me) but I agree it is very good and well worth the read, as are many in the LRB.

Dave

interesting but I wonder how much of the article would be different if written after the cabinet reshuffle

Yes, I wondered about that. Probably supports what he says- a weaker cabinet as part of the gathering of power to the PM. 

The constant threat, that anything but Labour or Remain represents authoritarianism/fascism, is wearing thin on most people I think. 

Many voted against Labour and/or the EU precisely because that is where they detect the authoritarianism streak as coming from. 

Even if that perception is misplaced, Labour and Remainers (hint: we'll overturn the referendum result, there should never have been a referendum, some people can't be trusted to vote, supporters are going to die anyway, etc. etc.) do a shitty job at proving otherwise.

This is irrelevant here - why don’t you start your own thread on that particular subject? Ferdinand Mount is not by any stretch of the imagination a  Labour supporter and I for one am well aware of the authoritarian threat posed by the current Labour leadership and its ‘democratic centralism’. 

He's making a bold claim, connecting the hard-to-reconcile promises v realities of Brexit economics/negotiations with.....incipient fascism.  Like the never-ending "racism" accusations, I'm saying that is ridiculous and overlooks the fact that if Labour had been elected you could just as easily have cherry-picked their attempts at policies and public statements to fit the same category. 

It shouldn't be surprising that Mount, as a one-nation Tory, has a dislike for Boris.  Just as a Labour member from the Momentum wing will have major ideological differences with a member from the Blue Labour wing, possibly sufficient for them to deem the later to be Tories or fascists.  That's not saying he's Labour supporter.

Weird that you think "democratic centralism" is where a threat of authoritarianism lies.  I suspect more people see a slide to fascism in the opposition's apparent desire to police speech, criminalise offence, or use demographic characteristics to judge validity of thought, ideology, or rights to hold positions of power.

So its a bit rich to be accusing the Tories of fascism.  Saying so hardly deserves a new thread.

ru Norman Tebbitt?

far worse now we have the Invisible Dictator (ID) or perhaps the Unelected Invisible Dictator (IUD) coiling his authority over us.

How many people on this forum have directly accused you of racism or fascism?

Where is he doing that? 

Like the never-ending "racism" accusations,

Why are you dragging this in? Irrelevant. 

Personalising doesn't advance your argument. 

Do you know what democratic centralism is? 

The opposition are not in power, and the way they are going they are not likely to be for some time. There is no threat of a slide to fascism there. You have to look where the power lies.

You clearly don't want to address the points in the article in any direct way but wish to pursue your usual hobby-horses, which is why I suggest you do so in another thread. 

Funnily enough, several. 

The very fact that this has become an expected and relatively common response from the supposed mainstream left speaks volumes.  It should be as rare as being called a nigger or a faggot.  But its not.  Which, again, is probably why increasing numbers of people have no time for the accusations and no time for those who make it.

Yes, obviously.

Varis and Littlefinger always existed.  I'd far rather a Dominic Cummings pulling the strings than the nebulous Momentum.  At least the guy has an intellectual ability.

I see. I just noticed that you've brought these accusations into this thread apparently without any sort of prompting whatsoever.

I'm only part way into the article but it seems pretty serious and certainly isn't from one of the more self-righteous left wing vehicles. Thus far it doesn't appear to made any sort of inference about leave voters. Have you read the whole thing?

No recommendation at all: world history is littered with smart but morally bankrupt figures. 

To be fair, its not the major thrust of his article other than the reference to "Low tar fascism".  But in choosing to headline your post with a reference to democracy and the quote "These early months, even years, are typical of authoritarian regimes settling in and seeking to gain the confidence of voters nervous of what they have let themselves in for.", it appeared to be your point.

See, it's not all doom and gloom afterall   

Whether you like it or not, Brexit has been initiated.  And even if more people on-balance support Remain, the electoral preference which takes us through Leave couldn't be clearer.

I'm willing to go with the view that no one really knows what the economic fallout will be. We're in uncharted territory (or perhaps charted if you consider Brexit as analogous to the Czech/Slovak split) and we've had everything from armageddon to unicorns promised.  We definitely have no idea how much bias and brinkmanship plays into media and negotiations, especially when potentially mutually beneficial arrangements are being discussed.  While I'm expecting shit, I'm also not going to be surprised if few of the doomsday scenarios put forward over the last half-decade come to fruition. 

It's not as if Labour would be doing a better job and it's not as if anything we say at the moment, or screaming at the sky, will make any difference either.  The bigger risk, in my view, to the liberal side of the political spectrum is that, having become the new gammons and doom-merchants, our credibility will be shot for even longer than Labour's.  The lesson to take from Brexit and the tory victory might be one of imperial over-reach, where the liberal-left became so total in the social sphere, so self-assured, and so dismissive of the masses, that it f*cked itself, and still doesn't seem to have learnt.

Not that I'd hold this against the paper, but (and I say this as a subscriber) the LRB is pretty well established as self-righteous left-wing vehicle.

And the accusations of racism?

I've never accused you of racism and I have no reason to do so. If you're being accused of racism simply for having voted to leave the EU, that's uncalled for and unacceptable.

But in this thread, you've played a reverse racism card - responded to a specific criticism of your side with an accusation of racism accusations. Personally, I find the dismissal of my reasoned justifications for rejection of the result of the EU referendum or opposition to the present government, as simply left-liberal virtual signalling, to be wearing rather thin too, as I imagine being accused of racism would be.

It is getting pretty bad when characters like this get hired into government.

https://news.sky.com/story/number-10-adviser-andrew-sabisky-very-real-racia...

It's part of a general theme hurled at Brexiteers or supporters of Boris.  Extreme accusations of "fascism" or "racism" have become all-too-common accusations and trump-card against those holding an alternate view. 

I'd go as far as to say the ubiquity of those two words went a long way to Brexit winning the referendum, and the bloody-mindedness with which people stuck to that decision.  Even discussing immigration policy runs the risk of you being declared a racist and has done for a good couple of decades.  Nobody likes a nazi and to be accused of being one pretty much ends discussion.

Being accused of virtue signalling might sting a little.  But its hardly in the same league as being compared to the worst mass murderers and dictators of the last century and the people your own country was rightly united in annihilating.

Or at least it wasn't.  Now it probably is.  Not because "virtue signalling" or "snowflake" has been elevated to any great level.  But because "racist" and "fascist" have been thrown around with such abandon for so long that they have become practically meaningless.  Those that use them seem to think they are the sledge-hammer with which to make a point.  Those on the receiving end just switch off and ignore all-that-came-before and all-that-came-after in that person's argument. 

No surprise that Brexit and Remain has become such a schism and Remainers are about as guilty as the tabloid press in that regard.

But nobody accused you of racism, you brought up the accusation of your own accord.

You may find "snowflake" harmless, I find it amusing since it's most often used by those showing "snowflakey" tendencies. But I've also been called "traitor", "terrorist-sympathiser" and "undemocratic", and it's been suggested I should be exiled from my home, which I think are on a level with accusations of racism and Nazism. Not by people on these forums, I should add. But it's not in any way helpful to enter a political discussion by accusing those on the other side of making those allegations of yourself.

In reply to NERD:

Do you work for Nigel Farage? 

Both sides of the political spectrum are making hay with this one.

It reminds me of Sam Harris' debate with Ezra Klein, where Klein (from the woke end of the spectrum) basically stated that any research which indicates that greater or lesser IQ might also be connected with race should not be published (basically that we can't be trusted with such knowledge if it might imply lower intelligence in some races).

Aside from overlooking that this would unlikely be stating anything other than the locations of means on overlapping bell curves, Harris made an interesting counter-point: that Klein was essentially saying that studies seeking to determine whether blacks had greater genetic connection with neanderthals should likewise be withheld, as that information could be used the same way....and noting that, as it happens, these studies already have taken place and found that whites apparently share greater genetic commonality with neanderthals.

The underlying point being, the debate about race has become so skewed, especially now that the notion of "relative privilege/power" has been introduced into the mix, that discussions that are actually quite subtle and nuanced can't even take place.  Entire areas of social research, that may even be common knowledge and could be useful, are held in the same category as small-pox vials.  Having even had those conversations can exclude you from a role in politics.  Ash Sarkar and David Lammy can say what they want about race. Andrew Sabisky cannot. 

The racist accusation rears its head again.  He may be a complete arsehole.  But his tweets alone are no more evidence of that than someone wearing a Che t-shirt is evidence that they are a murderous communist.  As discussion about race and IQ becomes heresy, and self-censored on the left, it becomes self-fulfilling that is becomes demonised.

No one accused me of being a fascist either.  But it's all in the context of the discussion and accusations being levelled against Boris' cabinet.

I have no time for people being called "traitor" or "terrorist-sympathiser" either.  They are the underbelly of the Brexit/Tory side. 

In this instance, it's a subtext of your construction. There was nothing in the article implying contempt for voters.

You've hijacked this discussion and moved it away from the original theme, where is this government going? Not Labour's authoritarian tendencies, not the threats to freedom you perceive in the universities, not a discussion of Sabinsky. Good dead cat!

As I said before, if you want a discussion about these things, start your own thread. 

Now, what did we think of the points in the Mount article? 

Uncanny, this article seem to describes every single detail of what I think is currently happening in the country, and puts it into much better words than I can.

Great find.

I've been called a racist on UKC by several people on the right.  As it happens, you yourself made a rather coy, thinly veiled accusation of racism, which was entirely unfounded not so long ago, making you somewhat hypocritical. 

It's not just THE LEFT picking on you.

Tell me more.

You said that the reasons I gave that my anti-isreal position wasn't motivated by antisemitism "didn't stand up to scrutiny" (you didn't provide any scrutiny), and advised that I should reflect on my motivation. Sounds like an accusation of racism to me. 

 > You said that the reasons I gave that my anti-isreal position wasn't motivated by antisemitism "didn't stand up to scrutiny" (you didn't provide any scrutiny), and advised that I should reflect on my motivation. Sounds like an accusation of racism to me. 

It's a stretch to see racism in the exchange:

YOU:  I think Labour's support of Palestine and the justified criticism of the state of Israel, is getting confused with antisemitism.

ME: Easily done when Labour seems singularly concerned about Palestinian rights but strangely quiet when it comes to the despotic behaviours of its neighbours.

YOU: I'm not a fan of that argument, one that is always trotted out. There's a long list of reasons Israel/Palestine generates more interest

ME: What are those reasons?  The one's I've considered (cultural/ethnic similarity, diaspora present in the UK/US, funding, etc) don't seem to stand up to much scrutiny.  If there are other's I'd be interested to know. 

I was actually coming from a rather woke standpoint with that comment.  I find Israel's treatment of Palestinians deplorable.  Then again, I'm steeped in a Chomsky/Guardian-reading background and am aware I may just be susceptible to bias on the issue as a result. 

The left has a long history of glamorising certain struggles and overlooking deplorable acts in the process.  We should be wary that our narrow focus on Israeli over-reaction to Palestinian attacks obscures a blindness to the region-wide hatred of Jews by the Islamic world. 

That's not an accusation of racism against you.  If anything its a criticism of Islamic culture, that leaves me open to the accusation. 

Best of luck with that mate. The ranters have arrived.