Battle for Britain: Fighting the Tory Government’s Vile Ideology

My analysis of the far-right riots that erupted in the UK last week, after three girls were stabbed to death at a children’s event in Stockport, and online provocateurs spread deliberate misinformation about the attacker being a Muslim, and an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in the UK after a small boat crossing, all of which was untrue. I examine the particular role played by politicians and the mainstream media in fanning the flames of racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, with a particular focus on Brexit, and on the shameful Tory politicians, particularly in the last five years, who waged a far-right war on immigration, proposing to send refugees on a one-way trip to Rwanda, and passing legislation that, shamefully, criminalised being a refugee or an asylum seeker. I also criticise the Labour Party for its role in fomenting Islamophobia, particularly through its unquestioning support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, and I also focus on the irresponsibility and unaccountability of social media companies, who provide platforms for dangerous provocateurs like Andrew Tate and ‘Tommy Robinson’ (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), and whose free rein to promote and amplify the far-right and their lies should have no place in any kind of responsible media landscape.

My analysis of yesterday’s General Election in the UK, which, after 14 years, swept aside the Tories, and ushered in a Labour government under Keir Starmer, with a huge but disproportionate majority that didn’t reflect the number of votes received (less than Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 and 2019), but rather the collapse of the Tories, finally undone after years of cruelty, incompetence and corruption, and facilitated by the sudden rise of Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK Party, which helpfully split the right-wing vote. Wonderful though it is to see the back of the Tories, and also to see noticeable successes for the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats, and a number of independents including Jeremy Corbyn, power is now in the hands of Starmer and his cabinet, including his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who secured victory despite having almost no policies that distinguish them from the Tories. I discuss my many concerns, criticising Labour’s adherence to neoliberalism, and urging it to be bold on re-nationalisation (especially of water), and expressing my shock that Starmer has so openly declared his opposition to any kind of rapprochement with the EU, even though Brexit has done more to damage the UK than anything else over the last eight years, wrecking trade, and leading to a disgraceful rise in racism, which, in the hands of the Tories’ parade of leaders in the years since, led to a morally repugnant fixation on making it illegal to be a refugee, and seeking to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda. I hope this anti-immigrant hostility will be abandoned, and I also hope that other draconian Tory innovations — in particular, an attempt to ban all meaningful protest, through the criminalisation of climate activism — will be ditched, although on this particular point I fear that Starmer, as the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has troubling authoritarian impulses that may not augur well for civil liberties. I also urge boldness — true boldness — on climate collapse, and end by expressing my fears for foreign policy under Starmer, most noticeably because of his uncritical support for Israel and its ongoing and unforgivable genocide in Gaza.

My annual article marking the anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, 39 years ago today, when 1,400 police violently attacked and “decommissioned” a convoy of travellers heading to Stonehenge to establish what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Free Festival. Lamenting the demise of the festival as the last great, weeks-long unlicensed autonomous gathering in the UK, and the violence of Beanfield as a significant marker in the ongoing assault on civil liberties in the UK, I also include my memories of the festival, an account of the various forms of dissent that have continued ever since, and the various ways in which successive governments have sought to suppress that dissent, and I end by noting how, despite all these efforts, dissent cannot be eliminated, especially as so many horrors currently exist that must be fought against with all our might, most noticeably, right now, Israel’s western-backed genocide in Gaza, and, of course, the unparalleled threat posed by accelerating climate collapse.

My reflections, at the end of an unprecedented summer of catastrophic, human-induced climate chaos, about what we can do and how we can cope with ever-increasing climate collapse in the face of a persistent refusal, by politicians and the media, to respond to the gravest existential threat in all our lifetimes with anything resembling the urgency that is required.

Remembering the Grenfell Tower Fire on its sixth anniversary, and noting how it led to the deaths of 72 residents, who were failed by everyone responsible for their safety. As well as explaining that no one has yet been held accountable, I also look at the ongoing cladding scandal across the country, and the always shocking reality that cladding as flammable as petrol has ever been allowed to be used at all.

My call for England’s water companies to be re-nationalised, as the mostly foreign and largely unaccountable private companies running them (since their privatisation in 1989) have presided over persistent sewage spills, killing our rivers and polluting our beaches. This is because their purpose is to make profits for their shareholders (and their overpaid CEOs) rather than investing in their infrastructure to provide clean water and to prevent sewage spills.

My review of four decades of repressive public order legislation by the Tories, marking the 38th anniversary of the Battle the Beanfield, running from the 1986 Public Order Act to the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, and on to the 2022 Police, Crime Sentencing and Court Act and the latest version of the Public Order Act. Aimed at criminalising the way of life of Gypsies and Travellers, the legislation is also aimed at criminalising any form of even mildly disruptive protest, of the kind currently being undertaken by climate protestors, whose actions would chime with the beleaguered travellers, festival-goers and environmental activists of 38 years ago.

Linking to and discussing my interview with Chris Cook for Gorilla Radio, about the Coronation of King Charles III, the suppression of protest and the criminalization of refugees under home secretary Suella Braverman, as well as a discussion about Guantánamo.

Marking the 11th anniversary of ‘The State of London’, my ongoing photo-journalism project recording the changing face of the capital, with a fundraiser seeking your support for what is an entirely reader-funded project. Over the years, I have particularly focused on the blight of ‘regeneration’ programmes, whilst also celebrating London’s astonishing history of buildings, its nature and its history of protest, although the latter is now being challenged in an unprecedented manner.

The second of two articles looking at how the Tory government’s vile anti-immigration policies, pursued with such vigour by Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, have their origins in the dangerous isolationism of Brexit, and its unleashing of false and disturbing notions that, post-Brexit, the UK should no longer be constrained by international law. In this second article, I examine the Tory government’s increasingly lawless and heartless approach to immigration — and in particular the small boats crossing the Channel, which refugees are obliged to use because no safe routes exist whereby they can claim asylum — as demonstrated by Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan, and Suella Braverman’s ‘Illegal Migration Bill’, which seeks to criminalise refugees entirely, and which is currently making its way through Parliament.