Brexit disaster

Announcing the release of The Four Fathers’ new album, ‘Songs of Loss and Resistance’, on Bandcamp, featuring ten original songs — mostly protest songs, nine by me, and one by our guitarist Richard Clare — which is available to listen to for free, or, if you’d like, to buy as a download, or even as a limited edition CD. You can also buy individual tracks as downloads. The album covers tumultuous events in the UK and globally over the last eight years, including the existential threat to humanity posed by climate collapse, the Grenfell Tower fire, the Brexit referendum, the anti-gentrification Tidemill garden occupation in Deptford, the ongoing plight of Guantánamo’s “forever prisoners”, and the unjust imprisonment of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange. It was recorded sporadically, between July 2018 and January this year, with the great Charlie Hart, a multi-instrumentalist and producer, best-known as a member of Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance in the 1970s and ‘80s, who also plays electric piano and accordion on three of the songs.

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 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.

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.

The first of two articles in which I examine 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 first article, I look at how Brexit happened, how Theresa May paved the way for the shoddy and cruel lawlessness of Patel and Braverman, and how the Tories, even before Brexit, have consistently sought to undermine the European Convention on Human Rights, with a particular focus on Theresa May’s obsessive pursuit of the Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada.

Linking to and discussing my two recent interviews about Guantánamo and Julian Assange, with Jason Olbourne on TNT Radio in Australia, and with J. G. Michael for his ‘Parallax Views’ podcast, in which we also discussed recent claims by former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi that Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis was present when he and other hunger strikers were being force-fed, and that he revelled in their suffering.

Now that Rishi Sunak has become the Conservative Party’s fourth Brexit Prime Minister in six years, I look at the colossal challenges he faces — on the ‘cost of living’ crisis, the climate crisis, and Brexit in particular — and express serious doubts that either he, or his Cabinet, are capable of providing anything like the leadership that we need.

Linking to, and discussing my recent interview with Chris Cook of Gorilla Radio in Canada, about the collapse of Liz Truss’s government, after just 44 days, the baleful influence of the Tufton Street ‘think-tanks’, and the unending agony of Brexit, plus discussion of the plight of Julian Assange and the current situation at Guantánamo. Chris also played the Four Fathers’ anti-Brexit anthem, ‘I Want My Country Back (From The People Who Wanted Their Country Back)’, and my article also includes some post-interview reflections on Rishi Sunak as the new Prime Minister, and the many challenges he faces, not least on Brexit.

With Liz Truss resigning just 44 days into her role as Prime Minister, after crashing the economy with her irresponsible ‘mini-budget’, delivered by Kwasi Kwarteng just 27 days ago, and with the Tories now shamelessly jostling to elect a successor in the next week, they need to recognise that they have completely run out of legitimacy and credibility, and call a General Election instead. Labour currently have a 36-point lead, but it will mean nothing, if an election does go ahead, if they fail to recognise the damage caused by Brexit, and don’t take steps to address it, if they don’t fully take on board the catastrophic nature of the climate crisis, and if they remain tied to too much economic orthodoxy.