Only action at local level can guarantee freedom’s immunity
“Nappy! You….here!’
That spoonerised HNY salutation seems to me more in keeping with our situation as 2021 sets off on its endless search for jam tomorrow: a suit with a jackboot for a voice….treating us all like suckling babes.
Yesterday’s call to arms here was about linking arms, not firing them: I remain a pacifist, because everything else is just another weary trudge down the road from the Bastille to Napoleon via Robespierre. Also, there is the obvious fact that we are outnumbered aux barricades.
It’s not been hard to find evidence of that in the antics of the last twenty-four hours. Scrolling down the ‘London fireworks’ trend at Twitter was a depressing process, as numpty upon numpty failed to see that the display – from BLM to drones – was utterly politicised. Mayor Khan is a nasty, bigoted, delusional yet cunning little man, but despite being a textbook ideologue who hates Britain, as of a month ago he still enjoyed a 21-point lead in the Mayoral election polls.
London is now not just a LabLibGreen stronghold, it is positively secessionist in its support for racist abuse of white people. But no such evidence of Strength through Madness is apparent in the House of Commons. There, the Party “led” by Starmer the Kneetrembler still thinks the point of the Opposition is to oppose Brexit and give Halfcock & Jobsdone a free ride with their policy of bad, dangerous and economically disastrous medical cod science.
This is rank dereliction on Sir Keir’s part, but itself reflects the reality of a Labour Party neutered by the old ideological split. What becomes eminently clear (to me anyway) is that we have an Opposition elected to look out for the poor, old, marginalised and working class citizens among us….sitting ,n its hands while a capitalist global élite goes all out to excuse a reset designed to make it even richer, while giving featherweight Mengeles the right to experiment on human beings. (Horby and Ferguson, of course, are Momentum Mengeles and thus immune from any blemish or blame).
The point I’m making is that Boris has wandered greedily into rule by decree – and been able to do so without even the most limp-wristed resistance from the House. A Tory Brexiteer MP suggested to me last Sunday, “I’d estimate the Parliamentary freedom-based resistance to Covid19 policy numbers no more than nine Tory MPs”. Worrying to say the least.
I doubt if the Sovereign power in the land has been as uninterested in the welfare, safety and liberty of the People since King John grudgingly signed the Barons’ Charter eight hundred years ago. And John the Unpleasant didn’t have the police, mass media and a million MI6 cameras to help him along.
Hence my assertion that we are outnumbered….and over 95% of the legislature do not support us. Worse still, the extra-Parliamentary opposition is split every which way. Even the Brexit Party is now a solution in search of a problem. And my water tells me that a knighthood for Farage will be the end of him as a ‘radical’ force.
However, all is far from lost. It is possible to reject Westminster by simply refusing to play its game. This could be very much to our advantage.
I think the starting point is to adopt what I would call the Tsipras Strategy. OK, it ended in ignominious failure, but that’s because Alexis himself is an ideologue and, in the end, an EU believer. A British Syriza centred around an unaligned and well-known leader would kick-start the process that we need – viz, the canvassing of those with a higher profile and more closely attached to the MSM than us – but often sympathetic to our goals. Among such people I would include Peter Hitchens, Allison Pearson, Australian Sky News host Rowan Dean, US Fox news anchor Tucker Carlson, and several columnists working with Spiked! and Off-Guardian…as well as those with a reputation beyond blogging such as James Delingpole – and finally those who support or are themselves frontline medics like Robert F Kennedy Jr, Dr Malcolm Kendrick and French virologist Didier Raoult.
More radically perhaps, I believe it’s time to use the electoral area beyond Parliament. There are numerous sound rationales behind this idea. But at the outset, I offer this echo from 1788:
“The power of the Executive has increased, is increasing and outght to be diminished”
First of all, local government is an area of much smaller turnouts: Council seats can be captured considerably more easily than at the national level. Second, my belief in community revival and ground-up reform leads me easily to local politics rather than national. Third, even without national power, a local council can quickly take the sort of action that results in change and builds “brand” reputation for delivering on promises. Fourth, a key area of local control is the education system – for me the first place where a change of ethic and outlook must be effected if we are to get anywhere. Fifth, local spending policies can both ignore national bias and put people first. Sixth, going local enables us to act tactically – in, for example, northern England where Boris got large numbers of ‘flakey’ votes that would otherwise have gone to UKip and The Brexit Party. These votes still don’t have a real home – and with Labour in its current state, their return seems very unlikely. And last but not least, relatively rapidly gained power at that level provides civil disobedience to be effective – and be seen to be effective. Seventh – and connected to that – it enables shows of strength to be organised very quickly should national governments and the unelected Secret State get too many ideas about being irresistible.
Westminster is a political duopoly populated by mediocre bombasts and increasingly under the control of corporates and bureaucrats united in a desire for dictatorial technocracy. Everything – the voting system, bribery, gerrymandering, media attention, live broadcasts, lobbying and a dozen other obstacles – ensure that the Chamber is a closed shop to fresh ideas not dreamed up in bubbles, think tanks and Whitehall huddles. It is a sclerotic heart with an ageing brain divorced from the experience of real people.
The aim should be to make it irrelevant by all peaceful means.
There has never been a socio-constitutional reform Party based locally with a view that work done in that sector can be infinitely more efficient, transparent, effective and close to The People than the wasters of Westminster. Local councils have powers in relation to social care, health, policing, education, housing and a host of other areas. National policy considered to be anti-social and an attack on freedom of speech and/or accountability can be opposed, thwarted and if necessary slowed down perfectly legally if there is a local mandate for it.
As a comms strategist by training, I am also intrigued by the possibility of branding that is highly distinctive, able to offer more direct democracy (at intranet level) and above all delivers on the promises made to the electorate.
London at the moment is a little Singapore sitting on the backs of the rest of us while flying in shady people with megalomanic ideas. The key to our freedom is effectively to cut off its power supply.
The Slog 