Globalism v. Nationalism IV

a new hope?

28th May 2019 Jonathon Davies Authoritarianism, Conservatives, Elections, European Union, Labour, Politics, The Brexit Party, UKIP 0

Jonathon Davies, Going Postal

Wow, friends. What a few weeks it has been since the last piece I wrote. The battle between nationalism and globalism continues, as does the collapse of traditional left versus right politics. Evidence of this can once again be seen at the local elections. The Tories lost over 1,300 seats, with Labour also losing 84. The Lib Dems and Greens gained, with 784 and 198 respectively. Tories crushed, yet the economy is going reasonably well. Labour failing, despite the Tories being in government since 2010, all that “austerity” and traditionally opposition parties doing well in the locals at this stage of an election cycle. How to explain this?

Globalism versus Nationalism. The Tories are full of globalist MPs, with a few exceptions such as the ERG. They are following globalist policies, have a globalist leader, and have not delivered on leaving the EU, which would be a nationalist policy. This is at odds with much of their supporter base and their local constituency parties, who are nationalist and support leaving the EU. The anger at Dominic Grieve’s local party meeting was very real and should have acted as an early warning alarm bell for the Tories. Instead it was ignored, the local party overruled and Grieve wasn’t deselected. Theresa May ploughed on regardless, with yet another vote on her zombie deal, which failed. To endear herself further, she then entered cross party talks with Labour. Talk of another referendum was mooted, sorry I mean “confirmatory vote.”

This put her and her party directly at odds with their supporters, who want to leave the EU. The result was utterly predictable. Electoral defeat on a huge scale. When politicians think they know better than the voters, the result is only going one way. And a great many Tory MPs think they know better than the voters.  The Tory Party is trying to continue with its globalist policies, but trying to keep its nationalist support base. This is doomed to failure. Leaving the EU is popular, politicians are not. They would be wise to remember this.

Corbyn’s policy of trying to play both sides of the EU debate has finally caught up with him. In the end he has managed to please no one. He has tried to tell leavers he still wants to leave, while telling Remainers he is in favour of another referendum. By telling both sides what they wanted to hear, he hoped to keep his party together and ride to victory while the Tories imploded. This came to a head with Keir Starmer and others throwing their toys out of the pram, demanding a customs union and another vote. The problem with this is that you cannot be both a nationalist and a globalist party. All he has done is make leavers think he doesn’t want to leave, and Remainers think he doesn’t want to remain. Hence losing seats, even though the Tories are in dire straits. Corbyn needs to nail his colours to the mast one way or the other.

Most Labour MPs are remain, many party members are remain, but a lot of Labour voters in Wales and the North of England are pro-leave. They need these voters to win a general election. Without them they will be merely the Labour Party of the Inner M25. Corbyn and Labour must decide if the really do want to represent the many, not the few. Do they go with the voters outside its metropolitan support bases that they need to get into government, or do they go with the urban voters and pray that tribalism holds strongly enough that disgruntled Labour voters don’t switch to the Brexit Party?

The Liberal Democrats have successfully positioned themselves as a globalist party and the party of remain. Their globalist supporters are in line with their policies of leaving the EU. This shows in their vastly improved local election performance and rising in the polls before the EU elections. They know what they want to do and the direction they want to take.

How did the Tories react to getting a metaphorical kicking from the electorate? Did they listen and realise they need to deliver a real exit from the EU? Did they f***.

Why worry about your manifesto commitments, when you can double down and offer a customs union and another referendum? The Tory 2017 Manifesto said quite clearly that free movement would end, that we would leave the single market and the customs union, that there would be no second referendum. Piece by piece they have reneged on this. I’m surprised May didn’t offer to join the Euro and hand over tax raising powers to Brussels. She blindly followed her globalist ideology, when it had clearly failed months ago. There was no way her deal was ever going to pass. Was this all part of her plan? The more time went on, the more she offered concessions to keep us tightly bound to the EU. All this must have been a dream for Farage, as local Tory associations across the land cried out in anguish.

We are still getting the claims of Nazis everywhere and Russians. The establishment and their pets in the media have gone into overdrive to smear and attack the leave candidates, especially those from the Brexit Party and UKIP. They are building on the globalist narrative that the referendum is illegitimate, that leave voters are all racists and thick, that the leave candidates are Nazis, everything is like 1930s Germany and that somehow the Russians are behind it. Despite no evidence after three years and the Mueller inquiry finding no collusion, the Russian scare is still going. By claiming everyone you oppose is a Nazi, you can demonise them and then legitimise any action against them. Believe you are fighting Nazis and you can virtue signal to your heart’s content. The Russian narrative is a smokescreen and will be an excuse for why Pro-EU parties do badly.

Farage is unsurprisingly on the receiving end of most of it. Days before the EU elections the EU dug up a three year old gift from Arron Banks to “investigate.” The timing of this was obviously meant to damage Farage. A purely cynical political ploy because he was leading in the polls. Why weren’t they concerned three years ago. There was also the “Investigation” or “review” in to how the Brexit Party received donations from PayPal. This after Gordon Brown complained, with no evidence provided, that they might receive foreign funds. Certain “journalists” keep asking about their funding, while completely ignoring other parties that raise funds the same way. The commission released a statement. It’s another nothing burger.

What this also shows is that they don’t understand rhetoric. Farage feeds off this kind of thing, the idea that the establishment is against him, that there is a conspiracy. The best rhetoric has some truth to it. The more truth, the more powerful the rhetoric. Globalist Remainers are giving him all the metaphorical ammunition he needs. That’s why he and the Brexit Party are riding high in the polls. They are unashamedly nationalist, and the globalists are trying to stop them. This message is resonating with people. The Brexit Party had the right name i.e. it does what it says on the tin, a clear message, that of leaving the EU and democracy needing to be upheld. You will notice that Nigel barely, if at all, mentioned immigration. Sold out rallies were held up and down the country and finally a party outdid the left on social media, borrowing from Trump’s playbook. Nigel’s final speech before the elections was seen by many as highly impressive.

On Friday, 24th May, Theresa May announced she would step down as Conservative leader on June 7th. There is only so long that you can ignore your core vote. Tensions between globalism and nationalism were too strong. Something had to give. The offer of the second referendum would have been too much to bear for many. She leaves behind her a tremendous legacy of banning plastic straws and carrying out diversity audits. I suspect she will stay on as PM past June, until the Tory Party finally finish politically backstabbing each other. The only thing that could possible save the Conservatives is to appoint a charismatic leader who is pro-leave and takes us out on WTO terms. Anything less and the Tories will be out of power for a generation. Fortunately, they seem to have no inclination to do that. There is already talk of blocking Boris, having no mandate for leaving on WTO terms, an MP saying they backed Gove (lolz).

The results of the EU elections further showed the globalist/nationalist split, and not just in the UK. Across the EU, nationalist parties were on the rise. Le Pen won in France, Salvini in Italy, PiS in Poland. In the UK, the Brexit Party swept the board everywhere except London and Scotland. The won in remain strongholds like Cardiff, where Labour were beaten in to fourth. Unthinkable a decade ago. Failure to deliver on the leave vote has led to real anger and a backlash. Yet both main parties are still saying they are against no deal, or want another referendum. Hopefully they will keep it up. Electoral oblivion awaits.

What will the future bring? As usual everything is as clear as mud. The main questions to ponder are who will become Tory leader. As stated, another Remainer or weak half-hearted leader and they are done. I find I no longer care. Any trust I had in the Tories has long since evaporated. Will Farage challenge at the highly likely general election? The Peterborough by-election may give us some clue here. He will need to come up with a manifesto with credible policies. What side will Corbyn finally choose?  Will he go with his gut, or get his arm twisted by Remainers? If he wants to win an election, I suggest he goes with leave. Will the EU still give us until October, or will they finally have had enough and pull the rug out from under us in June? Will Trump finally get his state visit and cause a lefty meltdown on an epic scale? We can but hope.

Political violence has been on the rise over the last month or so, which is worrying to see. I shall state firmly that I do not believe in or condone any political violence towards anyone, no matter what their politics. It’s been interesting to see that the rise has not been from the “far-right,” as we have been so often warned about. Instead it has been from sections of the far-left and from some Remainers. A number of candidates have been physically assaulted while on the campaign trail, such as Tommy Robinson (not his real name), Sargon (not his real name either) and Nigel Farage. These were the high profile cases that made the news. There may have been others that we are not aware of. Previously we have had the egging of Jeremy Corbyn by a leaver.

What troubles me the most is that, far from these attacks being condemned, they have either been ignored, treated as a joke, or condoned by many, even within the political establishment. There have been retorts ranging from “it was only milkshake” to others wishing Farage dead or wanting him to be hit with bricks or acid. Others have claimed that this action is needed to “fightback against fascism.” Many an excuse has been trotted out as to why it is o.k. A certain Tory MP took to Twitter to mock Tommy being “milkshaked.”

It is with great irony that we see those who repeatedly reminded us of Jo Cox now telling us that political violence is fine. It wasn’t then, it isn’t now. As with censorship, many who would seek to legitimise it fail to realise that it is a double-edged sword, it cuts both ways. We recently saw many right-wing accounts kicked of Twitter and Facebook. Many on the left laughed and said that these are private companies who can do what they want. That’s right, the alleged socialist were siding with mega rich international corporations to silence the voices of individuals. But they didn’t care, it suited their narrative. Then guess what? Left wing accounts were censored, banned from Twitter or had their article in the Independent taken off Facebook. Oh, the horror! Suddenly there were cries of unfair censorship. Because they never thought it would happen to them.

The legitimisation of political violence will end the same way, unfortunately. You have to say no to all political violence. If it becomes o.k. to throw things at Farage, by extension it then becomes o.k. to throw things at other people, including you. It will escalate. More people will be attacked. Well, it’s just a joke, right? Then their supporters will retaliate. Then someone will decide to throw bricks instead of drinks. Hey, it was fine to throw milkshakes, so why not bricks? After all, they’re only fascists. Then someone you know gets a brick in the head, or it’s you in the A+E department, and suddenly it isn’t funny anymore. “How did we get to this stage?” will be cry. Remember, it started with a milkshake. But it’s only a milkshake, right?
 

© Jonathon Davies 2019
 

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