Here Comes The Flood

Have you seen that old clip of David Frost interviewing Oswald Mosley?

Frost plays a clip of one of Mosley's speeches. There are really only two possibilities, he says. Either you were deliberately trying to emulate Hitler. Or you were impersonating Charlie Chaplain in the Great Dictator.

The Conservative Party is in the process of choosing a new leader. That leader will automatically become the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and will presumably be Kier Starmer's opponent at the next General Election. 

A decade ago, faced with a similar situation, the Labour Party gave its members the choice between a half-way plausible leader (I honestly can't remember his or her name) and an obviously unelectable one. The party members, including my good self, selected the second option. Overwhelmingly. Twice. 

The Tories are obviously not going to repeat this mistake. Instead, they have offered their members a straight choice between two obviously unelectable candidates. There's the one who wants to fight culture war battles against trans people and equal opportunity acts and the one who would only have people in his cabinet who want to withdraw from the European convention on human rights. I do concede that framing "culture wars" as a "left wing dog-whistle" implies a kind of Joycean genius for word play. 

It will be aesthetically displeasing to have to listen to one or other of these people talking this kind of rubbish at Prime Minister's question time every week. But it makes no difference. It doesn't matter who becomes Leader of the Opposition. Not even a little bit.

And it doesn't matter if Kier Starmer has been a little bit naughty about who pays his tailor's bills; although, since the whole point of Starmer was that he was bright and sensible, it is a little disappointing that he has done something quite so dumb and quite so stupid quite so quickly. We used to slag off Rev'd Tony for his obsession with spin, but you would think that these people paid people to tell them when they were about to do something that is going to look terrible in the papers. 

Of course, it's up to you Prime Minister. I'm sure you know what you're doing. A very courageous move.

British electoral cycles and American electoral cycles are out of sync. Ms Badenoch and/or Mr Jerrick are going to get one shot at becoming PM, and that won't come much before June 2029. By which time either Kamala Harris or JD Vance will be beginning their second terms in the White House.

Or else something weirder and scarier will have happened in the Land of the Free. The repeal of the Twenty Second Amendment. A third Trump term. A Democrat victory overturned by a bigger and more decisive January 6th coup d'etat.

And this blog believes in balance. There is another possibility. If Mr Trump and Mr Vance do not win the election, and do not succeed in overturning the result by legal jiggery pokery or mob violence, then by June 2026, Kamala Harris will have established a Marxist dictatorship and ended free elections in America.

That's certainly the opinion of the official Republican nominee; and it's also the opinion of the richest and cleverest man in the world. And they wouldn't say so if they didn't truthfully believe it. 

When Jeremy Corbyn suggested that internet access might become free his own party literally accused him of being a Trotskyite. 

When Kier Starmer recently moved a painting to a different wall in Downing Street, newspaper columnists literally accused him of being a Stalinist.

But try drawing any kind of parallel between anything that Mr Trump and Mr Musk say and things that that funny little German with the moustache used to say, and see what happens....

"Oh, you liberals, any one who disagrees with you even a little bit is automatically a Fascist!"

"Oh, well, the word Fascist can mean anything you want it to mean and doesn't mean anything at all."

"I shall tell you who the real fascists are -- the ones saying that white people are just the same as black people and that some people are trans and that it's OK to be gay. And the ones who put a black elf into Lord of the Rings!"

"Why oh why oh why can't liberals carry out an argument without resorting to insults?"

I always thought that the Nemesis the Warlock comic-strip in 2000AD took a wrong step when it turned out that nasty inquisitor Torquemada didn't really hate aliens at all: he just thought that giving his human subjects someone to hate was good for business. The legendary Clan of the Fiery Cross Superman story ended on a similar revelation. The chief wizard of the clan didn't believe in any of his white supremacist bullshit. He'd invented the cult because he had a warehouse full of bedsheets he needed to sell.

And how comforting it would be if that were true. There are no Nazis. There are no Fascists. And, in the interests of balance, there are no Liberals and no Communists. There are only gullible people who have been hoodwinked into believing an obvious lie; and cynical liars hoodwinking the gullible for their own ends.

I don't believe it. I think it is highly probable that Mr Hitler really did have an issue with Jewish people. I think it highly probable that Tommy (who's-real-name-is-Yaxby-Lennon) Robinson really does dislike immigrants and dark skinned people and people who say "Allah" rather than "God". But I think it is very likely indeed that many of the people currently serving time for inciting or participating last summer's attempted pogrom had no strong feelings about immigrants or Muslims one way or the other. They were just caught up in the moment. 

Which is why we should have as few of those moments as possible.

I am perfectly sure that everyone who heard Yoko Ono speak at Glastonbury in 2014 believed in that moment that if we hugged our neighbours and imagined that all the grapefruits were made of clouds then war and fracking would end there and then. I am equally sure that everyone at Billy Bragg's Bristol gig earlier this year truthfully believed, in that moment, that the sense of empathy between singer and audience could spread out and defeat the forces of cynicism (which is the real enemy).

In the cold light of day, we might have decided that it was all a bit over done and not entirely realistic. But we were carried along in the moment because we really do believe that love and imagination and solidarity are good things. I have said that I always come out of one of Martyn Joseph's concerts honestly wanting to be a better person. 

It is not fair to think that everyone who goes to right-wing rallies is evil any more than everyone who attends a revivalist meeting is a saint. Not everyone in the audience necessarily believes that everything in a Trump speech is the gospel truth, any more than everyone in the mega-church necessarily believes that everything in the Gospel is the gospel truth. But it is fair to assume that they are going for some reason. It is fair to assume that they are getting something out of it. It is fair to assume that repeated exposure to that kind of thing has some kind of affect. 

It would be very hard to argue that Mr Trump is not an authoritarian -- let's avoid the F-word. It seems very hard to argue that Mr Trump is not an extreme nativist, even a white supremacist. Let's avoid the R-word. 

I would personally find it very hard to argue that Kamala Harris was a Marxist. She seems to me to be rather to the right of most British politicians. But I'm not the richest and cleverest man in the world. I'm not even in the top three.

What would British politics look like after four and a bit years of Authoritarian Nativist rule in America?  Or, to remain completely unbiassed, in the equally believable and plausible circumstance that US democracy had come to an end and the Hammer and Sickle was flying in the Oval Office?

Some British politicians would undoubtedly say that a jolly good shot of Nativist Authoritarianism up the backside is precisely what Britain needs to put a stop to all those National Trust scones and unisex lavatories.

Some British politicians would certainly say that if the leader of our strongest and traditionalist ally has decided to deploy the armed forces against his political opponents, or to intern or expel religious and racial minorities, then it is our job as a friend to back them up. 

Some British politicians would even say that opposing coup d'etats is the self-indulgence of the metropolitan hipster.

And I am very much afraid that some British politicians might say that opposing Authoritarian Nativism is on a level with demanding a unicorn on every street corner.  Very nice and fluffy of course, but not the sort of thing that serious grown-ups talk about. Serious grown-ups understand that if you are really against Authoritarian Nativism, then the serious grown-up thing to do is to stop going on and on about it, sit down to dinner with Authoritarian Nativists and maybe be just a little bit more Authoritarian and Nativist yourself. 

Life isn't like Love Actually. Tough choices. I for one welcome our new insect overlords.

But it's a safe bet that after four years of American fascism (or, to be completely unbiassed, American communism) winter fuel payments and sewage in Lake Windermere will be the least of our worries. 

Whatever happens, on November 6th we will be in uncharted territory. I propose to continue eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, reading comic books and singing sea shanties, until the day that Trump enters into the White House. 

At this stage there doesn't seem a great deal that anyone can do about it. 

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