Final week’s RWW e-newsletter would be the final one for the second, however a minimum of the Tories are getting a kicking.
Sadly this would be the final RWW e-newsletter for the second, as funding for this challenge is operating out. We are saying goodbye on an uplifting word, nonetheless, with the Tories getting their arses handed to them in two completely different byelections, in addition to by the RMT’s unflappable Mick Lynch throughout tv.
This week I checked out why the proper wing media assaults on the RMT are failing to show the general public in opposition to the strikes. And I used to be as soon as once more overlaying the Tories’ obsession with taking bizarre individuals’s rights away as Justice Secretary Dominic Raab introduced a invoice to change the Human Rights Act.
Bye Bye By-elections
By-elections aren’t usually superb information for governing events who’re going via powerful financial instances. Nonetheless, dropping two MPs as a result of one was convicted of sexual assaulting a baby and the opposite admitted to porn within the Home of Commons most likely didn’t assist the ultimate vote counts for the Tories in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, which had been misplaced to Labour and the Lib Dems respectively.
Wakefield could be very a lot a part of the Northern Pink Wall which was misplaced by Labour in 2019, whereas Tiverton and Honiton is a part of a set of South Western seats that are prime targets for the Lib Dems. Tactical voting in each seats helped maximise each events’ votes, although whether or not Labour and the Lib Dems could make this tactic work at a a lot wider scale usually elections is uncertain with out some kind of formal settlement on which seats the opposite get together gained’t contest. Each events have been proof against the concept of getting any type of formal voting pact up to now.
The fallout from the 2 losses places Boris Johnson, who’s at present away on diplomatic journeys for Commonwealth, NATO, and G7 conferences, in a fair worse place. Conservative Occasion co-chair Oliver Dowden (he of the privet fences of suburbia), stop following the by-election defeats, whereas Nadine Dorries tried to behave as a human defend for the PM by doing considered one of her basic tweets during which she stated the Authorities was centered on coping with a price of dwelling disaster ‘which no Prime Minister or gov has confronted the likes of since WW11.’ Basic Dorries.
The losses additional intensified calls from Johnson’s opponents inside the Conservative Occasion for him to step down, with former chief Michael Howard reportedly saying that the 1922 Committee ought to change its personal guidelines on not permitting one other vote of confidence inside a 12 months of the earlier one, with the intention to do away with Johnson sooner somewhat than later.
Wedgie week
Some Tories had reportedly billed this week as Wedge Week, during which they’d continually hammer on divisive points aiming to energise their proper wing supporters with ‘pink meat’ insurance policies they know are extremely controversial. Maintaining the stress on their plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, changing the Human Rights Act, and the Northern Eire Protocol Invoice, which is having its second studying subsequent week and can enable the UK to unilaterally overrule components of the Brexit Withdrawal Settlement associated to Northern Eire.
All these points see the Tories choosing fights with both home opposition (refugee organisations, attorneys, civil liberties teams), or with the EU. Nadine Dorries and different Tories could say that the Authorities is ‘laser centered’ on the price of dwelling disaster, however it is a lie, as a result of while you have a look at their legislative programme, a lot of it’s about eradicating rights to protest, to contest authorities selections via judicial overview or attraction to the ECHR, privatising Channel 4, to control ‘dangerous content material’ on-line, and implement ‘free speech’ on campuses by permitting individuals to sue universities in the event that they get no-platformed.
The place is the give attention to the price of dwelling disaster, or increasing funding in renewable power, on housing, or any of essentially the most urgent financial and social considerations that materially have an effect on individuals’s lives? This authorities has proven that they a lot want combating meaningless tradition wars than really doing something to assist individuals with the a number of crises affecting the UK. It’s telling then that Oliver Dowden, one of many main tradition warriors within the Tory Occasion, has chosen this second to resign.
Importing the tradition wars
One of many fundamental tendencies in British proper wing politics over the previous decade has been its rising Americanisation, which Brexit has accelerated, in addition to the more and more apparent political financing of UK suppose tanks just like the IEA, Coverage Alternate, Adam Smith Institute and Taxpayers’ Alliance.
These suppose tanks have big affect over the coverage platform of the Conservative Occasion. For instance, “ExxonMobil gave Coverage Alternate $30,000 in 2017. The suppose tank went on to suggest the creation of a brand new anti-protest regulation concentrating on the likes of Extinction Insurrection, which grew to become the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022”, in response to OpenDemocracy.
One of many first tales I printed for Proper Wing Watch in January was about Younger Voices UK, a PR company selling younger proper wing media commentators and funded by US darkish cash sources like oil baron Charles Koch.
Properly, right now the US Supreme Courtroom lastly overturned Roe V. Wade, the choice which made entry to abortion a proper in each US state. It’s fairly fascinating to see the sorts of British conservatives who’re happy about this. Connor Tomlinson, one of many younger reactionaries promoted by Younger Voices UK, and who additionally writes for Internet Zero Watch, a gaggle accused of local weather science denialism, stated that the ruling didn’t go far sufficient and that abortion needs to be banned in each state within the US.
There have been many different proper wingers who appeared happy by the ruling, together with Tory peer Lord Moylan, Andrew Lilico, Scott Benton MP, and teams like Turning Level UK and one other new Tufton Avenue suppose tank, the New Tradition Discussion board. Different MPs like Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg who’ve voiced assist for eradicating abortion rights up to now, don’t appear to have stated something but, and will really feel they need to preserve quiet as a result of they’re cupboard ministers.
The place will we go from right here?
We have to shine a lightweight on political financing. We want a authorities that believes in transparency, that believes in utilizing the facility of the state to radically enhance the lives of essentially the most economically weak individuals in society. Financial deprivation robs us all of an opportunity to reside in a functioning society during which we work collectively for the widespread good.
We have to create the situations the place elevating the highest price of earnings tax is seen as a no brainer. Proper wing neoliberals like Milton Friedman spent a long time creating the mental groundwork for his or her insurance policies, and the left must do the identical. We want extra left wing suppose tanks, and media organisations. Two huge proper wing information channels launched within the UK within the final 12 months. There are not any overtly left wing information channels on UK nationwide TV.
Economist Richard Murphy stated right now that “The place the Republicans go the Tories comply with. We take the proper to abortion, contraception, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage without any consideration now. We shouldn’t. Very quickly Tory suppose tanks could have their sights on all of them. Fascism is on the march.”
I can’t disagree with this. Wanting on the proper wing during the last six months, it’s outstanding what number of concepts previously thought-about far proper have slowly labored their approach into the discourse of the mainstream proper. The echoes of the jackboots of historical past’s fascists could be heard within the campaigns to abolish the Human Rights Act, as it may be heard within the overturning of abortion rights, and the relentless assaults within the British press on trans individuals and different minority teams.
Comrades, it’s time to organise, it’s time to battle, as a result of if we tolerate this, it’s us subsequent.
John Lubbock leads on the Proper-Watch challenge at Left Foot Ahead
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