The moral isolationism of Starmer in the face of the far right
Speymouth
On Saturday in London there was the largest far-right rally that the UK has seen in decades. Called Unite the Kingdom, the march was organised by far right thug and convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and his supporters. Attended by over 100,000, the crowd, comprised overwhelmingly of white people, the great majority of whom were men, carried a sea of English and Union flags and chanted “Whose street? Our Street!” and “England!” Today’s scenes are deeply concerning, not just to those who are excluded from the “united kingdom” that Yaxley-Lennon and his supporters dream of – black and brown people, Muslims, migrants, LGBT people, women, the disabled, supporters of Scottish and Welsh independence and Irish unification – but to everyone who values tolerance, decency, empathy, compassion, and democracy itself.
Today shows how quickly tens of thousands can be emboldened to take to the streets in support of racism and outright fascism. A few Scottish Saltires and Welsh flags peppered the waving flags, but there was little doubt that this was an English nationalist event asserting the territorial claims of white English men demanding mass deportations and eulogising the recently assassinated white supremacist Charlie Kirk, a man whose vile and extreme opinions were beyond the political pale just a few years ago, but who is now being canonised as a martyr of common sense. The march took place the day after a Sikh woman in Birmingham who was born in the UK was raped in what police are describing as a racially motivated attack.
We have been brought to this point by a traditional media that preferentially platforms right wing voices and opinions, by social media algorithms that push increasingly extreme content, and by a UK Government which is too cowardly, craven, and supine to stand up against the rising tide of fascism because to do so means recognising and doing something about the real source of societal discontent and the impoverishment and disempowering of ordinary working people – the greed and avarice of the super-rich.
Following another frightening manifestation of far right English nationalist intolerance, Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech in 1968, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson said:
“I am not prepared to stand aside and see this country engulfed by the racial conflict which calculating orators or ignorant prejudice can create. Nor in the great world confrontation on race and colour, where this country must declare where it stands, am I prepared to be a neutral? For in the world of today, while political isolationism invites danger, and economic isolationism invites bankruptcy, moral isolationism invites contempt.”
Where’s the moral leadership from today’s Labour Prime Minister? Fast forward to 2025 and Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer went to the football and then went home to spend more time with his flag collection. With his continual appeasement of Reform UK at every turn, Starmer is singularly responsible for fanning the flames of far right English nationalism, leading to the increasing likelihood of the far right capturing the institutions of the British state. His moral isolationism is contemptible, and his support for the economic isolationism of Brexit is economically disastrous. His political triangulation and lack of any moral compass has created a political vaccuum which Farage and the English nationalist far right have been eager to fill. Starmer is proving himself to be as poor a Prime Minister as Liz Truss, that other recent premier who was as lacking in emotional intelligence as him.
Saturday’s march and the continuing hotel protests are as much the child of Starmer and and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney as they are of Nigel Farage and rival for the affections of the far right, Rupert Lowe.This has been made possible by legitimising and normalising racism at the highest level of politics and the constant platforming of ever further right wing talking points and opinions by the British media, pushing the envelope of what is acceptable and mainstream to the point where a man who said that black women didn’t have the brain power to be taken seriously and who promoted racist conspiracy theories is lionised as a champion of common sense and the hero of the age. Now people of colour in London report that they are afraid to go into the centre of their home city this Saturday on account of the colour of their skin.
Even senior Labour MPs recognise Starmer’s role in emboldening the far right. Former cabinet minister Louise Haigh said on Saturday: “In recent months we’ve seen the far right allowed to set the terms of debate on migrants and minority communities, with too little challenge from those in power. That failure has whipped up tensions in communities right across the UK and risks embedding further division.”
After a week of political missteps, the resignation of deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor for breaching the ministerial code and the sacking of Epstein bestie Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the USA, which are reminiscent of the chaos and sleaze of the last Conservative administration, you know, what he promised a change from, Starmer is now reportedly hoping that next week’s state visit by Donald Trump will revive his political fortunes. That’s where we are now, the best political hope of a Labour Prime Minister is how far he can get his tongue up the arse of a deeply corrupt far right authoritarian wannabe dictator who is still blaming the left for the murder of Charlie Kirk even though there is mounting evidence that the alleged killer was a straight white extreme right wing Christian who killed Kirk because he thought Kirk wasn’t far right enough.
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum campaign, a common trope of those opposed to independence was that without the institutions of the British state, Scotland would fall prey to political extremism. Now we see that it’s the institutions of the British state which are carrying Scotland into the maw of English nationalist far right extremism, led by the BBC and the Labour party. Without a written constitution or any clear separation of powers, and with no effective checks on the power of a Prime Minister who commands a majority in the Commons, the UK is uniquely vulnerable to authoritarianism and the destruction of our civil liberties. That’s the nightmare that awaits Scotland if we remain in this dysfunctional UK. It’s no longer a question of whether Scotland should risk the uncertainties of independence, but rather should we risk the ugly and authoritarian certainty of a far right English nationalist Westminster.
______________________________________________
I’ve added a new method to make supporting my work easier, you can now donate via Ko-fi
Or click the following link https://ko-fi.com/weegingerdug
Having abandoned Twitter I will be actively posting on BlueSky from now on. You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/weegingerdug.bsky.social follow me there and I will generally follow back.
This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.
You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address [email protected]. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug
