Heroes: ‘Me I go from one extreme to another’ 

 

‘And resentment rides high but emotions won’t grow 

And we’re changing our ways, taking different roads’ 

 
Well, well, perhaps little Rishi will go out with a bang after all! Only a week after he told us the extremists were trying to tear us apart, the de-whipped Lee Anderson joins Reform. Not so much Love Will Tear us Apart, more Hate Has Torn us Apart. 
 

 
This is Lee’s third party in 6-years; clearly he’s struggling to find anything other than a minority party that chimes with his extremist views. 

In fairness to Rishi he should be well acquainted with extremists; his party has the 5-families, Loopy Liz’s PopCons, and individuals such as Braverman, Patel, et al. People who see themselves as ‘libertarian’.  
 

‘they appear to be rather nasty far-right, fascist, dictators’

 
However when you read the definition of libertarian: ‘a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing equality before the law and civil rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice‘, I fail to see them as libertarian. Their definition of freedom is exclusive, it disqualifies anyone who disagrees with them, whereas it should be inclusive if it is truly free. Instead, they appear to be rather nasty far-right, fascist, dictators. 

They are the right sort of extremists, xenophobic, anti-transgender, anti-immigration, anti-Islam. Whereas, someone like me who believes that Israel’s action is Gaza are wrong, who embraces multi-culturalism, peoples right to express their individual sexuality, would be a dangerous extremist. To get the picture imagine crossing these two, and you get me….. 
 

 
Yes, I know…I’m clearly a threat to society!  

Is Sunak’s speech on the steps of Downing Street, he told us: ‘In recent weeks and months, we have seen a shocking increase in extremist disruption and criminality. What started as protests on our streets has descended into intimidation, threats and planned acts of violence.’ 

Whilst his comments might serve to condemn the clearly unacceptable death threats against MPs, the true target was those demonstrating in support of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment. ‘Don’t let the extremists hijack your marches,’ Sunak said. 

All of this begs the questions, is Britain really in the grip of extremists who are ‘trying to tear us apart‘, as the prime minister suggested? Or, instead, is there an attempt to silence certain voices through false reporting and claims of extremism and passionate protest, leading Britain down a dangerous road? 

Dame Sara Khan, who was the government’s counter-extremism commissioner and is now carrying out a social cohesion and democratic resilience review for the communities secretary, Michael Gove, is in full agreement with the prime minister that Britain has an extremism problem – but it is nothing new, she suggested 

Khan’s 2021 report, ‘Operating with Impunity’, identifies gaps in legislation that allowed neo-Nazi organisations such as Combat 18 to exist and the Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary who was convicted in 2016 for the terror offence of inviting support for the terrorist group Daesh. 
 

‘is there an attempt to silence certain voices through false reporting and claims of extremism and passionate protest, leading Britain down a dangerous road?’

 
But, Khan said, ‘I think it’s really important that we don’t conflate those protesters, somehow saying or portraying them as somehow as being all extremists.’ 

‘What I’ve been really uncomfortable with over the last couple of weeks is the kind of argument that they’re all Islamist extremists on these demonstrations. I think that’s actually outrageous. Some are not even pro-Palestinian people, just anti-war. There are clearly Jewish people there, there’s a whole range of people there, and to try to frame these demonstrations as Islamist extremism is completely far-fetched and untrue.’ 

According to the Metropolitan police, of the 238 arrests made by police at pro-Palestine protests between October and December last year, only 35 have been charged, while three penalty notices and four cautions were also issued. 

Sunak had suggested in his Downing Street speech that a dearth of arrests of those at pro-Palestine protests may be due to a lack of rigour by the police. 

The Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley this week responded that ‘to suggest that we are not where the law permits, as the law allows, policing robustly is not accurate‘. 

The perception of some that the government is seeking to make political capital out of the crisis in Gaza, by drawing dividing lines between those who support the ‘extremists’ offering support for Palestinians, and the rest, has been strengthened by the fact that ministers are planning to announce a new definition of extremism, determining the organisations that Whitehall will be prohibited from engaging with. 

According to leaked drafts, it will include groups active in ‘the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on intolerance, hatred or violence that aims to undermine the rights or freedoms of others’, including ‘those who seek to undermine or overturn the UK’s liberal system of democracy and democratic rights‘. 

It is not a move that Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he was comfortable with. 

‘If you say a touchstone of British values is, for example, tolerance towards gay people then you end up saying that people who are religiously committed to saying that homosexuality is a sin are extremists,’ he said. 

‘Then you end up creating a situation in which the UK’s … famously pluralist tolerance towards different belief systems is not tolerant towards that belief system. So it’s really hard to try and work out what are the touchstones for British values.’ 
 

‘it’s really hard to try and work out what are the touchstones for British values’

 
Sir David Ormand, a former director of GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence,, said upset and angst was the goal of the enemies of a multicultural Britain. 

‘The acid test of Sunak’s statement is, do people now feel less angry?’ Ormand said. ‘Do the people, the communities concerned, feel less frightened [after his speech] and are we all less cynical that the public interest is being sacrificed to party management interests? The answer is probably [he is] failing on all three.’ 

The governments’ recent obsession with extremism is becoming toxic. 

There is the disturbing situation with Michelle Donelan, the science minister, who, last week  published a retraction of claims that Prof Kate Sang, a senior academic, had expressed support for Hamas on X, after she tweeted that the contents of a Guardian article published in the aftermath of 7 October were ‘disturbing‘. The unfounded allegation was made by Donelan the same month, in an open letter to UK Research and Innovation, a national research funding body. Posting the content on X, she called for Prof Sang and another academic to be removed from roles on an equality, diversity and inclusion committee, on the grounds of alleged extremism and support for a proscribed organisation.  

Donelan’s comments were unfounded, and Prof Sang sued. The £15,000 bill for damages and legal fees will now be covered by her department. 
 

‘The governments’ recent obsession with extremism is becoming toxic’

 
Donelan seems to be the typical Tory libertarian. Whilst universities minister, Ms Donelan was a champion of free speech on the campus, arguing in 2022 that ‘students and lecturers should not be silenced‘. It has been reported however that she requested a dossier be compiled on supposedly extreme social media posts by an academic. The file reportedly carried headings such as ‘anti-racism’, ‘transgender advocacy’ and ‘militant leftism’. Ludicrously, the latter category apparently included posts expressing solidarity with strike action by lecturers. 

To borrow a phrase from a previous Tory PM, the ‘party has become the nasty party’. Remember that? It was Theresa May in 2002. 

Last week, she announced that she wouldn’t fight her seat in the next election, bringing an end to a memorable career, and one that was central to this column. At the time, I, along with other commentators, described her as being one of the worst PMs. But, with hindsight we were somewhat unkind. 

May was a remainer, who won the leadership after Brexit and Cameron falling on his sword, and she had the unenviable job of leading an unruly mob, who emboldened by ‘vote Leave’ thrashed around in a totally unmanageable fashion.  

We finish this edition by looking back at those times. 

Alongside failing to manage the unruly mob, she will be remembered in large part for her decision to call a snap election in 2017 in an attempt to secure a parliamentary majority, only to lose seats and ultimately, her authority over her party. 
 

‘I, along with other commentators, described her as being one of the worst PMs. But, with hindsight we were somewhat unkind’

 
Her 3-years as PM were plagued by party in-fighting as she tried to find a way to deliver a Brexit agreement that would placate both the hard-right and the centrist factions in her party. 

She appeared to have succeeded in 2018, when she secured the backing of her cabinet – ironically at Chequers – for a Brexit deal that would have given Britain continued access to the single market for goods. That began to fall apart within days, however, when David Davis, her Brexit secretary, resigned, closely followed by Boris Johnson, who succeeded her in No 10. 

May staggered on for almost another year, but stood down after a series of parliamentary defeats on her Brexit deal that confirmed she had lost the support of her party and the Commons as a whole. 

 

Some argue that May’s inability to persuade her party to back her Brexit agreement was a result of her awkward style of personal interaction. She disliked the backslapping nature of the Commons tea rooms, hated small talk and deliberately shunned parliamentary gossip.  

Whilst studying at Oxford she became involved in student politics, and entered parliament in 1997. She came to public prominence five years later when as party chair she positioned herself as one of its leading modernisers, warning in her conference speech that the Tories were becoming seen as ‘the nasty party’. 

She was a natural ally of David Cameron, who made her home secretary after winning the 2010 election, a post she held until she succeeded Cameron as party leader in 2016. 

As home secretary, she championed a range of initiatives to correct what she saw as social injustices, including curtailing police powers to ‘stop and search’, spearheading efforts to tackle modern slavery and reversing much of Labour’s hard-line antisocial behaviour policies. 

Much of that, however, was overshadowed by her uncompromising approach to immigration, where she oversaw the ‘hostile environment’ approach to asylum, which attempted to make it as hard as possible for arrivals to secure refugee status. The policy was blamed in part for the Windrush scandal, in which dozens of people who had lived in Britain for decades were wrongly detained and even deported from the UK. 
 

‘she oversaw the ‘hostile environment’ approach to asylum, which attempted to make it as hard as possible for arrivals to secure refugee status’

 
She was also blamed for the government’s advertising campaign in which vans drove around London emblazoned with the warning: ‘In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.’ The vans were criticised by Labour as racist and even by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, as ‘unpleasant’. 

This hardline stance on immigration coupled with an interest in social justice in other areas, made her the ideal candidate to replace Cameron, with many seeing her as being able to could unite her fractious party, especially after Johnson’s leadership bid imploded early in the campaign. 

Perhaps we greatest, but most unrecognised political legacy will her devotion to causes such as combating modern slavery and human trafficking. She told the Maidenhead Advertiser on Friday she wanted to devote her post-political life to those causes. 
 

‘May was the first, and unwitting leader of a populist party’

 
In addition she is a committed constituency MP;  Gavin Barwell, her former chief of staff, once said: ‘I don’t think there has been a prime minister in modern British political history who has been as devoted a constituency MP.’ 

In many ways May was the first, and unwitting leader of a populist party. Her resignation saw that endorsed with the accession of Johnson, which along with Brexit began the unholy mess we are now suffering. 

Sunak is correct, extremism is a problem, but he needs to look inwards first, the worse problems are in his own party. 
 

‘It’s these ignorant faces that bring this town down’ 

 
Plenty to fear for those that champion civil liberties – yet Philip’s the ‘threat to society?’:

‘This week we consider extremism, the latest Tory buzzword. Really, all they need to do is look in the mirror!

Clearly the reflection wasn’t sufficient for Lee Anderson who has defected to Reform, and becomes their first MP. Anderson said he did this because: “I want my country back.”

Danny Kruger, a co-leader of the New Conservatives grouping of Tory MPs, which had counted Anderson as a member, said that Anderson’s move to Reform should come as a warning to Sunak’s party: “It reflects the fact that as a party we have lost the coalition of voters who voted for us back in 2019.”

“I think today is a wake-up call for us as a party to try to reassemble that coalition. We need to be much more deliberate about the policy platform that will win back those voters who left us”.

Anderson might be better served worrying about people such as the miners rather than illusory Jihadi’s.

The National Mineworkers Pension Campaign, say that former miners are “dying in abject poverty” and “can’t afford to bury themselves” while the government takes billions of pounds out of their pension funds.

They said the former prime minister Boris Johnson “lied through his back teeth” when he promised in 2019 to end an arrangement that has seen the government take 50% of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme surplus funds in exchange for a commitment that the pot’s value would not drop.

In 2021, a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee report recommended ending the deal, which was set up in 1994 without, campaigners say, sufficient input from the National Union of Mineworkers.

The report said: “Allowing the arrangement to continue would appear antithetical to the government’s stated aim of redressing socioeconomic inequality and ‘levelling up’ left-behind communities.”

Charles Chiverton, a spokesperson for the campaign, said at least £4.2bn had been taken out of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme, which could have been used to improve the lives of ex-miners and their families. Some members of the campaign estimate as much as £10bn has been lost through the deal.

A fifth of members get as little as £10 a week from the pension scheme, with the majority of them getting £50 a week or less.

Chiverton said: “It’s just disgraceful that we’ve got members that have died in abject poverty. “They’ve not only had the coalmines shut down and the community devastated, which leaves so many black holes, they can’t even enjoy a trip out to the seaside like they would have done. The worst is that some can’t afford to bury themselves”.

We really are a disgrace

Lyrically, we start with Joy Division and “Lee Love Will Tear us Apart”, and end with the Libertines “Time for Heroes”, which, very definitely, isn’t dedicated to 30p Lee. Enjoy!

@coldwarsteve

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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