Heroes: Right for the UK? 

 

‘Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? 

We danced and sang, and the music played in a de boomtown’ 

 

Readers, I am sure, will think I have an unhealthy fixation with far-right politics. Yes, I am fixated by it,  it is an unhealthy problem, which as more and more countries head far-right, concerns me more and more. 

 
Back in 2010, the first of a string of Tory governments was headed by a moderate, David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron; all hug a hoodie and the ‘Smiths’.  

Dave and the party were so terrified of the hard-right in the form of UKIP, that to placate them he promised a referendum on our EU membership. A mix of complacency and ‘leave’ lies saw a surprise majority in favour of Brexit, and Dave fell on his sword. 

After Dave came Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and the current incumbent, Rishi Sunak. 

Since 2010 the party has tacked further and further to the right. The so-called ‘Five Families’ make up this faction and, whilst they aren’t in the majority, they currently hold sway. 

The question is why? Why is the tail wagging the Tory dog? 

There are several factors; if the important saying is ‘it’s the economy, stupid’, the Tories are sunk. Fourteen years of austerity, minimal growth, a cost-of-living crisis, recession equals economic mismanagement. Tired, out-of-date monetarism needs a reset. 

As they have made such a mess of the economy, and to combat first UKIP and now Reform, they have borrowed from the fascist (N.B., in this article ‘hard-right’ and ‘fascist’ are interchangeable) playbook; the ‘stab in the back’ theory. Brexit, which was sabotaged and not ‘done properly’; immigrants, culture warriors, all collectively doing the country down. 
 

‘Tired, out-of-date monetarism needs a reset’

 
As I have written before as mainstream politicians become scared by the hard-right’s increasing popularity, they tend to borrow from them, which, in-turn further legitimises hard -right parties and policies, and exaggerates their importance. 

Reform, the former UKIP, currently polls around 11%, but its influence is disproportionate. 

 ‘They harm the Conservatives more now than Ukip did in 2015 because the post-Brexit Tories have a lot more ‘Ukippy’ voters – who they picked up in 2017 and 2019,’ said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester. 

Whilst in 2019 Reforms’ predecessor did not stand candidates against sitting Conservative MPs, there will be no such agreement this time;  ‘New Reform UK candidates will therefore offer an option to voters in those seats that wasn’t there in 2019,’ said Ford. 

Whilst it is very unlikely that Reform will win any seats, their current C. 11% of the poll in recent surveys means that they could decimate dozens of Conservative majorities, further any Labour majority. 

The first test of this could be in the upcoming contest in Wellingborough, where splits on the right could help Labour overturn an 18,540 majority. 

However, others are less convinced; Michael Crick, author of the 2022 Farage biography One Party After Another, said: ‘In every general election, there’s a sort of expectation that maybe Ukip, the Brexit party or whatever it is at that time is going to cause havoc for the Tories. They do cause problems, undoubtedly in each case, but it’s never quite as bad as everybody says.’ 

He continued, saying: ‘They will win over and attract money that might have gone to the Conservatives, from really rightwing donors, and you may well also find that quite a lot of Tory activists and officials end up voting or even working for Reform.’ 

In summary, Reform is a tiny outfit whose influence in Westminster is amplified out of all proportion to its poll rating. The first-past-the-post electoral system magnifies their impact, meaning that a relatively small-scale defection of voters can cost the Tories a lot of seats. Also, they are lavished with uncritical attention from Conservative-leaning media, and Nigel Farage, the party’s honorary president and its dominant shareholder, has his own show on GB News. 

What does Reform propose? It has been described as ‘a wild mishmash of nationalist and libertarian demands – reckless tax and spending cuts; rejection of any effort to battle climate change; reducing net immigration to zero.’  

As a fringe party this manifesto is unlikely to ever be implemented, which allows them the luxury of being able to advocate preposterous things without any expectation of having to make them work. However, post-Brexit, the Tories have embraced policies of a similar vein. 

Sunak as he tried to hold his fractured party together, has right, deferring to the radicals, E.G., his retreat from decarbonisation goals, and offshoring asylum claimants. 
 

‘there is now little differences between the PM’s own politics and those of Reform’

 
The sheer fact that many Tories, the PM included, have not ruled out welcoming Farage into the party, shows how far they have mutated in the years since the EU referendum. 

As a result there is now little differences between the PM’s own politics and those of Reform. The boundary could dissolve altogether if the Conservatives lose the next election and are no longer obliged even to try to govern practically. 

In some ways the disillusioned and demoralised Tories might enjoy being in opposition. It offers them release from responsibility; and the freedom to complain about the condition of a country shaped by their own policies. That hypocrisy is systemic on the Eurosceptic right, who seem to take perverse pleasure in turning victories into grievances. 

As the party tacks further right, the capitulation of successive Tory leaders has generated even more extreme demands from a faction of sore winners, ‘who affect self-righteous martyrdom even when dictating policy to a prime minister.’ 

Even now Tory backbenchers are pushing for billions of pounds in tax cuts. Kwasi Kwarteng, Truss’s erstwhile chancellor displaying a total lack of judgement and humility is demanding ‘bold tax cuts‘. 

To facilitate these tax cuts the Tories are relying on assumptions to meet fiscal rules requiring debt to fall as a share of the economy within 5-years’ time. A plan, labelled ‘plain implausible‘ by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

In the autumn statement, Jeremy Hunt failed to address several major pressures on the public finances, while leaving billions of pounds worth of Tory tax and spending promises off the official record of government policy. 

This includes £20bn of cuts to public spending pencilled in for after the general election, representing a tougher austerity drive than George Osborne’s slash-and-burn policy, at a time when public services are already on their knees. 
 

‘a tougher austerity drive than George Osborne’s slash-and-burn policy, at a time when public services are already on their knees’

 
Fuel duty, due to rise by 8p per litre from the end of March at a cost of about £6bn a year for motorists. Having been frozen since 2011, and with an election due there is little chance this will happen. Nonetheless it is included in the official forecasts, providing almost half of the chancellor’s £13bn of headroom against his fiscal rules. 

Sunak has also promised to increase defence spending from 2% of GDP to 2.5% in the long term, without saying how the numbers add up. Doing so by the late 2020s would cost more than £16bn a year.  

Any tax cuts promised in the election campaign would almost certainly leave Sunak having to make deeper cuts to public spending than already planned, unless debt levels are to be ratcheted ever higher.  

In effect, he would be following Truss and Kwarteng, arguing that tax cuts help grow the economy, when, in truth, they are electoral bribe. 

Whilst some targeted measures might provide a short-time boost, long-term shrinking the state still further more will only increase NHS waiting lists, crumbling schools, poverty and ill-health which are holding back Britain’s economic potential.  

What we needs is investment, which has flagged due to austerity and subdued levels of businesses investment after Brexit, and years of Tory flip-flopping political drama. 

According to the OBR, getting productivity growth back to its pre-2008 levels would cut government borrowing by £46bn a year in 2028-29, while growth falling back to the levels seen over the past 15 years would increase it by about £40bn. 

This is where Labour’s £28bn green proposals should be a winner. Unfortunately, the right-wing media continue to denounce this as ‘tax and spend’, whilst shouting their preference for electoral bribes in the form of tax cuts and forgetting the consequences. 
 

‘the right-wing media continue to denounce this as ‘tax and spend’, whilst shouting their preference for electoral bribes in the form of tax cuts’

 
Aside from Reform, there has been another set of policy announcements over the holidays. 

‘A crash programme of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike‘.  

This is a summary of the ‘reform bill’ announced by Javier Milei, the new Argentinian president. It could almost a tribute to our Conservative party, and bears striking similarities to Liz Truss’s ‘mini’ (maxi) budget, which crashed our economy. 

That there are such stark similarities isn’t a surprise, hard-right economics all stems for the same places and theories.  

Milei’s programme was heavily influenced by Argentinian neoliberal thinktanks belonging to something called the Atlas Network, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political and economic package everywhere it operates. It was founded in 1981 by a UK citizen, Antony Fisher. Fisher was also the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs (‘IEA’), one of the first members of the Atlas Network. 

The IEA greatly influenced Liz Truss’s political platform, and continues to hold considerable influence, yet it remains largely in the shadows, no one really knows who funds it  or whom it represents. The three peers nominated by Truss in her resignation honours list have all worked for or with organisations belonging to the Atlas Network (Matthew Elliott, TaxPayers’ Alliance; Ruth Porter, IEA and Policy Exchange; Jon Moynihan, IEA). As a result, they have been granted lifelong powers to shape our lives, without democratic consent.  
 

‘globally we are seeing polices that are variations on the same themes’

 
These corporate lobby groups continue to dominate; Sunak admitted that the Policy Exchange, ‘helped us draft‘ the UK’s new anti-protest laws. They are also member of the Atlas Network. In effect, globally we are seeing polices that are variations on the same themes. The politicians delivering them are no more than the public face. 

Whilst these entities continue to operate in the shadows, it has been revealed  that the Atlas Network  and many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers and other right-wing billionaires, and from oil, coal and tobacco companies. The thinktanks are merely ‘intermediaries‘, representing the narrow interests of donors, enabling the donors to spread these policies and tactics around the world whilst remaining invisible.  
 

‘the majority of those politicians  don’t care about the people, they care about being in-power, and serving the hand that feeds them. Which isn’t you and I’

 
Their influence extends to the right-wing media, which enables them to shape public opinion. For example, around the world, neoliberal thinktanks have succeeded in characterising environmental protesters as ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists‘.  

It is reported that the policies proposed by Donald Trump have been written for him, in a 900-page Mandate for Leadership produced by a group of thinktanks led by the Heritage Foundation, itself a member of the Atlas Network.  

The creators of neoliberalism, such as Frederich Hayek, believed it would defend the world from tyranny. However, rather than liberating us it has became a new source of oppression; ‘big money’ has used the thinktanks and pliant politicians for their own ends.  

As I have written before, capitalism in its current form fails because it doesn’t serve the people. Neoliberalism has been tried numerous times, from Chile in the 1970s. to the UK and US in the 1980s and beyond. It has served only the minority, creating a yawning wealth gap, especially in the UK. 

The majority are now falling prey to hard-right politicians, who serve them up a diet of scapegoats to blame for their misfortune. In truth, the majority of those politicians  don’t care about the people, they care about being in-power, and serving the hand that feeds them. Which isn’t you and I. 
 

‘Whispers in the shadows – gruff blazing voices 

Hating, waiting’ 

  
 
A hard-hitting piece from Philip, and further evidence of politics’ shift to the right; when politicians dance to the tune of billionaire donors rather than the will of the people, it is inevitable there will be confrontation. Climate is just one battleground, and this government has set out it’s stall by increasingly clamping down on protest; in this instance, the big loser is our children’s planet as fossil fuel companies stuff their insatiable chops.

Philip’s pre-amble was so good, and comprehensive, that it is presented here in full, as almost a separate piece:

With the publication of Reforms political agenda, we take a closer look at the Tories, and the likely impact of Reform.

Most commentators regard them as a fringe party, unlikely to ever hold power, but with an exaggerated influence for two reasons.

Firstly, our first-past-the-post system will likely mean that Reforms’ presence impacts the Tories and could lose them C.35 seats, and present Labour with a greater majority.

Secondly, the hard-right of the Tories is all but Reform anyway, and the rest are so terrified of Reform that the party is moving further right. We are seeing this elsewhere, and it serves only to legitimise the extremists and their policies.

Perhaps, of greater interest are the shadowy think tanks that provide much of the hard-rights policies and the billionaires and corporations that remain in the shadows proving finance and influence. In effect, politicians become their proxy, representing a series of narrow interests seeking to serve themselves only.

This manifests itself in many ways; Sunak rowing back on climate change, the extension of North Sea oil, the hardline stance on protests, rogue water companies, perhaps even the Post Office Scandal.

A distressing example of how this influence comes to pass is Israel.

After Netanyahu lost the election to Ehud Barak in 1999, reporters heard him say: “When I return, I’ll have my own media outlet.” He ended up with two: the free newspaper Israel Hayom, launched in 2007 and funded by Sheldon Adelson, a mega-donor to the US Republican party; and Channel 14, founded in 2014. They changed Israel’s media landscape, and in the years that followed, a plethora of new hard-right outlets were established.

Channel 14 was originally launched as a channel offering “Jewish” programming, it began airing opinion shows. Despite being fined for content that exceeded its licensed remit, intervention from Netanyahu’s government allowed it to include news in its broadcasts. The channel has since become a significant platform for the reactionary right, broadcasting right-wing propaganda previously unseen on Israeli television.

Channel 14 has a counter that logs the number of buildings demolished in Gaza, the number of Palestinians wounded, the number of “terrorists killed” (all casualties are labelled as “terrorists”). On a late-night panel show, an operative from Netanyahu’s party, Likud, blamed the Hamas surprise attack on “the crimes of Oslo” and the “leftist cancer” to the cheers of the live audience, while host Shimon Riklin said he was “for war crimes”.

Please note that I am not taking sides over the situation in Gaza, but merely pointing out how narrow interest groups operate in the shadows, and use right-wing politicians to do their bidding.

This really isn’t to be laughed at, as the Nazi’s recognised whoever controls the narrative controls the situation. They destroyed political opponents or other perceived enemies such as “International High Finance”. Goebbels  propaganda characterised the opposition as “November criminals“, “Jewish wire-pullers”, or a communist threat.

With any form of race hate it isn’t where you start that matters, it’s where you finish.

Lyrically, we return to the late 1970’s and  early 80s. We start with “Ghost Town” by the Specials, and finish with the Jam’s 1978 single “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight”. 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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