The Times Political Editor describes Leave votes as:- “Xenophobic Insurgents”!
I couldn’t let Francis Elliott, the Times Political Editor, get away with outrageously describing Leave voters as “Xenophobic Insurgents” without responding.
Here is my letter to him:-
Dear Mr Elliott
Re: Times Article, July 18th:- “Tory turmoil could lead to Far-Right revival”
With respect, your heading betrays the unanalytical nature of your article. You used the smear expression “Far-Right” which is intended to obscure rather than to highlight actual policy positions. You then claimed a “revival” despite the fact that for several decades now there has not really been any patriotic or nationalist challenge to the British Political Establishment Lib/Lab/Con which has dominated “British” politics since the Second World War.
You rightly discuss the likely consequences of the Conservative Party’s destruction of its own creditability over Brexit as either competent or patrioticor honest. It is also true that, if Corbyn’s Labour was to be given a chance at government, Labour would prove to be internationalist, anti-patriotic, multi-culturalist and pro-immigration. This is virtually a checklist of the very things that English blue collar workers most despise. Such a Labour Government would be very likely to complete the divorce between the traditional “white working class” and Labour – a path which has already been trod by almost all of Labour’s sister parties in Western Europe!
The anomaly of the UK State is that it is a unique, unfair, unequal and illogical mishmash of nations. This constitutional anomaly has to be sorted out before England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland can become fully normal modern democratic nation states.
If in the process of sorting this out our politics can shed our grandiose “Legacy Parties” and replace them with a modern party structure where policies chime with the various blocks of ideological opinion rather than cut across them – as our current ones do – then so much the better. Whether that amounts to “fertile ground for xenophobic insurgents” well that is – “hard to know”! I will leave you to resolve your own loaded question!
Yours sincerely
Robin Tilbrook
Here is Mr Elliott’s article
Tory turmoil could lead to a far‑right revival
Leave voters’ sense of betrayal over Brexit and fear of immigration create the perfect conditions for a new protest party
Our views on race, immigration and Brexit are full of contradictions. But taken together, this jumble of prejudices and ideas is about to change the shape of British politics.
The return to dominance of the two main parties, which saw Labour and the Conservatives share around 80 per cent of the vote, was one of the most surprising consequences of the referendum two years ago.
It left many in the centre ground pining for a new party. But it now seems likely that it’s on the right, rather than on the middle ground, that a new force will appear.
In three recent polls, Ukip has seen an uptick at the expense of the Conservatives. It could be the first sign of the governing party’s electoral coalition unravelling as voters react negatively to Theresa May’s Brexit compromise agreed at Chequers.
Although Ukip is the current beneficiary, the moribund party riven by factionalism looks no more able to revive itself than the Liberal Democrats. Prepare for a new organisation entirely.
At first sight, immigration doesn’t appear to be a factor in the discontent felt by voters. The number of Britons identifying immigration as the most important issue has declined steeply since 2016, while the number identifying Brexit has risen on a similarly striking gradient. But taken together, concern about immigration and the delivery of Brexit mark those who feel disenfranchised by the Westminster establishment, and explain the outrage felt by some voters towards Mrs May’s Chequers plan. It is an uncomfortable truth that just over a quarter of respondents in a recent British Social Attitudes survey said they were “very” or a “little” prejudiced towards people of other races.
Brexiteers react with fury to any suggestion that race played a part in the vote to leave the EU. They are also the first to suggest that a betrayal of the referendum result will unleash an ugly populist backlash.
Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire, is the latest to sound the alarm. “The Chequers deal has disenfranchised voters,” she tweeted this week. “People tell me . . . that it was the ‘last straw’ and if a charismatic figure stood heading a new party they would vote for him/her. Sounds like we could be heading for our very own Trump/Macron/Robinson.”
She was criticised for appearing to treat Tommy Robinson, former leader of the far-right, anti-Muslim English Defence League, as a mainstream politician. Robinson was jailed in May for contempt of court and his appeal against his sentence is due to be heard today. As Ms Dorries later made clear, her tweet was a warning, not an endorsement.
But Robinson’s anti-migrant creed has no shortage of high-profile supporters. Here is Donald Trump, speaking alongside Theresa May after their Chequers summit last week, on the damage the president believes migration is doing to the cultural fabric of Europe: “I just think it’s changing the culture. I think it’s a very negative thing for Europe. I think it’s very negative,” he said.
“And I know it’s politically not necessarily correct to say that. But I’ll say it and I’ll say it loud. And I think they better watch themselves because you are changing culture. You are changing a lot of things. You’re changing security.”
Sam Brownback, the US ambassador for international religious freedom, is reported to have warned Sir Kim Darroch, Britain’s ambassador in Washington, that “if Britain did not treat [Tommy] Robinson more sympathetically, the Trump administration might be compelled to criticise Britain’s handling of the case”.
Mr Trump’s son, Donald Junior, has tweeted support for Robinson. A US think-tank, Middle East Forum, helped to organise a rally in support of him in London and sent a Republican Congressman, Paul Gosar, to speak in his support.
Robinson is just one possible candidate to lead whatever replaces Ukip as the repository of protest votes, powered by alt-right cash. Generation Identity, an Austrian nationalist movement, is hovering at the political fringe. With slickly produced YouTube videos and clean-cut provocateurs, it is waiting to leap on any grievance in Britain that can serve its narrative of an apocalyptic clash of civilisations.
It is worth imagining what British politics will be like if Mrs May does, after all, squeeze a version of her Chequers compromise through Brussels. For most of the period between March 29, 2019, when we formally leave the union, and the next general election in 2022, Britain will be paying its full dues to an organisation over which it has no control. What’s more, every politician other than Mrs May will have a vested interest in stoking discontent over the terms of our departure. It is probable that she won’t even be in No 10 to defend it four years from now.
If this isn’t fertile ground for xenophobic insurgents, it’s hard to know what is. For the Tories, it could get even worse. Those now urging a delay in our departure next March are ignoring one large obstacle. If we are still in the EU, Britain must take part in elections to the European parliament next May. These polls are already causing great anxiety in Brussels, where the Commission fears they could return a majority of Eurosceptic MEPs from across the member states, with fatal consequences for the federalist dream.
Senior ministers say that Brussels will find a way to refuse any request to extend our negotiating period because it fears that Britain’s participation in the Euro-election would only inflame the Continental populist revolt.
Just as likely, they know that the Conservative Party would suffer an almighty drubbing in such a poll because it would be outflanked on the right by a populist nationalist party offering a “real Brexit”. That day of reckoning may simply be postponed until the next general election. By then, Labour may find itself in a corresponding bind to the Tories, if a new centrist party ever gets its act together.
The outcome of that election will be determined by which of the two main parties suffers most from the unravelling of forces responsible for their current dominance.
Here is the link to the original article>>> https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-turmoil-could-lead-to-far-right-revival-thw8slrq5