A Dreadful and Awful Symmetry

Last week in my blog I ranted about the way in which our contemporary English society is becoming small minded, increasingly intolerant and extreme and thoroughly grubby in its dealings with the outside world. We are - and especially so since Brexit - becoming increasingly isolationist. I now read, it seems, daily in my Guardian of increasing numbers of foreign workers who are thinking of returning to their native country so unwelcome do they feel in this country. Only yesterday I read, with mouth agape, that an increasing number of Jewish people whose family origins can be traced back to pre-war Germany - their forefathers and mothers having fled from Hitler or having arrived in the UK on the kindertransport as children  -  are now seeking to regain their lapsed German citizenship so that they can return to their historical homeland as German citizens. They felt they would be more welcome there – what a terrible irony there is in that reasoning. The anti-foreigner/anti-Semitic/anti-Islam feeling abroad in this country that was once seen as a beacon of liberty and welcome for all is on the march. Whether you are Jew, Muslim, Sikh, French, Pole, Italian, German, Indian or any other creed, colour or culture I suspect that you might not be sleeping quite so easily in your beds at the moment.

But there is another dimension to all this - and one that has equally worrying implications.

Throughout the Brexit campaign two messages loomed large from those who sought to gain freedom from the EU. They were, firstly, that they wanted the alleged control of our borders back so that we English can decide who has the right to come, live and work (and, to misquote Shakespeare's John O'Gaunt) in our "septic isle". "We no longer want", said the Brexiters, "the EU "right" of free movement of peoples, we don't like all these foreigners coming to our fair and pleasant land and taking our jobs and changing our English culture". It is this plea is that is behind our increasing dislike and dismissal of anyone in our land who is not a pure bred white Englishman in the John Bull mould. It is why so many from other ethnic, cultural and national backgrounds feel now so unwelcome. And the second message from the Brexit camp was that of "we want our sovereignty back - we want our Parliament to make the laws not some faceless bureaucrats in Brussels. Parliament is sovereign" they called. Well this latter point has been at the forefront of debate in the past 48 hours and it illustrates a second frightening characteristic of 2016 Britain.

Yesterday the most senior judges in the land crossed swords with the government by pronouncing in a judgement that Parliament is indeed sovereign and must, therefore, have a say in the government’s negotiation of Brexit. Despite the referendum of June the government cannot, according to the Law Lords, go it alone and simply negotiate what it wants with Europe as part of our leaving the EU without reference to the elected representatives of the nation – because, the judges argued “Parliament is sovereign”. The result is that the right wing press, Brexiters, the government and every other rag, tag and bobtail outfit who sing the Brexit song are up in arms at this judgement; they thought the referendum was a done deal, that it gave carte blanche to the government to negotiate whatever European deal they chose. The judges thought otherwise saying the sovereign Parliament must have a say and thus they have been vilified in the right wing/Brexit press this morning. The is cry is now that “the will of the people” (i.e. the referendum decision on Brexit must obeyed). Suddenly, it seems, that these Brexiters now wish that Parliament is not sovereign for it doesn’t say what they wanted it to say. In other words Parliament can only be sovereign  in Joe Brexit's eyes so as long as it says what Joe Brexit, the government, the tabloids and the right wing press want it to say! If it was not so serious this would be like a Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera: W.S. Gilbert would have had a field day with the warped and bizarre thinking of the Brexit brigade!

I have to say that when I read of the judgement and the reaction I quietly nodded and felt a warm glow of satisfaction: the spirit of Oliver Cromwell is not dead. As a nation we fought a Civil War 400 years ago to decide who should be master or sovereign – an unelected monarch or an elected body; King Charles by Divine Right or the people through their elected Parliament. Since then the fine balance of our unwritten constitution declares that Parliament is our sovereign institution. Governments can come and go, as can political parties and prime ministers but all have to operate within the laws and requirements of Parliament – the elected body that represents our nation. Governments do not make laws. It is Parliament’s prerogative to pass or refuse a change in the law.  The government of the day might introduce a proposed law for discussion by Parliament but it is Parliament who has the deciding voice –  but only after the proposal has been discussed, analysed and amended as required by the elected House at Westminster.

Following the High Court Brexit decision, of course, all the politicians have had their two pennyworth.

All were pretty predictable as were the banner headlines in the tabloids and right wing press. Nothing that I see on the front page of the Mail, the Express, the Sun or the Telegraph ever surprises me anymore. It merely saddens me that this is what our country has become and very worrying that clearly many millions actually read (and presumably agree with) the trash that passes for journalism in contemporary Britain.

But, as I indicated above, this was not laughable it was serious for one comment did stand out for me in this morning’s right wing and Brexit dross – and worrying it was too. It signals a ramping up of a potentially dangerous viewpoint. Just as our increasing intolerance of other colours, creeds and cultures is a demeaning and worrying trend so, too, this development which is hinted at or made clear in many of the pronouncements of the right wing, the tabloids and the Brexiters. Specifically, UKIP leadership contender (and favourite for the top UKIP job) Suzanne Evans gave her view on the High Court decision. She said: “How dare these activist judges attempt to overturn our will” It’s a power grab and undermines democracy. Time we had the right to sack them” The first two sentences were pretty predictable it was the third that set my alarm bells ringing: “....time we had the right to sack them”.

Suzanne Evans

Does this woman really think that? When we have “the right to sack judges” just because we disagree with their decisions we are indeed in the totalitarian state. It is exactly that right that Hitler, Stalin, Mao and any other dictator yearned for and enjoyed. The independence of the judiciary is absolutely fundamental to democracy and to a free society. When judges only give the decisions that the populace want then the lynch mob rules and none of us can sleep easy in our beds.  When the judges and the judiciary do the will of political masters then political masters can do anything they wish - imprison, murder or eliminate opposition in any way they desire. Hitler knew this only too well. Suzanne Evans is asking for the right to sack judges who do not do her will and we should all be afraid because although she is only one there are, it seems, many out there who read and support her views. A compliant judiciary is the enemy of freedom and democracy.

It is seriously worrying that this woman is in some position of power and may yet gain more. Either she believes what she says – in which case she, her policies and her politics are very dangerous. Or, she is just putting her two pennyworth without thinking of the ramifications of what she says – in that case she is unfit for office.

But she has previous form. Only a few weeks ago she told the UKIP Conference that more UKIP activists should become teachers to influence “young minds”. That sounds remarkably like indoctrination or brain washing to me and I seem to think it is exactly the formula that Hitler with his Hitler Youth, Stalin with his Young Communist League, or Mao with his fanatical student paramilitary movement known as the Red Guards of Communist China used to such terrifying effect. Watch any news item today about modern totalitarian regimes such as that in North Korea, ISIS, Taliban, or many in Africa and it is clear that the harnessing of young minds and the ensuring of control of the country’s legal system are classic, insidious and terrifying ways of gaining ultimate control.

In all this there is a dreadful and awful symmetry. We have, on the one hand, a feeling abroad in the country that those who are different than us – in colour, belief, culture or background – should feel to be unwanted, a threat, despised or less worthy. Only those who fulfil the right criteria can be considered  worthy of a place in our post referendum/Brexit society. And on the other hand we have a declared desire from a senior politician to require that the judiciary do the bidding of those in power – or face losing their jobs. The whole thing is reminiscent of 1930s Germany and other places where totalitarian regimes have done, or do, flourish. It is the stuff of Orwell’s 1984 in bucketfuls – if George Orwell was alive today he could never believe that the country he loved and wrote about in books like The Road to Wigan Pier could descend so low or could mirror so exactly the dystopian fictional world he wrote about. The awful and terrifying symmetry is clear. In Suzanne Evans’ proposed world those that we dislike, fear or despise and who don’t fit into our view of the world – the Poles, the gays, the Jews, the Frogs, the Krauts, Blacks, the Muslims, the benefit scroungers and any other group that the right wing media and right wing politicians and Brexiters choose can be dealt with, criminalised, officially excluded, become non-people, or shipped off to some foreign shore by compliant and obedient judges and courts.

Reading Suzanne Evans’ awful words and demands that judges be made compliant to the wishes of the powerful, and looking at the hatred pouring forth from the mouths of the right wing press, Brexiters and the extreme elements of the Tory party reminded me of the words by German Protestant Pastor Martin Niemoller who spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp when he took a stand against Hitler. Niemoller famously wrote:

 "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me".

Hitler sent millions of Jews and others to the gas chambers. Stalin and Mao, too, sent millions to oblivion. They were able to do so because they had exactly the powers that the right wing in England now demand. Just as with today's Brexiters and right wing media they identified groups upon which they could cast  the populist feelings of envy, hate or fear; in Germany, of course this was the Jews. And I wonder why we in the UK should think that we are so very different from 1930s Germany or Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China. What happened there can easily happen here. We are already well along the road – we know who we hate: the European nationals stealing our work and claiming unpaid for benefits, the Muslims all of whom are of course terrorists, the Blacks, the gays, the Argies, the Afghans......and so the list goes on.  It is now only a compliant judiciary that is required to sign the orders that expel, imprison, punish those who are not of the right English stock - and today a major political figure, Suzanne Evans demanded that judges be sacked if they did not comply with the wishes of the powerful and the mob. It seems to me that all the necessary ingredients are falling  into place for the dystopian society of 1984 or Berlin the 1930s or Moscow of the 1940s and 50s or Peking of 1960s.

It is an independent judiciary and an elected, sovereign Parliament that keeps things in check. Lose those and we not only lose our democracy and basic freedoms we also lose our individual and national souls.  We should all be very worried. England 2016 is entering a very dark phase in our "septic" island's history.