Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

[BovaryX]

There is an interesting article by Douglas Murray in the DM about the authoritarian, identity politics which have alienated Labour voters and triggered a paradigm shift in the political landscape. It covers some of the themes which Lang GC Pencils and others have been discussing in light of election result.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones...How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday

So many great posts on this thread. To add to what others have said about immigration, what gets me about the opening up all borders and 'let them all in' stance is the lack of practicality involved, but this was overlooked because the far-left mainly live in cities that can absorb migrants. Smaller cities and towns may struggle to do so, but when this issue is raised it is dismissed as racism and xenophobia. I worked on a scheme under the Blair government which sought to integrate immigrants by giving them job search training, computer skills, language skills etc. Great, but the aims were completely unrealistic and the organisation a shambles. The client demographic included some EU citizens, but mainly those from the Middle East and Africa - many from Iraq and Afghanistan. A few would already have professional qualifications, but many were young and either had never had a job in their home countries, or had worked for a small family business - farming in rural villages, or their parent's shop where there had been no need to dress appropriately for work, turn up on time, deal with paperwork etc. A fair number of these people, through no fault of their own, were illiterate in their own languages and had never been to school. The vast majority were also men, and coming from patriarchal cultures they had problems with taking care of themselves, hygiene and cooking, paying bills etc. There was some reckless driving without licenses, from a few clients. Some also understandably were suffering from trauma and struggled with mental health problems that they probably weren't capable of going to a doctor to get help for, or culturally may not want to. Those coming from Afghanistan where they had never seen women without burqas wandering around could be grossly lecherous and bothersome towards young girls, including men who were married expecting me to tell them how to pick up women, or hitting on me themselves. It was unwelcome attention and inappropriate behaviour born of over-enthusiasm, loneliness, seeing white women as up-for-it and lacking an understanding of Western culture, more than anything more sinister, but enough of a pain, frankly, and wouldn't serve them well if they went on to work with women. Numerous times I had to deal with racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes, which were part of the cultures they had come from. I can honestly say that growing up working class, hearing racist comments from other white people in my community was rare. In fact, the most racist person I knew was probably an elderly relative, who was upper-middle class. This is something those who are pro remain also never take into consideration, that many EU countries have horrible racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic attitudes. This has become apparent to me working with other nationalities. I do genuinely believe that that the UK is one of the least racist and most accepting countries in the world, and yet there are constant accusations of racism simply for the wish to discuss the practicalities of immigration. None of this is said to demonise anyone, there were many lovely people I worked with who had been through hell and were striving to make a better life for themselves. If people grow up in a sexist, racist, homophobic culture then it's inevitable that these attitudes are passed on to them and they may never have had reason to question why things should be different before. But this is the reality of what many immigrants look like, coming from completely different cultures with a whole heap of additional issues that are barriers to integration and which often need a lot of support. The clients were expected to obtain near native level English and a job in 3 months, a completely unrealistic aim. Eventually the scheme was dropped when the money ran out and it was realised targets weren't being met. I believe that refugees should be welcomed, but for adequate provision to be put in place this needs to be budgeted for realistically, both financially and in terms of time scale. The government justifying their policies on refugees by seeing them as contributors towards the economy need to realise that this may take years to achieve and requires a substantial initial investment. It was as if they had done no research at all in terms of what was achievable. There weren't many clients from the EU, a few who tended to be young lads who didn't seem very interested in getting jobs, were more seeing it as a bit of a doss that they were being paid for. In many (most?) other EU countries, it's necessary to register and show you have enough means to support yourself, or that you already have a job, if not you have to leave the country after a certain period of time. I still fail to understand why this wasn't the case in the UK. I have nothing but respect for those who have come to the UK to settle and make a life for themselves wherever they've come from, and it was great to see some of the clients go on to thrive. It's the mismanagement of immigration to the UK and the complexity of it that is still being ignored by the Corbynistas, and the being called racist for talking about the reality of the difficulties that have been caused that is the problem. I have no doubt that despite working to try to help refugees for several years, I would be accused of being a racist bigot for directly reporting on my experiences as I have done here, by woke acquaintances who have only ever seen refugees on TV and seek to plump up their own egos by waving all the right banners around.

I think everywhere wokeism exists it causes disquiet, though people feel more or less free to say so based on location.

I think my favorite example of woke Americans versus Europeans was when a bunch of young American people complained that the Sami character in Frozen didn't look Sami, and a bunch of Scandinavians then came back with photos of actual Sami people demonstrating that they don't look like woke American kids thing they do. There are some Sami who look the way they were demanding Disney make the character look, but also a lot who don't, but again, woke American understanding of race, zero nuance.

I seem to recall a similar furore over an historic Spanish princess being portrayed by a blonde haired, blued eyed actress, Prodigal.

And a whole load of Spanish people pointing out that she was, in reality, a blonde haired, blue eyed Spanish princess.

She managed her home office brief competently albeit without imagination

May’s main problem was that she didn’t have any defining political philosophy or principles. She was a plodder. Her main claim to fame was apologizing for being a Conservative. She relied on two advisers for her election campaign who proved so toxic, her manifesto was dire. Fox hunting? Please. She epitomizes the General fighting the last war who didn’t grasp this wasn’t 1997 and the paradigm had shifted. Cutting police numbers as Home Secretary? And when called on that by journalist after journalist in the wake of the capital’s murder rate rising, she hadn’t the wit to own it as a mistake. She was a disaster.

What winds up my Lexit heart and Remain brain about immigration is that freedom of movement of labour is a completely different kettle of fish than freedom of movement of people.

But if you're a posh, privileged Wokeista, the difference doesn't matter much.

May’s main problem was that she didn’t have any defining political philosophy or principles.

To be fair neither does Johnson - but he (or Dominic Cummings) ran a better campaign.

What winds up my Lexit heart and Remain brain about immigration is that freedom of movement of labour is a completely different kettle of fish than freedom of movement of people

Great point Lang. Blair’s failure to impose limits on the A8 countries as other European countries did caused some of the effects mentioned upthread

Merrymouse, you’re right. And that worries me. I actually think he will direct investment to the North because he knows those voters will abandon the Tories if there isn’t tangible improvement. I hope he does something about the serious threat to freedom of speech in universities and I hope he doesn’t pander to the lobby for positive media coverage. But I have to say. I think he’s a dilettante. I am not a big fan.

Blair’s failure to impose limits on the A8 countries as other European countries did caused some of the effects mentioned upthread
As a Brit, also, I have had to register and prove I have an adequate income or savings to support myself whilst living in other EU countries.

do you believe theres been a kind of Americanisation of UK social issues?

Most definitely. But it is tricky to determine just how it came about. LangCleg is spot on with the comment that British academia imported American critical theory without repurposing it for context, but I feel it goes further than that.

I honestly feel, and I've said this before on mumsnet, that a lot of things start to make sense in Britain if you perceive the English working classes as the last indigenous people still colonised by the British Empire and governed by a remote imperial elite that doesn't understand their history or culture.

To an extent, you can argue this for the Welsh, the Scottish and the Northern Irish, but I think it is a clearer, more obvious predicament for the devolved regions -- most notably in Scotland where it is blatantly obvious and the Scottish people are all too aware of their situation, and in Wales where the Welsh language supports their understanding of nationhood and self-determination.

But very few people see it with England and the English. Yet once you do, the picture clears. It explains the typical tactics of divide and rule. It explains that patronising attitudes of the British establishment towards the white working class (and the working class British descendents of Commonwealth migrants from former British imperial holdings) because they basically perceive the English working classes in the same way they used to perceive "the natives" in British India, the West Indies, and Africa.

As an illustrative example, it is worth saying that when Ugandan Asians came to Britain in the 70s to escape Idi Amin, they were horrified by the living standards of the white working classes. They couldn't believe how these white people lived, and within Britain itself.

Indeed, Hanif Koreshi, back in the 70s, made a very interesting point. He said that when the British Empire fell, the British elites reacted to that situation by recreating the Empire within the geographical boundaries of the UK through Commonwealth immigration. And I personally think that is a very interesting perspective with a lot of merit to it.

And it seems to me that the 90s and noughties political concept of multi-culturalism was very much of this mindset. It was almost Victorian in the way it classified people according ethnicity and religion, and completely disregarded class and cultural values. If you were Muslim, you were "Muslim" regardless of whether you were a middle-class pediatrician from Turkey with a penchant for raki or devout Pakistani-heritage taxi driver who had a second job delivering curries.

This led to bonkers situations where the government housed Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers in the same areas as disaporic communities that supported Saddam Hussein, for example, on the basis "they were all muslims." Cue: internecine violence on Northern streets, and a famous case where one Kurdish lad suffered extensive brain damage after being attacked as a pro-western, "anti-Saddam" individual.

Kenan Malik, who you hardly hear from nowadays, did a lot of excellent work on this issue back in the early noughties.

Finally, it was recognised that the political ideology of multiculturalism was a load of old crap. When this happened, I can't really tell, but it seems to me that it kinda coincided with the importation of US identity politics and the explosion of twitter, which, as a tool, allows for the confusion between US and British contexts.

But all of it seems to be, largely, a product of parts of the British establishment, most notably Guardian and BBC journalists, certain parts of the academy and other voices from the liberal left, who seems to have a residual imperialist mindset, and the hard left which seem to latch on to these ideas and then just disseminate them everywhere.

Now I know what the hard left is like. I've had enough dealings with them over the years to know that they will use anything to try and provoke a state of political chaos (which, in theory, is supposed to forment the social and political breakdown necessary for revolutionary conditions to arise ) and now so many of them have piled into the Labour party through the Corbyn conduit that their voices are being massively amplified.

But the problem is wider than that. A lot of it seems deeply routed in the mentality of the establishment, and I suspect that the cause is down to the stranglehold certain sections of society in Britain now have over national politics, culture and society.

Fab thread. Loads to think about.

Someone made the point upthread about the difference between immigrants and immigration. It's one that is difficult to explore with many, many people. The assumption tends to be made that if you oppose unlimited immigration, you are a racist/fascist/xenophobe. But it's perfectly possible to like and respect many immigrants, and appreciate the benefits that immigration can bring while at the same time understanding that wages can be undercut, opportunities for the existing population closed off and that housing shortages can easily occur as a result of high levels of immigration.

This is a conversation that was effectively forbidden for years (Gordon Brown and his 'bigot' comment being just one example) but shutting it down didn't stop people thinking about it. Speaking for myself, it bred resentment against a political class that didn't seem to give a shit about the social cohesion of the area I lived in, or various other issues that followed from an increasing population.

As a Scot the idea that some* English people, particularly in the political class, see us as a colonized country that ought to be grateful for any scraps given definitely rings true.

*Obviously not all English people, but some where you wouldn't have expected it. A former friend from London once responded to media jokes about Snowpocalypse causing chaos in England and lots of sledding for kids in Scotland which is more used to is with an I'm joking but not really ha ha I can barely contain my rage that they don't see themselves the way I'd like them to comment about the Scots being jealous because we're so obviously inferior. It was one of those moments where you go, oh, so that's what you really think? Bye then.

As an illustrative example, it is worth saying that when Ugandan Asians came to Britain in the 70s to escape Idi Amin, they were horrified by the living standards of the white working classes. They couldn't believe how these white people lived, and within Britain itself

But isn’t that partly because many Asians from Uganda and Kenya had an upper middle class lifestyle? It must have been a shock to have gone from a villa in Kampala with a driver and a maid to anywhere in the UK in the 1970s.......

that a lot of things start to make sense in Britain if you perceive the English working classes as the last indigenous people still colonised by the British Empire and governed by a remote imperial elite that doesn't understand their history or culture.

Wow. Lightbulb.

This resonates so much with me. I realised in the last couple of years that lots of things I had been conditioned to think were 'rude' by living a middle class life were actually hangovers from growing up in a really poor traditionally working clas community. A good example is dropping in to see people. It used to drive me mad that my family never knew who was turning up or when they might arrive but I realised that actually they think it's really rude to ask. Because the back door is always open to visitors and you can always put the kettle on.

It has been doing my head in completely to see momentum falling over themselves to claim to be socialists and to represent working class communities. This thread is really useful.

But all of it seems to be, largely, a product of parts of the British establishment, most notably Guardian and BBC journalists, certain parts of the academy and other voices from the liberal left, who seems to have a residual imperialist mindset

This is an interesting point. One thing that struck me about The Guardian after the referendum was a recurrent insistence that Brexit voters had a nostalgia for Empire, but the only people talking obsessively about the Imperial past was the left wing. The Guardian seemed obsessed with it. This relies on a stereotypical image of Brexit voters as white, nostalgic for Empire. Some of us are the children of immigrants. It’s another example of the peculiarly insular views which often dominate the left wing establishment media.....

ShesDressedInBlackAgain
So many perfectly put points on this thread, that one resonated for me too. The working classes are painted as 'noble savages' when the ruling elite can use us to push their agenda, but just as savages when we don't do as we're told.

But all of it seems to be, largely, a product of parts of the British establishment, most notably Guardian and BBC journalists, certain parts of the academy and other voices from the liberal left, who seems to have a residual imperialist mindset

Lisa M used to call these people the "mediating class". I think that's accurate.

Yy. Noble savages. Until we're not woke.

I think I have been guilty of this attitude toward my family - around Brexit particulary no wonder they think I'm up myself (but love me anyway)

God I have just remembered my ex's mother literally parading me around her friends because I was 'a miner's daughter'. They owned a fucking castle! She wasn't so keen when she realised I had opinions She definitely wanted a working class pet.

Bet she loves Momentum.

Sorry - merail over. Have just been struck by that idea

Policies around restricting freedom of movement should also address the (in my view) bigger problems that come with unrestricted freedom of movement of capital.

The idea that capital should be allowed to move wherever it wants and that this somehow has no adverse consequences on nations should be examined more closely.

And see, that's an issue that I'd have expected Corbyn to care about. But Momentum? Not a bit.

I see echoes of the Labour screams of 'Racist!' whenever anyone raised an eyebrow about the speed of change caused by immigration in the noughties with the 'no debate' and no platforming we see around the current trans issues. They were very successful in shutting down dissent - see Gillian Duffy (bigot-gate). Today's tactics are very similar.

She definitely wanted a working class pet.
Reminds me of this:

Policies around restricting freedom of movement should also address the (in my view) bigger problems that come with unrestricted freedom of movement of capital.

That's why, historically, Marxists had a huge problem with the EU. And what is not very well known is that freedom of movement of capital was THE initial principle. Freedom of movement of labour came later as a "compromise" principle to silence those voices that pointed out how dangerous freedom of capital really was.

It's like how many people don't realise that the EMU came about because France said it would block German reunification unless Germany allowed France to use the Deutschmark; this was a protective move for France who feared the power of a newly reunified Germany. Hence we got the neo-Deutschmark in the form of the euro. In-built in that move was the entire, utterly predictable, economic disaster of Club Med, who would be enticed to use a currency that was way too strong for their economies because they were, essentially, using a relabelled Deutschmark.

But you say any of this and the screams of ... I dunno ... bigot/witch/nazi/racist/eaterofbabies can be heard in John o'Groats.

To be fair, I think this is why Corbyn has been so wishy-washy on the EU and Brexit. I reckon he personally thinks it is a corporatist, hyper capitalist stucture imposed on countries for the benefit of a global elite.

But somehow the solidarity angle and the social and cultural benefits of EU membership suffocated an actual discussion of the economic and financial issues involved in EU membership. We were not allowed to have that conversation, and we really needed to have it.

It's a shame Bob Crow died when he did. We really needed those kinds of voices on the left just to create the space to be able to talk about those economic issues.