LONDON (Labour Buzz) - It’s the 1970s. Britain is mulling throwing itself into some kind of union with Europe and people are angry. The National Front are in their prime whipping up hatred across the country. They were beaten back, but as one Twitter user highlighted today, their hate has gone mainstream.
The tweet says it all: A 1970s poster with the following demands:
- Stop immigration
- Reject the common market
- Restore Capital Punishment
- Scrap overseas aid
- Rebuild our armed forces
Back then, these were ramblings of fringe lunatics. They were the heirs of Moseley and were rightly beaten back. Today there are also the ramblings of fringe lunatics. For all the online hatred and noise from Britain First, Britain is more liberal than it ever has been.
The only problem is those lunatics have now found their way into power. In the last couple of years, almost all of these have become government policy. We’re out of the EU, we’re scrapping pledges on overseas aid and pumping money into our armed forces.
Capital punishment isn’t on the table, but I’m sure Priti Patel has it in her sights.
British politics has become radicalised. Newspapers are spitting out bile which would have sat well at a BNP rally, and even the main opposition party seems reluctant to stand up against it. This is a government who stands up for racist Millwall fans, opposes science and cuts the pay of people working on the front line against the biggest pandemic most of us have ever seen.
This new world of politics is born by a charlatan in Number ten, advised by right-wing extremists. They’ve taken hate off the streets and put it into government. As a quick look at history shows, when this kind of thing starts to happen, things can turn very bad, very quickly indeed.
(Written by Tom Cropper, Edited by Klaudia Fior)