Douglas Murray, the Summer of Hate and the Victimhood Olympics

It’s not the done thing to talk about England’s lurch to the far-right, but nobody can ignore the spasm of fascism that is now as much a part of summertime as Wimbledon or the Notting Hill Carnival. Each summer, as the mercury rises and the Carling goes down, a fusion of Islamophobia, misogyny and xenophobia is carefully nurtured by the tabloid press and the far-right broadcast media which spews out hatred in all directions.

Some of it is just pathetic/hilarious, like the splutterings of Isabel Oakeshott, or the ‘Brits’ who fled to Benidorm who complain about ‘too many foreigners in UK’, or, across the pond, Donald complaining that the Smithsonian Institute is discussing ‘how bad slavery was’.

But the reality isn’t funny at all, and who knows where this ends.

The latest manifestation of this bile is the misnamed ‘Flag Force UK’, which poses as a spontaneous grassroots uprising of patriotism. In fact, according to Hope Not Hate [‘Operation Raise the Colours’ Organised by Well-Known Far-Right Extremists‘]:

“HOPE not Hate can reveal that the co-founder and organiser of the group is longtime Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) ally Andrew Currien (AKA Andy Saxon). Formerly a key member of the English Defence League’s leadership bodyguard team, and now running security for the far-right party Britain First, Currien has previously been jailed for his part in a racist death. He was one of six men convicted in 2009 after a 59-year-old man was crushed to death by a car following a violent brawl.”

This is the movement that wannabe Tory leader Robert Jenrick is aligning himself with, in a  desperate attempt to outflank his beleaguered leader on the right. Jenrick posted this in support of the campaign: “Raise The Colours! While Britain-hating councils take down our own flags, we raise them up. We must be one country, under the Union Flag.”

This was the man who famously argued that ‘we’ should display the Star of David at the UK Border to show our support for Israel.

The support for Israel is an important element of the new fascist movement, confusing for some for whom anti-semitism has always been part of their ideology, but it gives a bloodlust to those who yearn for violence and embrace genocide and forced starvation. For many of these flag-loving patriots, their Islamophobia has trumped their antisemitism.

There is confusion too, about which flag and which country we should be celebrating. Jenrick is super clear: “We must be one country, under the Union Flag.” But this group, ‘Flag Force UK’ has a figure with a Union Jack, but their main banner image is a St George’s Cross.

Some of the coverage compounds the confusion. Sean O Grady, writing for the Independent [Raising flags only divides communities – just ask Northern Ireland] explains: “Britain seems to have gone a bit flag crazy lately – and not, I hasten to add, because the Lionesses won the Euros trophy twice in a row.”

There’s a lot to unpack there Sean.

Into this unholy mix comes a large dose of rhetoric about the ‘protection of women’, a regular fascist trope combining machismo with strong-man politics. As Doc Russ Jackson has pointed out, these are often astroturf groups backed by dark money: “The ‘Women’s Safety Initiative’ is an anti-migrant AstroTurf disinformation group founded by Jess Gill, a Fellow of the Koch-funded climate change denial group, the Foundation for Economic Education, & an apprentice at the Mises Institute.”

The Koch brothers fund a slew of far-right groups in Britain, including Spiked! magazine. Speaking of Britain’s finest libertarians, they have of course weighed in, alongside Free Speech Expert Toby Young, in favour of the delightful Lucy Connolly, the new heroine of the English patriots. Connolly, we might need to be reminded, called for hotels housing women and children to be set on fire.

It’s into this fascist moshpit that Douglas Murray strides, with his usual panache, publishing a tirade against Sally Rooney for having the temerity to use her voice to call out human rights violations and pledge to donate her earnings from her books to support Palestine Action. Writing in the Irish Times over the weekend, Ms Rooney said she will use the proceeds of her work and her public platform to continue her support for Palestine Action and “direct action against genocide in whatever way I can”.

This was like a red rag to a (John) Bull.

The immediate response was a flurry of ‘burn the witch’ style editorials and columns with calls for her to be arrested, banned and generally vilified. That was until it was pointed out that Sally Rooney is Irish. She lives in Ireland. Britain has no jurisdiction over her. It was probably at this point that Murray typed out his splenetic rage on his poor keyboard, declaring: “Nobody ever beat the Irish in the victimhood Olympics.” 

Murray intones: “You see similar strains of aspiring victimhood in other mini-nationalisms. Over recent years, Scots and Welsh Nats have all sought to join in the victimhood jamboree.”

But if Murray’s narrative is loathsome and predictable, it is at least instructive. He writes: “In recent years, no group has been a better candidate for adoption by the Irish than the Palestinian people. It can be seen in the proliferation of Palestinian politics in Irish politics and the singling out of the state of Israel for unusual vilification. It can be seen in the Irish government’s planned anti-Israel legislation and in its other curious efforts to interpose themselves into the centre of a conflict in which they have absolutely no role.”

By now bristling with resentment, Murray concludes: “Although she seems to hear the jackboots of the Stasi British police at her door, Rooney is of course Irish, and appears to live in Ireland. And so wittingly or otherwise she joins a long list of Irish public figures willing to throw themselves into the middle of a row – any row – so long as it allows them the warm, fuzzy feeling of continuing to be part of the most oppressed people ever.”

Murray’s hatred of the Palestinians is neatly matched by his hatred of the Irish, but his dawning realisation that there is nothing to be done about Rooney is a wonder. You have to love the plaintive realisation: “Rooney is of course Irish, and appears to live in Ireland.”

But what is most fantastic about Murray’s tirade is not how it elevates the Summer of Hate above the low-brow Sun and Mail and GB News into the sophisticated pages of The Spectator, but how wonderfully unreflective it all is. The Victimhood Olympics? What on earth is this post-Brexit hellhole but the epitome of victimhood in which poor old Blighty is prevented from its date with destiny, its moment to be ‘Unleashed’ (again) by, I don’t know: the lack of flags, the bloody Irish, the recalcitrant Jocks, people who oppose genocide, ‘lefty lawyers’, the EU? Give yourselves a gold medal.