Project Fear, Buyer’s Remorse

Orwell quotes are everywhere today as the USA descends into fascism in a plan which Reform UK has as their blueprint for Britain, and they’re overused, but this here is the Memory Hole in full display: Gordon Brown: “I was always against Project Fear”.

As we covered only a few days ago, the Unionist media and political class is staggering under the realisation that they are projected to lose badly at Holyrood and the Senedd in a few months’ time Project Fear on Steroids – Bella Caledonia.

Across Europe, people are waking up to what the reality of what mass deportations would mean, as the far-right mimics Trump’s Brownshirts Europe, wake up: this is what mass deportation looks like. But here in Scotland, Labour’s media supporters only advocate improbable deals with Farage and Offord: How Anas Sarwar could end up as First Minister with fewer than 35 Scottish Labour MSPs – Daily Record.

We’re told that ‘Gordon Brown: Power with Purpose’ by James Macintyre will be published by Bloomsbury on February 12. In it, according to The Scotsman, it notes Mr Brown “still blames the cross-party Better Together campaign for Labour’s collapse in Scotland”.

Of that, he is no doubt quite correct, but his buyer’s remorse doesn’t deserve a rewriting of history. His forthcoming book couldn’t have a more unsuitable title.

Brown was the enthusiastic and lauded de facto leader of Better Together, not some sidekick to Cameron and Osborne. The Tories knew that they needed Labour onboard and Brown and his colleagues were more than happy to act as their human shield. In fact, Brown’s speeches were relayed in full by the state broadcaster, so important were they to give supposed ballast to their hyperbolic arguments that frequently descended into farce and hysteria. Brown himself was not immune to this, to give just one example of hundreds:

 

But how do we reconcile the Brown of 2014 and the Brown of today?

The 2014 version had Britain as an economic colossus, a font of multicultural progression, and a family of equals. Scotland he warned, would be stupid to go it alone when we could rely on the  ‘broad shoulders’ of British fiscal and economic certainty. But laterly Brown has been outspoken about Britain as a place of destitution.

Ten years on from the indyref Brown complained we are all stuck in a ‘Doom Loop’ of relentless poverty. He explained solemnly:

” …these are desperate times for today’s poor children. That 4.3 million children – a number equivalent to four cities the size of Birmingham – were last week declared to be below the official poverty line is shameful enough, but on the ground we are now witnessing types of penury we once imagined we had consigned to history. Children now form 1.5 million of the 6 million people enduring ‘very deep’ poverty, living not only below the standard breadline, drawn at 60% of the typical income, but below 40%. One million children are thought to have had a recent brush with ‘destitution’, defined as being without the absolute basics: keeping warm, dry, clean, housed and fed.

Last night, 140,000 children were homeless, and 1.1 million youngsters tried to go to sleep without a bed of their own; it is estimated that 2.6 million children are missing out on meals.”

What happened to all that economic security?

Whatever happened to Britain as a progressive force, a bulwark to Scottish parochialism (sic) and a site of economic prosperity, no one will ever know, but spare us the Memory Hole. Labour’s reputation was destroyed in Scotland by Better Together it’s true, but spare us more lies. Our karma ran over your dogma, as the saying goes.

The question for Labour, after defeat in May, is will they continue this association, this doomed politics or try something else (like democracy?). As old Albert famously said: ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’