War and Broken Britain
The broken nature of Britain and British politics continues to unfold as large groups of people operate in mutual incomprehension. Talk of conscription is being openly discussed by some – even as the memory of the polls suggests collapsing belief in the very idea of Britain fades (Gen Z and the Death of Britain). A reminder then for those suffering instant amnesia in among the 24 hour news cycle that only a week ago a poll by The Times found that “Half of Generation Z think that Britain is a racist country and only a tenth would risk their lives to defend it in a war.”
This seems to have been conveniently forgotten in the rush for war, arms and soldiers.
Now it seems we’re going to pay for all this war by a) cancelling our overseas aid programme, just like the big orange fella did and b) filleting the welfare programme starting with disability benefits. Something calling itself the ‘Get Britain Working Group’ (which includes five Scottish MPS) have endorsed the plans, which they lay out with some enthusiasm here:
Maybe this will play well to some on the far-right, and maybe Labour are cynically trying to steal those votes, but in many places that conduct is a political suicide note. It is understood Chancellor Rachel Reeves plans to save several billion pounds by making austerity cuts to the welfare budget with health-related benefits being targeted.
Signatories to the Get Britain Working group include the MP for Dunfermline and Dollar Graeme Downie, East Renfrewshire’s Blair McDougall, Coatbridge and Bellshill MP Frank McNally, Livingston MP Gregor Poynton and East Kilbride and Strathaven MP Joani Reid.
Now we are seeing a repeat of what happened under Tony Blair’s disastrous Iraq War, where young people abandoned the Labour Party in droves and a generation turned to the idea of Scottish independence as a radical alternative. History is repeating itself as Labour’s disgraceful policies towards support for Israel are now matched by domestic social policy that mimics and in some cases surpasses Tory cruelty. The significance of the disenchantment and disaffection this is producing is largely missed by a siloed and smug commentariat employed by the mainstream media.
The war on the most vulnerable in society will not be forgotten by those who are asked, or even demanded to take up arms for ‘their country’ (sic). Starmer was Britain’s last chance and he’s blown it.
Now, we have the perverse spectacle of people like John McTernan, who has figured out that Labour now need its left for electoral support and political cover. Writing in The Telegraph he notes, displaying equal measures of cynicism and stupidity (‘Look out for a Reform of the Left. It could finally shatter British politics‘):
“A plane, as the saying goes, needs two wings – so do parties of the centre Left. The intellectual energy and the idealism of the broader Left have always been central. Every successful Labour government – and every Labour landslide – has drawn from its Left.”
“The ruthlessly efficient vote distribution from 2024 can’t be reconstructed at the time of the next election in 2028 or 2029. A new majority needs to be constructed firmly based on a platform that draws together the strands of the Left by drawing on their ideas.”
Speaking explicitly for the benefits of a war economy he writes: “This is not to say that the ideas of any other party should be adopted wholesale – the art of politics, and governing, is in the trade-offs. The cuts in overseas aid to fund defence spending will put many voters in Bristol Central offside, but the growth in work for BAE Systems will bring prosperity to the Bristol City region.”
It’s going to be a hard sell in 2026, or any other time. “Your disabled friend may be in destitution but you’ve got a job making cluster bombs.”
The glee at which the war on environmentalism and the ‘populism’ of the attacks on Net Zero which have become standard in much of the right-wing narrative in Britain, may play well to the ignorant, but the ‘Slide Towards Authoritarianism’ is unlikely to be cherished by a generation scared for their own future by this madness.
As Labour burns its electoral goodwill in a desperate attempt to shift to the right, it is making a historic mistake. As Frances Ryan, Author of Who Wants Normal? and Crippled puts it: “Labour MPs saying “the clue is in the name” to justify benefit cuts is wildly disingenuous. It co-opts Labour’s history to imply all those that cannot physically labour are somehow excluded from the cause. Being pro-worker does not require being anti-unemployed or anti-disabled.”
In among all of this you have an apparently perpetually anemic SNP and the rise of the chaotic and dysfunctional Reform UK. In a strange piece for The Herald, Kevin McKenna thunders: “It’s clear that the First Minister is rattled by the growing popularity of Reform UK and the abject failure of the SNP to halt this.”
“Many decent people have indicated support for Reform UK because the SNP has itself become a haven for frauds and extremists.”
“A major contributing factor in this hollowing out has been the malevolent influence of the Scottish Greens. Reform UK may be a deeply unpleasant outfit, but they are like Sunday School teachers compared with the Scottish Greens.”
McKenna has the air of Matt Goodwin about him. One minute he’s talking about the “many decent people” who support Reform and the far-right and the next he’ll be an active supporter. There’s a lot of it about.
Polls from The Scottish Election Study group today show that both “Reform is now “comfortably” the third most popular party in Scotland ahead of the Conservatives – but is unlikely to gain much more support.”
Data from the academic group suggests Reform UK could win as much as 17.1 per cent of constituency votes and 17.8 per cent of list votes at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election. But they also claim that “Reform will “struggle” to exceed 20 per cent in the Scottish polls, partly due to the fact the party appeals to a limited group who are pro-Brexit and anti-immigration, along with a deep unpopularity for its leader in Scotland.”
This why the support for the far-right group from those in the commentariat such as McKenna are important, they give legitimacy to the lunatic right, just as the media normalised MAGA in the USA.
This week’s viral moment came from the car-crash interview between the Deputy Scottish Political Editor of the Scottish Daily Mail Tom Gordon and Reform’s Richard Tice, where Tice was exposed as knowing nothing about his party’s own candidates, see here.
The exchange was followed by a bizarre ‘press conference’ with the owner of the Vald’oro Fish & Chips Shop on London Road, where Tice urged Scotland to “Drill Scotland, drill.” Mimicking Trump and mouthing desperate platitudes about Big Oil when we are in the midst of climate catastrophe will please some who have been conned into the war on the environment but most people will see it for the insanity that it is.
‘Fash and Chips’ is on order for those consumed by the culture wars and attracted to the messages of the far-right, but Labour emerging as a party of austerity at home and bombs abroad is changing the landscape north of the border, again. Labour as the great white hope that would save the Union is collapsing and the consequences are barely being recognised.
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I’m not sure how Get Britain Bombing Again will play out abroad, especially given the French aren’t over it yet, but perhaps nobody beats the British military establishment for the sheer level of waste (no worries, it counts for GDP), incompetence, vanity, infighting, primitive ancestor worship, fantastic myths of valour, whitewashing war crimes and slavish dependence upon the USA.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/10/tanks-warships-uk-defence-billions-waste
tragic that a Labour government should be so indebted to the Zionist lobby that it fails bring pressure to bear on the war-criminal Israelis. A few landing-craft from Cyprus could break the blockade of Gaza. About 30% of the cabinet are members of the vile Labour Friends of Israel and a similar percentage of Labout MPs. The arse-lickers will do anything for a free sunshine holiday in the Middle East.
@Alasdair MacVarish, to be fair, politicians may also simply be blackmailed into supporting Israel, who have invested heavily in phone hacking and other surveillance technology. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
Assuming politicians have something to hide. It’s funny how bad things in Britain often have a foreign name, as if we would never stoop to the kompromat here, LOL.
off topic – borderline – should be deleted
borderline and off topic – should be deleted.
To understand Keir Starmer and how he operates you just need to look at how he has treated Jeremy Corbyn since he became leader.
I was in no way a Corbyn fan but he has been unjustifiably vilified by opponents both within and outside the Labour Party.
Peter Osborne, hardly a radical leftie, has an excellent article in Middle East Eye outlining how Corbyn has been victimised.
Starmer’s willingness to change policies and principles and ruthlessness leaves you wondering what he stands for apart from gaining power?
Anyone who says “Many decent people have already indicated support for Reform U.K.” and refers to “The malevolent influence of the Greens” is already an extremist. Indicating support for Reform UK is literally the definition of no longer being a decent person, and the fact that McKenna thinks otherwise tells us everything we need to know about him. We should believe what he has now told us about himself.
McKenna is a former editor of the Scottish Daily Mail. This leopard hasn’t changed his spots.
I wonder what odds the bookie’s would give on all this talk of starmer & his scottish nato party cronies doing what napoleon & the nazis failed to do dying down about a day after the official end of the proposed victory in europe commemorative celebrations, I suspect these characters are no even mad, that used tae pitn oan an act, they’re jist feigning insanity fur the craic
You dinna hae to be insane to govern UK
jist be an apologist fur total chaos mibbe
To all the prospective ‘Callees’, if nobody answers the’Callers’ will have to carry the can.
I wis jist saying tae the yung lass, how no be a government artist, like yon cunt Dan.
Great move, I telt him, this auld boy I hud not immediately recognised, huvn left the specs at hame. A government artist is the best joab fur oany individual, regardless ae age, gender, experience, membership ae governing party or willingness tae dae fitivir micht be necessary up till & including submitting yersel tae oany ae they strange sexual perversions kaint tae be sae pervasive amongst the professional ruling class.
Sounds like a great life, says the auld boy I oanly fun oot later wis kaint tae switch aff his hearing aid finivir he left the huis.
Bang on cue up popped the wee blone tae fitch I’m fairly sure the auld cunt hud bin referring. Can ye dae the German? I asked. They are hail keen oan the German. German oan wan page, Anglaise oan the page facing.
I’m learning German oan the computer, she says.
I’m daen German oan ma phone, says the auld boy fa I oanly fun oot later hud o’er the years become highly proficient at the lip reading. Fur sum strange reason this particular toun located slap bang oan the coast sumfar roughly atween Inverness & Eberdeen wis renowned fur the number ae deaf cunts & CUNTS THAT TALKED TOO LOUD!
We could a’ go doun in a U boat fin ye pit oan yer first play!
There wis fit ye micht cry an uncomfortable silence. The creation ae fitch seemed tae be a particular talent ae mine. I could tell they didna believe I hud a U boat stashed close by. Well, it wid be a different story themorra fin I taen her oot furra spin, a multicoloured effort made frae 25 wheely bins.
Veteran and conscientious objector Joe Glenton talks on this issue with Declassified UK, saying among other things that the UK “is in some sense a military colony of the USA” (I agree):
It would be refreshing if the Labour politicians could just say”there is no money, we need to reduce spending on poverty to pay for increases in defence spending “, but no, they insist on sticking the boot in to the most vulnerable, basically accusing millions of being lazy fraudsters.
In the days afore it became
a kinda Lego leisure land place
this toun hud a better face.
Now it merely looks askance,
like a hoor that forgot her pants.
Vile apologist for Israeli war criminals — Luke Akehurst — appears on this petition so will ignore it
A new social contract? Where did we hear about that before? Ah, yes, it’s part of the ‘Great Reset’. It’s a contract where we own nothing, not even our bodies or minds, and are supposed to be happy. And billionaires own everything and are even happier. A contract has to be an agreement between two or more parties, but we were never consulted on this. Governments too are expected to ‘co-operate’ with the WEF – because they too are to be wholly dependent on Musk and his mates and their ‘4th Industrial Revolution’. Schwab says, “The way forward seems to be a participatory process combined with a visionary, long-term-oriented and courageous leader; one who involves all perspectives in the decision, decides and takes full responsibility for the outcome.” Just like Russia then, or Trump’s America, or (God help us) Starmer’s tough guy posturing.
Orwell’s 1984 might be a little late but here it is already, pretty much as predicted.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/11/the-future-of-democracy-needs-a-new-kind-of-leader/
Mike Small accepts that Reform UK is on course to win 17% of of votes in the Holyrood election next year. He is fearful that commentators like Kevin McKenna might push it higher. Judged by previous elections in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2024, the Left is on course to win (roughly) 0% of votes next year.
A country with no electoral history of supporting the ‘lunatic right’, and a long history of supporting the left, has reached this point
Is this not an indictment of the Scottish Left ?
It’s certainly an indictment of the Left yes, but it’s also in the context of our media being owned and controlled by the super-rich and foreign and domestic men with extreme right wing view – and almost entirely unregulated.
When Corbyn gained the biggest popular vote for Labour in 2017 since 1945, the right wing and the Zionist lobby coalesced to raise the fake antisemitism scare to destroy him. This is where we are to today with a Labour government happy to utter the occasional squeak of protest in the face of Israeli war crimes. Over 30% of the cabinet are members of the vile Labour Friends of Israel which came into being soon after the Suez debacle in 1956
I have some sympathy with this but the elephant in the room in 2019 was Brexit. That is what scuppered it in the end. In 2017 it was too early for the ramifications to have kicked in and at that point Corbyn was pushing the line of honouring the vote but with a soft deal, making it work etc. The Labour conference insisted on this bizarre neutral stance in a second referendum. In a way Corbyn was too much of a democrat and abided by that suicide note.
But the anti-semitism stuff worked – I had two good left wing friends who were totally convinced he was turning a blind eye to party riven with it or even that he was an anti-semite himself. The issue became like the trans one – speak up with any doubts and you were condemned as a bigot at the least.
Niemand – I find your second paragraph very confusing.
My understanding from the time and reading (see my reference above) is that it was the right wing of Labour Party aided and abetted by media that tried to portray Corbyn as antisemitic and pro Putin (post Salisbury poisoning). The truth is neither of these were true but that post 2017 GE Corbyn was no longer viewed by many in positions of power and influence as a harmless eccentric but as a real threat to UK establishment.
I am surprised that your left wing friends were anti Corbyn. I knew some Labour supporters who were anti Corbyn but most left wing ones were supportive.
I fail to see the relevance of transgender issue (pro or con) to this discussion except to try and inject a culture wars angle into this conversation.
Corbyn scared all hell out of the Right and the Zionist lobby when he achieved an unprecedented swing to Labour in the 2017 election. Young people were mobilised to vote and into membership. In respons the Zionist lobby swung into action aided by the Right and raised the fake claims of antisemitism. Starmer set up the enquiry led by Lord Forde but shelved the report as it did not support the fake claims. Under Starmer, Jews were 10 times more likely to be expelled for “antisemitism” than non-Jews. Strange anyway that Jews are allowed sole use of the term “antisemitism” when the Palestinians are a Semitic people while the Jews are not a “people” but an mixture of adherents to various froms of Judaism and often at each other’s throats.
What I meant was that when I and others tried to point out they were wrong in what they said about Corbyn and ‘his’ anti-semitism (i.e. it was a slur), that suggestion was itself accused of being bigoted and anti-semitic. The comparison with the trans issue (and others) is the way a differing view was demonised as a means to destroy it by personal denunciation (and without actually addressing the point).: you don’t think Corbyn is anti-semitic? You anti-semite! (And, you think a woman can only be defined as an adult human female? Transphobe!)
Why do Jews have sole claim to the term “Semitic” when the Palestinians are also a “Semitic” people and in Palestine when the ancesters of most Jews now occuppying Palestinian land were living in shtetls in Poland and Russia?
Niemand – I am sorry to say the analogy between how Jeremy Corbyn was treated by opponents and media and transgender issue is pretty lame.
It comes across as if you just wanted to shoehorn the transgender issue into the conversation.
It is tangential not lame, a broader perspective about how a decent figure like Corbyn became outlawed and I was using it to illustrate a point: the general discussion about Israel and antisemitism at that time was very heated and people castigated for expressing any doubts about Labour and Corbyn on the topic and especially about the antisemitism definition that was being touted. Much of the mainstream left and most of the right joined in and continued to do so until the hard facts of what Israel was really capable of started to kick in after the Hamas atrocity. Then many who had previously jumped on the antisemitism bandwagon began to express things about Israel that absolutely would have previously been called antisemitic – like apartheid state, genocide etc. It is hugely hypocritical but is caused by a lack of a desire originally to actually discuss things honestly and with basic respect for differing viewpoints and above all, with actual evidence. This has also been a serious problem with the debate about trans theory / rights and is very much a symptom of the polarisation of our age. It bothers me because the ultimate endpoint of polarisation is war.
@Niemand, yes, and as I mentioned this is a theme of season 6 of Unforgotten on STV.
When I was growing up, Cold War sentiments were so strong that I could be (mildly) ostracised in Scottish secondary comprehensive class for something called ‘anti-americanism’. Expressions of royalist support were extremely predominant. Yet I was friends with people of very different political views and interests (which is why I learnt far more about Nazis than I would otherwise have).
Perhaps because expressed views are recorded on social media, young people are policing language more, falling into divergent camps to continue to back up their earlier statements and continue friendships? Is it as easy today to maintain friendships if you have apparently conflicting political views? Are people just a bit less honest because they have to cultivate online personas? Is there more fear of offence? Has the more tongue-in-cheek/empathetic/take-back culture of pub debate been overtaken by a less forgiving conversational norm? I don’t know.
I suspect the reality is more complex. After all, real Nazis and racists have been emboldened to speak their minds by authority figures. And historically, religious conformity would have been normalised. Perhaps to be counter-cultural is significantly different in a world of globalised culture?
I think there is something in what Viet Thanh Nguyen writes in Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016):
p63 “Those people who believe themselves to be beyond identity and ideology will, sooner or later, charge us with identity and ideology if we dare to commit that most unnatural act of speaking up and out.”
We can see this in the conservative ‘Common Sense’ movements, which deny their own ideology and ascribe it to others. I’m not sure why people would deny a ‘gender ideology’ behind statements that are clearly that, yet they do.
Where can people express doubts or indicate they are thinking of changing their minds on a topic? How do we escape hypocrisy and cant? I think we need to have a better understanding of how people lose religion, something that either they don’t want to talk about much, or as a general topic is itself suppressed here (I am thinking of specific historical examples, like E Amy Buller).
Niemand – we can agree on tangential. I think a large number of people on left have been critical of Israel actions in Palestine (both Gaza and illegal settlements on West Bank) for many years. Many on the right and centre of Labour Party (especially Friends of Israel grouping) never wanted Corbyn as leader and jumped upon antisemitism accusation and this was whipped up media who also disliked Corbyn and saw his policies as a threat.
Corbyn has been treated appallingly by Labour Party since then as they think that by demonising him they can head off attacks from right wing newspapers.
The Palestine issue is about international peace, security, international law and potential genocide.
The gender debate is a confected debate whipped up by fundamentalists on both sides of debate. I have no strong views on this issue, apart from being fed up with the high profile it gets from media and politicians. Similar legislation has been introduced in various other countries without society collapsing or women being harmed. Theresa May’s government was initially planning to introduce similar legislation prior to Holyrood legislation. Holyrood government were IMO unwise to push ahead with a piece of legislation that didn’t have popular support and not make it a free vote, regardless of rights or wrongs, of issue. Labour and Lib Dem’s also supported legislation but the media, which is almost universally hostile to independence and SNP, have predictably jumped on the issue as a means to bash the SNP government and independence movement.
Put it this way – if I was to go out today and walk into a ladies toilet dressed as normal it would be lucky to make the local paper. If I decided to dress up as a woman and go to the same toilet it would probably be all over the tv news and in all the newspapers. It would probably get more attention than the situation in Gaza as well.
There appear to be a lot of silly pricks in Scotland
John – don’t want to get too sidetracked but then I did start it so will just say this: I do not regard the gender theory debate as ‘confected’. On the contrary it is a fundamental challenge to the understanding of human beings are. If one accepts some of its basic tenets then it requires every single human on this planet to change what they think they are in terms of what matters i.e. they are a gender, not a sex (even though no-one actually knows what really gender is). This is not a trivial matter and why I reject it: I have a biological sex and any gender expression I tend towards is mostly a societal construct. Sex is by far the most important foundational aspect but gender theory attempts to reverse that, making gender the foundation. Questions of access to toilets and the like are symptoms of this theory (or ideology if you wish) and some, yes, will be confected and / or more trivial than others.
@SD – yes I think it is complicated. Going back to the 80s I certainly remember leftist groups I associated with being very negative indeed about both those on the other side but also within but with minor differences of opinion. Even then though, in general people did rub along more easily with those of different views. I certainly did (and still try to). The internet and social media has changed that, the nature of which has been well documented already. There is no doubt in my mind that it has led to some some pretty grim societal negatives, aided an abetted by the addictive nature of the devices we use to access it: it is now like 24/7 angst and this makes a difference – we used to switch off more in the past and not be fixated on ‘issues’ all the damn time..
Little over a decade ago, despite an overwhelmingly hostile media, the SNP – aided by many others – were able to bring Scotland close to ending the Union.
The Labour Party’s rise to power in the 20th century was also achieved despite media hostility.
The Scottish Left has allowed itself to become detached from the working class; a self inflicted wound
@florian albert, there has never been a left-wing government here because there is no secure electoral path to one, and even then the British version of the ‘deep state’ (which Richard Norton-Taylor calls ‘the permanent government’) would still be in charge. I think you misunderstand the actual Left on this.
https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/07/25/freedoms-live-post-election-analysis-tonight-at-8pm/
I mean, you can read about how Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson employed MI5 to infiltrate and spy on trade unions, if you want to start somewhere. SpyCops is just the tip of the iceberg.
Labour in power has always been imperial. Clement Attlee’s government, often praised for bringing in the likes of the National Health Service, very much so (and an Empire subordinate to the USAmerican one).
So, I guess it’s Revolution, then.
I think what all you people always forget is the number of punters in these islands that never vote, which I believe you will find is a greater percentage than any of these war mongering fascist wee dictatorial organisations ivir manage tae muster
@m, I literally posted a link to an article which opens with:
“from the thumping majority of the Did Not Vote camp”
so, not guilty m’lord.
that does not put you above suspicion
Attlee government did grant India independence in the face of Tory opposition — the Tories stirred up religious rivalry by supporting Jinnah leading to the massacre of millions as a separate East and West Pakistan emerged. Attlee’s huge mistake was to be dragged into the Korean war by the US. To pay for re-armament, charges were introduced for glasses and dentistry. I am reminded that we are still paying for the Korean war when I pay the dentist. The poor and disabled are being made to pay for otherwise laughable adventurism in Ukraine.
@Alasdair MacVarish, one could make a better argument that Indians won their own Independence. Presumably even the British Right had to concede their war service. According to historian John Newsinger (The Blood Never Dried), Clement Attlee earlier supervised arrest of Congress leaders; strikes, demos, protests erupted; British responded with shootings, beatings, arrests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee#South_Asia
Richard Norton-Taylor wrote (State of Secrecy) that Attlee’s Information Research Department spread anti-Communist propaganda, targeted students, bullying the BBC for control over World Service.
I gather that Attlee also genuflected before British royalty and ‘aristocracy’ and apparently gave in to the private school sector (Engines of Privilege; imagine universal comprehensive education had been imposed!).
You’re right about Attlee’s subordination to the USA, I think, and of course there was the anti-democratic pursuit of nuclear weapons. In many respects Attlee’s Labour government were constrained by circumstances, but they still could have made other choices, and pursued some imperialism and neocolonialism independently of USAmerican dictate for a time, including the recolonisation of parts of the world that weren’t even British colonies before (such as the Battle of Surabaya to reimpose Dutch rule over Indonesia in late 1945).
Attlee had his flaws and did not even inform his cabinet that he was going to develope nuclear weapons. The Bitish as an imperial power had a baleful influence on the post-war world. General Scobie moved into Greece on the German withdrawal and fired on a demonstration by the Greek resistance in Athens. The resistance did not want the king to return with the result that Britain was involved for 3 years in the Greek civil war using napalm agoinst the resistance. Britain took the surrender in Vietnam and rather than have the Vietnamese take political power, re-armed the Japanese POWs to allow the French to resume colonial rule. At Versaille conference after WW1 , Britain was given the Palestinian Mandate and colluded with the Zionists over decades allowing migration of Jews mainly from Poland to occuppy Palestinian land. By 1948, only 7% of the land of Mandate Palestine was owned by Jews but the rigged UN General Assmbley resolution granted them 60% of Palestine. The resolution was never ratified by the UN Security Council so was not binding but that did not stop Ben Gurion declaring the state of israel immediately after the British withdrawal as a consequence of the Jewish campaign of violence in May 1948.
McKenna has more than an air of the Matt Goodwin about him. He’s a reactionary pretending to be a friend of the working class.
The more miserabilist ‘Britain is broken’ articles there are, the higher the Reform vote will go.
Reform is the anti-establishment vote. Shouting ‘I hate Reform’ makes people look like they are part of the establishment (and to an extent, that is probably true – e.g. being pro-Palestinian is an establishment viewpoint and has been for ages, no matter how much you pretend it is some species of radical opinion).
“being pro-Palestinian is an establishment viewpoint and has been for ages” lols
Statan appears to think the establishment is anyone that doesn’t agree with his personal opinion.
He should look up the definition of what groups encompass the Uk establishment and he may get a bit of a shock!
I get the feeling that ‘establishment’ is a lot broader term than you care to think it is. It isn’t confined to the UK government – it includes your shops and pubs. lol
@Statan, anyone can simply look this up, of course, but the Wikipedia version is:
“In sociology and in political science, the term ‘the establishment’ describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution.”
“The United Kingdom has numerous entrenched groups that are regarded as forming the establishment: these include the royal family, the aristocracy, the landed gentry, prestigious public schools like Eton College and Harrow School, the privy council, senior civil servants, lawyers, academics, Church of England clergy, financiers, industrialists, the armed services and other professionals.”
but not all professionals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Establishment
Pubs and shops are not ‘the establishment’; though in quite another sense they may be ‘establishments’.
In dynastic politics, the Establishment is connected by marriages and stratified by inheritance. I’ve just started reading Ronald Syme’s 1939 book The Roman Revolution, which is more concerned about how the oligarchy (the Roman establishment) functioned in the transition from Republic to monarchy, than on the traditional ‘great men’.
SD – you saved me the bother of informing Statan of what establishment is defined as in UK.
Statan – in other words you just make shit up to suit yourself and now you have been corrected.
If “being pro-Palestinian is an establishment viewpoint” it has been strangely expressed. At the UN, the UK has invariably followed the US lead in supporting Israel. Arms have been supplied to aid the commission of war-crimes and no sanctions have been imposed to curb the settler-colonial endeavour. This is despite the UK having a unique responsibility by enabling the Zionists annex Palestinian land through the 1917 Balfour Declaration before the Ottomans were defeated several months later in December 1917.
Before the 1948 emergence of Israel as a state which refuses to define its borders, the UK had enabled the Zionists to act as an embryo state complete with an army and governmental structures.
The Jewish National Fund was established in 1902 with the purpose of acquiring land in Palestine for xclusive use by Jews. Despite the racist purpose, repeated UK prime ministers have been patrons — Gordon Brown noteably so — and the organisation is allowed to pose as a charity in the UK.
Shortly after the treacherous collusion between France, Israel and UK to invade Egypt in 1956, the Labour party created Labour Friends of Israel. about 30% of labour MPs and and current cabinet are members. A Israeli political party — the Jewish Labour Movement — is affilliated to the UK labour party while a group of UK Jews critical of Israel — Jewish Voice for Labour is denied affilliation and many of its members have been expelled from the Labour party. In recent years under Starmer’s leadership, most members expelled for “antisemitism” have been Jews.
Starmer’s leadership campaign was funded by Trevor Chinn of BICOM ( British-Israel Communications) and many of the cabinet have been funded by Israeli lobby groups in UK. In short, the relationship between Israel and the UK establishment stinks.
By saying that being ProPalestinian is a UK establishment position just highlights that you ignore the evidence of your own eyes.
I am not going to waste my time listing all the pro Israel organisations and commentators that are part of establishment ie political parties and media suffice to say you are spouting evidence free nonsense.
There are pro-Israeli establishment figures, there are pro-Palestinian establishment figures, and there are establishment figures who are pro-both. I think there are very few establishment figures who are in favour of flattening entire cities. Personally, I have a CD of extremely boring Palestinian music going for free.
Everyone is their own establishment according to you.
Look up the actual definition, rather than making up your own definition, and stop making a complete arse of yourself.
I have little insight on this but just one anecdote – I was watching an old episode of Yes Prime Minister the other day (late 80s show) and there was to be a vote in parliament about something going on between Israel and the Palestinians (it was kept deliberately vague) and at one point Sir Humphrey says we’ll obviously vote with the Palestinian cause (he portrayed it as a given) to which the PM declared he was going to support Israel in order to get in the good books of the US (for some other reason). Humphrey expressed serious shock. It really surprised me but it does not get more establishment than the government civil service and its fictional leader, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
What I should have added is I think things have changed since then, arguably due to some very successful ‘lobbying’.
Niemand – Yes Minister was IMO an extremely funny, well written and superbly acted comedy series. I still enjoy watching it.
It was written by Jonathan Lynn and Anthony Jay who was open in his generally right wing views and support for Margaret Thatcher’s form of conservatism. It is therefore probably a bit unwise to assume that it is a fair reflection of establishment political views of late 70’s & early 80’s.
I fail to see how anybody can claim the British establishment is Pro Palestinian when it doesn’t even recognise Palestine’s as a state? Many Jewish people in UK are critical of the influence of pro Zionist organisations (eg Jewish Chronicle, Friends of Israel political groups) have on the establishment in UK.
If contributors on here wish to observe Pro Palestinian media they should watch Al Jazeera news and contrast with BBC & Sky output which gives full access to IDF public pronouncements despite being restricted from even reporting from Gaza.
On what channel can one see Al Jateera now? I used to enjoy it as it has journalists permanently in parts of the World the BBC has never heard of.
Margaret Thatcher was about the least pro-Israel PM
@Alasdair MacVarish, Al Jazeera English news channel is apparently on Sky (511?), Virgin (622?) and Freeview (251?), but the video content is perhaps more conveniently accessed from their website:
https://www.aljazeera.com/videos/
As it is openly funded by the Qatari government, it should not be seen as ‘independent’…
“Al Jazeera is an independent news organisation funded in part by the Qatari government.”
but that applies to any corporate media source. And apparently the editorial lines of the English and Arabic output differ. But I’ve found Al Jazeera to be a distinct improvement over the royalist BBC, particularly in its critical worldwide perspectives which are much more evidently anti-hegemonic, and interesting guests are allowed to talk for themselves, in contrast with the BBC’s typical talking-down to what it considers lesser types of foreigners.
Thanks or info re. Al Jajeera. Yes, it is nauseating how BBC presenters adopt a deferential voice when discussing a grossly over-rewarded but useless and inconsequential royal
Alasdair yes thanks for reminding us of this and I suspect this is the reason for the Yes Prime Minister stance.
This is from an article called ‘What Thatcher can teach the pro-Israel Right’ by Aris Roussinos on UnHerd:
‘A famously unsentimental woman, Thatcher framed the conflict in terms that seem strikingly empathetic to today’s eyes. In 1985, she visited an “utterly hopeless” Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, where, as she recounts in her 1993 memoirs, The Downing Street Years, “I talked to one old lady, half blind, lying in the shade of a tree outside her family’s hut. She was said to be about 100. But she had one thing above all on her mind, and spoke about it: the restoration of the Palestinians’ rights.” For Thatcher — perhaps counterintuitively, viewed through the prism of today’s Conservative party — the “plight of the landless Palestinians” was a major foreign-policy concern. Under her helm, the British government worked hard to bring about a peace deal, though her efforts were frustrated at every turn by both Israeli and American intransigence: as she “scrawled” on one cable from the British ambassador in Washington: “The US just does not realise the resentment she is causing in the Middle East.”’
A Jewish Chronicle headline from 2012 discussing the same era is titled: ‘When Thatcher turned against Israel’ (Azriel Bermant).
A scholarly article by Neil Lochery called ‘Debunking the Myths: Margaret Thatcher, the Foreign Office and Israel, 1979–1990’ says:
‘This article disproves the idea of Thatcher’s apparent pro-Israeli leanings. It uses documentary sources, many of which were gained through the Freedom of Information Act and have never been used before, to outline that during the Thatcher era there was a slide away from Israel and towards the Arabs in British Middle Eastern policy.’
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2010.529356
Triangulating those sources makes that historical picture pretty clear.
Alasdair – I can watch Al Jazeera on You Tube now.
Niemand – Margaret Thatcher may well have been the least Pro-Israel PM but she left power in 1990. This maybe an interesting historical footnote but the relevance of this to the claim that UK establishment is actually Pro Palestinian in 2025 is pretty questionable.
Of course John but it could be relevant in that it may well show the power of the Israeli lobby in recent years if even Thatcher came to realise the iniquities visited on the Palestinians. And remember in one famous exchange in 2008 even Bush junior said to Israeli negotiators it is an occupation (a deliberately loaded term in context), it is their land – give it back to them: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7181658.stm
So my point is this blanket support for Israel by the ‘establishment’ is not hard and fast and may well be more recent that imagined.
@Niemand, when I studied politics at university, we were pointed in the direction of the work of the Glasgow Media Group, which among other things published “Bad News From Israel” and “More Bad News from Israel”, which were respected academic texts providing empirical evidence on the subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Media_Group
However, an important point to consider: parts of the British Establishment have supported various groups that do not necessarily align with their avowed values or even consistent foreign policy goals. See for example the royal family’s embarrassing love-ins with irrationally oppressive foreign hereditary rulers, or the government’s secretive and cynical backing of radical Islam (see Mark Curtis). Therefore British Establishment support for Israel may in part be anti-Semitic Christian Zionism, NATO neoliberalism, white-supremacist racism, or be directed against neighbours like Egypt. Or they just like to whip up wars so they can sell arms to any side, while clearing nationalists away from oilfields and other precious resources. Or can’t stop playing that addictive Great Game.
As for Margaret Thatcher, she supported Israel’s great ally, apartheid South Africa, and called Nelson Mandela a terrorist, so that’s probably more significant in determining her worldview.