All is Wild on Danger Island

“I feel a profound sense of urgency” said Rishi Sunak in a ‘wide-ranging’ and wild speech today.
“Yeah don’t we all mate” four nations replied in unison.

Sunak came out fighting (sort of) after his disastrous recent election results, choosing to make his pitch at the Policy Exchange think-tank, as Suella Braverman had done before him. If the content of his speech was eye-opening this fact was too. It was a signal to the more rabid wing of his already rabid party that there was no need to ditch him for some enraged loon from the far-right, he would do just the job for them.

The official govt transcript of his speech (you can read here) includes the caveat:

[Please note political content redacted here.]

It’s from the section that reads like this:

“People are abusing our liberal democratic values – the freedom of speech and right of protest – to intimidate, threaten and assault others, to sing antisemitic chants on our streets and our university campuses, and to weaponise the evils of anti-Semitism or anti-Muslim hatred in a divisive, ideological attempt to set Briton against Briton.

And from gender activists hijacking children’s sex education to cancel culture, vocal and aggressive fringe groups are trying to impose their views on the rest of us.

They’re trying to make it morally unacceptable to believe something different and undermine people’s confidence and pride in our own history and identity.

[Please note political content redacted here.]

But for all the dangers ahead, few are felt more acutely than people’s sense of financial insecurity. We’ve been pounded by a series of once-in-a-generation shocks.

The worst international financial crisis since the great depression in the 1930s. The first global pandemic since the Spanish flu in 1918.

The biggest energy shock since the 1970s. Global forces, yet they are hitting our living standards here at home.

We must be prepared strategically, economically, with robust plans and greater national resilience, to meet this time of instability with strength.”

Now the bit he’s pulled out reads: “Scottish nationalists are even trying to tear our United kingdom apart.”

Desperate stuff from Sunak. His list of supposed threats to the UK includes pro-peace activists, “cancel culture”, “gender activists” and, of course, “Scottish nationalists”. pic.twitter.com/8YWEgnE6mn

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) May 13, 2024

So having established that we were surrounded by wildly dangerous enemies: “an axis of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China is working together to undermine us and our values”; Hamas; “Iranian proxies”; China (again); Putin; and of course “illegal immigration.”

There was more, we need to be warned of “gender activists hijacking children’s sex education to cancel culture” and “vocal and aggressive fringe groups are trying to impose their views on the rest of us” (the last bits a bit blurry but you get the gist).

Thrown into this hideous and terrifying mix is of course “Scottish nationalists.”

It’s a wildly stupid, offensive and dangerous idea to put out there – but par for the course for the Tories. None of this is new. Readers might remember we covered this back in the halcyon days of Theresa May when she compared those who argue for self-determination for Scotland with ISIS.

She said (this is a verbatim quote real audio from a speech she gave in 2017):

“It’s about ensuring we are a more united nation. That means taking action against the extremists who try and divide us. But it also means standing up to the separatists who want to break up our country.”

Much of this bile has become completely normalised. But, as Mark E Thomas has noted there are other factors going on here other than, er, comparing Scottish nationalists with terrorist states, he was also making a play by the venue he chose. Thomas writes: “Rather than choose a neutral venue, he deliberately picked an extreme right-wing, opaquely funded think tank to set out his ideas for the country. What signal did he intend to send, and to whom? Not to the mass of British voters who largely neither know nor care what the think tanks say. But to the nameless backers of the think tanks themselves, who are busy planning a grim future for the UK.”

See ‘What the Extreme Right May Be Planning‘.

What Sunak is signalling here is that the madness of Liz Truss hasn’t gone away. As Labour tack to the right the Tories are tacking even farther to the right, and Sunak is making sure his backers – all mired in dark money –  know he is the man for the job.