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| Bosch (c. 1500) The Wayfarer |
My previous post could have been made at any time in the last year really, especially as pertaining to the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn. However, this has been made current by a recent split in the Labour Party and the formation of the Independent Group, many of whom cited Labour’s Anti-Semitism (some felt they didn’t need to prefix this with ‘Labour’s failure to deal with…’ that prompts a tone change in the conversation) as their reason for leaving. However, it also begs the question, “WHY NOW?” Why now, when we are less than a month from a potential No-Deal Brexit? Why now, when the Home Secretary is making a British citizen stateless?
There is a real need for a legitimate discussion about issues caused by the actions of foreign states and our part in them, about our relation towards religion and liberalism in the UK, about certain types of bigotry being effectively ‘authorised’ by our Government in their unwillingness to act, something that calls into question the usefulness of liberal democracies when dealing with fascism. However, is that time now? Or this is just a helpful distraction from the ongoing and unfolding crisis of inaction by the UK Government in relation to Brexit?
I would suggest that based on the lack of actual attempts to make this discussion about apparent anti-Semitism an all-party debate, and the general tone of media ‘scandal’ that has accompanied such reporting that is this another in a long line of recent distractions perpetrated by Governments to shift the public’s attention from a larger problem within the ruling party.
This is something of a speciality by the Trump administration, whose constant barrage of new outrages means that the press, let along the public, barely have the time to react before something new has overtaken the previous story. This technique means that there is not sufficient time to perform a proper analysis of the situation, place it in context, research facts, and so forth.
However, more useful in its level of distraction, would be a different crisis that has no simple or immediate end in sight (if at all). So, raising the spectre of the failure of multiculturalism and liberal ‘double standards’ (this despite rabid anti-Islamic feeling in the British press and in various political parties, as well as recent actions by the Tory Government in the ‘Windrush Scandal’) gives a potentially limitless supply of ammunition in moving the public’s gaze from Brexit to criticising and distrusting one of the only party’s that could actually offer a solution from the Brexit crisis.
In today’s edition of the Observer for example there were; 12 articles about anti-Semitism in Labour and Corbyn’s failure to deal with the split that created the Independent Group, and 4 articles about Brexit and the potential economic problems that a no-deal exit would cause, and all of former pieces were critical comments on Labour and Corbyn. I suppose that scientifically I should look through ALL the Sunday papers... but I'd really need to be paid in order to spent my time with anymore of that...
