Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The Death of Liberalism.

It is very easy to imagine the relief amongst the leadership of all the major parties on seeing the self-implosion of UKIP’s leadership. Of course, it would be hard not to afford a wry smile at the sight of a party based primarily on ‘anti-politics’ so quickly descending into the type of internal warfare that the Westminster parties it purports to despise have suffered from. I suspect, though, that little if anything has been learnt by Labour and the Tories from UKIP’s sudden, dramatic emergence and complacency will soon reign supreme once again.

Labour in particular, along with its natural supporters who would usually consider themselves liberals or socialists, seem to remain oblivious to the reason for the success of UKIP (and to a lesser extent the BNP). The truth is that, outside of Westminster and elite metropolitan society, the fundamental tenets of liberalism and socialism are dying fast. UKIP, armed with the extra publicity having recruited a popular TV celebrity in Robert Kilroy-Silk, were firing at an open goal in appealing to vast swathes of the electorate who have become completely disenchanted with mainstream politics.

The disenchantment spreads far further than just the centre-Right, as electoral gains for the Greens, Scottish Socialists and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems has shown. However, the greatest political vacuum without doubt exists among the millions who empathise with the populist agenda promoted daily in The Sun and Daily Mail, hourly on talk-radio and that was personified most clearly in the fuel strike of 2000. In short their complaints can broadly be described as follows; Britain has been brought to its knees by a metropolitan liberal elite intent on destroying our national culture, hiking up taxes, imposing ineffective politically correct solutions and selling off our rights to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Furthermore this elite, personified in the BBC, New Labour, Guardian readers and the EU, are tightening their grip by closing down free speech, branding anyone who criticises them as being racist. UKIP capitalised on this vacuum, with their anti-EU, anti-establishment rhetoric but the truth is that this section of the population are fertile territory for any aspiring politician spouting right-wing populism.

I would dare anyone who doubts the popularity of this rhetoric to listen to Talksport for an hour or read any of the popular right-wing tabloids or mid-market papers (The Mirror is now the only exception and its circulation is in freefall.) Better still, engage people in political debate, either in person or even on the internet. I have and frankly, it is the most infuriating process trying to have a reasonable discussion with people who have swallowed so many urban myths over the last 2 decades. Just as in the US, to define oneself as a liberal (or even worse a socialist) leaves one open to all manner of ill-informed abuse.

The problem is that there is apparently nobody willing to take on these wildly inaccurate arguments. The Labour Party under Blair, is terrified of the tabloid agenda and has spent the last decade pandering to their prejudices. In any case, Blair is anything but a liberal – which is what makes these charges so absurd. Amongst other things, this government has introduced internment without trial, ASBOs, child-curfews, detention centres for asylum-seekers and the draconian Mental Health Act. It seeks to ban trial by jury and confiscate the children of failed asylum-seekers. It has extended the powers of the police via the Criminal Justice Bill, has given the security services access to our e-mails and promises to go much, much further. The prison population is increasing at a fast rate of knots and the failed policy of drug prohibition remains firmly in place. In 7 years, it hasn’t offered a referendum on the Euro and has broadly adopted the mildly Eurosceptical position of the Major government on further European reform. What kind of ‘liberal’ government would be proud of a record like that?

Equally, the charge of Orwellian restraints on freedom of speech are laughable. Firstly, if such restraints were in place then 90% of our press wouldn’t feel free to make such allegations. Moreover, those who make the charges of censorship are often the first to use such tactics. How many times in the course of the past 4 years have we seen critics of President Bush accused of ‘anti-Americanism’ or opponents of the war in Iraq labelled ‘Saddam-apologists’? An editorial in The Sun accused Labour backbenchers critical of Bush’s War On Terror as ‘traitors’ - destroying the self-perpetuated myth that the Murdoch press were in favour of British independence and sovereignty. Only on last week’s Question Time, Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, referring to the furore over the alleged homophobia, racism and misogyny of Italian EU Commissioner Rocco Buttiglione, railed against the zealous, politically correct culture of censorship that stems from the EU. Could this be the same woman who I’ve seen and heard accusing critics of Israel of ‘anti-semitism’?

As for the institutions of this ‘liberal elite’, much of their power is grossly exaggerated. I’m quite sure that most of the BBC’s management would be happy to describe themselves as liberal. But I also recall the fuss made by the right-wing press over the appointments of Labour supporting Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies – a fuss never made over past appointments of Tory supporters. As we have seen, the pair lost their jobs for backing reports deeply critical of the Labour government – reports that have turned out to be true. And if the BBC was interested in left-wing propaganda and censorship, would it really give a platform to people like Melanie Phillips?

For all the BBC’s undeniable cultural influence, it remains only one player in a diverse media – of which almost the entire ‘opposition’ is fundamentally Conservative. Unlike its commercial rivals, as a licence fee recipient, the BBC can’t waste its own airtime attacking rival media or boasting about other arms of its empire. When was the last time you heard anybody mention the fact that the BBC has produced more popular comedies than any other TV company on the planet? Let alone remind us of the Beeb’s astonishing global reach and unrivalled reputation for impartiality in news and current affairs? If we were being patriotic, as the Right urge, we might actually praise an institution that is arguably more successful in this global age than anything the British private sector can muster.

Somebody needs to remind the public that, in fact, power and policy in Britain has been largely Conservative for the past 25 years. Nobody would dare call Margaret Thatcher a liberal. Yet in the Tories’ 18 years in power, crime, drug abuse and immigration rose inexorably, as did the tax burden on everyone bar those paying the higher rate of income tax and corporations. Surely all of this didn’t happen because of liberal policies? I’m not suggesting by any means that Liberals have all the answers, or even that the Conservative policies of Thatcher, Major and New Labour are all wrong. But I would argue that disenchanted Rightists should stop living in denial and accept that they too share some responsibility – if not the lion’s share – for the problems we face today.

Some might dismiss this article as irrelevant – fodder for the tiny minority of ‘lefties’ that care about such things. But this is how the descent into fascism begins. When nobody is prepared to take on the urban myths and propaganda they become accepted wisdom. Look at the US. Decades of propaganda from the vested interest, Conservative media groups and right-wing shock-jocks paved the way for G W Bush. Now, despite a distinctly un-Conservative budget deficit, a disastrous record on unemployment and a foreign policy that looks more catastrophic by the minute, Dubya looks set to be re-elected. He’s getting away with it because he has a compliant media that has and will repeat unfounded attacks on the ‘liberal’ Kerry while steadfastly refusing to criticise when Conservatism goes wrong. Liberalism has become so unpopular there that a Democrat can only win by going out of their way to deny any such credentials. Be warned – it can and will happen here unless somebody fights back against this tosh.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home