The language of demonisation – and the language of change

Makeshift Ethiopian Orthodox church at Calais migrants' camp

It’s not often that the media has much actual meat to get its teeth into during the annual silly season, but this summer has been an exception.

There has, of course, been the ongoing issue of many thousands of people attempting to flee into Europe from war and poverty.

That some have then made it to Calais, where they have attempted – and are still attempting – to circumvent security and make it to the UK via the Chunnel, however dangerous the journey, has given rise to a particular strand of coverage in the last couple of months.

The lurid, sensationalist language of invasion and of insects – yes, Mr Cameron, I am looking at you, with your use of “swarm” – has again indicated the piss-poor nature of British public and political discourse.

For some in the right-wing media, it brought with it the equally wonderful opportunity to bash the BBC as Auntie filmed an edition of Songs of Praise from a makeshift chapel in the Calais camps where migrants are staying.

Many are the same sort of people who waste no opportunity to intone how ‘we are still a Christian country,’ but either their knowledge of actual Christianity is sadly lacking or they simply don’t mind being steaming hypocrites who have no intention of actually acting and thinking on the basis of that religion.

The idea that showing human compassion – never mind the variety recommended by Jesus (according to the Good Book) – is automatically a synonym for ‘let them all in’ would be ridiculous were it not for the way that it has been taken up by substantial numbers of people who appear incapable of rational thought.

The vicious hate to be seen on newspaper forums, on social media etc about the issue can make you despair. It’s yet another example of how easy the demonisation of ‘others’ is – and it’s a salutary reminder of how what happened in Germany in the 1930s did happen.

Always easier, of course, when many in the population are struggling, have little security and see little hope for improvement.

Anyone claiming that ‘we’ can easily accommodate a few more thousand etc would apparently be oblivious to the reality that, at present, ‘we’ cannot provide work or a home for all those currently in the UK. And see the previous paragraph.

Mass immigration is also problematic in terms of economics quite simply because, in increasing the size of the available labour market, it helps depress wages: there is a reason that the likes of the CBI do not want restrictions on immigration and even persuaded then Conservative leader Michael Howard out of making manifesto pledges on reducing and restricting immigration.

It’s also worth noting that this used to be the mainstream left-wing view on the subject – before that metamorphosed into Tony Blair and his fellow neo-liberals.

And there is a reason that Margaret Thatcher declared New Labour/Blair to be her “greatest achievement”.

The long-term solution to the migrant situation need to be global and need to involve the sort of peace and prosperity for all that will obviate the need or desire for hundreds of thousands of human beings to take great risks to improve their lives or even to survive. Anything else is mere sticking plasters.

Which brings us rather adroitly to the summer’s second media circus – but one where, unlike the issue of would-be migrants, the right-wing media is failing to control the terms of discussion and use it as a means of further controlling the populace.

The Labour Party’s leadership election has seen the astonishing rise of Jeremy Corbyn – “astonishing”, that is, if you don’t pay any attention to anything much at all.

In case you missed it, things started getting messy when Corbyn got just enough nominations to be included on the ballot – partly as a result of people nominating him in order to expand the nature of the discussion that would occur during the election process.

In addition to this, the election process has been changed, with people able to register with the Labour Party as a ‘supporter’ for £3, and then vote.

It’s a clunky (to put it politely) mechanism – and unfair on activists who have spent years in the party working for it on a voluntary basis – but the aim, of opening up the process and encouraging engagement, is a valid one.

And it is one that has been achieved.

But now we’ve got the horror of loads of Trotskyist entryists trying to vote (for Corbyn, of course), plus loads of Tories doing the same – as openly encouraged by the Telegraph, in an example of why it’s days as a class newspaper are behind it.

For the latter, the idea is that Corbyn as Labour leader would finish the party for decades.

It’s good to know how much some care about democracy.

The Labour hierarchy is in meltdown, running around like headless chickens, while New Labour grandees such as Blair himself and Peter Voldemort Mandelson warn that it would be the end of life as we know it and they should stop the election itself.

Jackboot Jack Straw has weighed in, and even Charles Clarke has popped up to leave most scratching their heads and wondering who he was.

Blair in particular managed to be particularly snide, asserting that, “if your heart’s with Jeremy Corbyn, get a transplant”.

Packin' 'em in in Middlesbrough

Which, given the way the Islington MP has been packin’ ’em in at rallies across the country, and appears to be gaining support from across the spectrum of age, gender, race etc, is a large number of people requiring radical cardio surgery.

One cannot help but wonder how an NHS that was helped on the path to privatisation by Blair will cope.

Behind all this is the belief that a Labour Party headed by Corbyn cannot not possibly win a general election.

Brits don’t want a lefty – look what happened to Michael Foot etc. Actually, what happened to Foot was that he was doing fine in the polls until Margaret Thatcher had a little war that she was able to garner support from. It has not been known, for years, as the ‘Falklands Factor’ for nothing.

But let’s not allow facts to get in the way, eh?

Various right-wing papers have been trying smears.

Having already spoken to the market trader who sells him his vests (when it was all still funny), and then failed to make allegations of anti-semitism stick, the Daily Mail ran out of material for attempted smears and last week turned to an epic piece of fantasy fiction titled “Prime Minister Corbyn … and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain”.

Alternative histories are a popular sub-genre: perhaps it’ll be nominated for a Hugo.

So a simple question, folks: if Corbyn is ‘unelectable’, why has the right-wing media suddenly gone from pointing and laughter to desperate attempts to smear?

And why are the neo-liberal Blairites running so scared?

Well, the reasons should be clear to anyone.

The right is perfectly well aware that he could actually win (in an interview with the Huffington Post, Conservative grandee Ken Clarke stated this quite clearly) – because the right knows that people actually want an alternative to the neo-liberal hegemony of the last 30 years and it knows that Corbyn presents the possibility of a Labour Party that offers one.

The general public show no sign of currently wanting a Labour Party that, quite frankly, is little different from the present government.

They are sick of career politicians who are smooth and slick – and never give a straight answer.

Corbyn’s campaign has been gracious and he has refused to stoop to the negative (there has been negativity and nastiness from some supporters on all sides).

His policies – far from being the “hard left” that so many are claiming: in that previously-mentioned interview, Ken Clarke described him as not as left-wing as Foot, and Clarke is no fool – are being welcomed widely.

And given the continuing housing crisis in the UK, who can be surprised that the idea of building more council housing would be welcomed?

Who can be surprised that it’s popular to talk of renationalisation of the railways – just as we learn that rail fares are rising by three times the rate of pay increases?

Corbyn’s economic ideas have received backing from 30-plus economists – and even a blog from the Financial Times that explained that his idea of ‘quantitative easing for the people’ is not actually nonsense and could actually work (nor is it wildly radical).

Even some on the right are noting that, while they might disagree with his ideas, it’s refreshing to see a conviction politician again.

Earlier this year, Scottish voters rejected the idea that austerity is the only way – and dumped a party that had treated the country as a sinecure for years.

The idea that Labour can win an outright majority at a future general election by winning some Conservative votes south of the border, at the same time as not losing more core votes in the heartlands (it also lost an estimated five million core voters between 1997 and 2010) and all the while without winning back Scottish voters, is barking.

The idea that the Ed Miliband election manifesto was too anti-business (as former Chancellor and shadow chancellor Ed Balls claimed at the end of July) and too left-wing to win in May is nonsense.

When Miliband announced the idea of a crackdown on non doms, his and the party’s ratings increased. And promising to tackle corporate tax evasion is not a synonym for being anti-business – or if you think it is, then you have a problem.

The right-wing press got lucky in the spring: they latched onto something that caused swing voters the real horrors: the idea of a coalition between Labour and the SNP. There was a reason that, having once spotted the impact of that message, they hammered it home for the final fortnight of campaigning.

To reiterate: the idea that Labour can win a general election on the basis of winning those same potential swing voters, without returning to winning ways in Scotland, and without losing even more core voters elsewhere, is illogical nonsense – at best.

This is not about saying that Jeremy Corbyn is some sort of messiah: it is about pointing out that people want an alternative to the busted flush of austerity – even the IMF has warned the UK that the cuts are too much – and they do not want a party that is interested only in winning for power’s sake.

They want Labour to be an actual opposition – not limply abstaining on Bills that are set to hurt many thousands of ordinary people. And claiming – as some have – that such things would make Labour just a ‘protest party’ is an avoidance of what ordinary people are facing.

People want alternatives – that’s why smaller parties, from the Greens to UKIP, have been gaining support.

This entire process also suggests the possible end of Blairism in the Labour Party – Liz Kendall, the Blairite candidate for the leadership, was absolutely mullered in the constituency nominations, securing just 18 as opposed to Yvette Cooper’s 109, Andy Burnham’s 111 and Corbyn’s 152.

All this the neo-liberals and right-wing know.

And that is why they’re not laughing at Corbyn any more.

Whether he wins the election or not, he has changed the nature of the debate and triggered a reinvigoration of political discourse reminiscent of what was seen during the Scottish referendum campaign a year ago.

If you like hegemonies, that’s not good.

So, in the remaining days of the campaign, the best that could happen would be for Kendall, Cooper and Burnham to stop condemning Corbyn and his supporters – and to concentrate on suggesting some policies that show that they do believe in something; indeed, that they believe that there is a meaningful alternative to the policies of the current government.

Because, if they do not believe even that simple little thing – then what is the point of their being in opposition?

• For the record, I am not registered to vote in the Labour leadership election and did not apply to do so.

Adding to the UK’s democratic deficit

Douglas Carswell: the first MP from outside the 'Big 3'

What might politely be referred top as the UKIP ‘issue’ has been discussed on this blog before, but after last week’s momentous event, it demands attention once more.

Douglas Carswell was elected as Conservative MP for Clacton in 2010. This August just gone, he defected to UKIP, sparking a by-election, in which he was last week duly returned to Parliament – as a UKIP MP for the constituency of Clacton.

Most importantly, this made him the party’s first MP – such a staggering event that, in the days since, UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been invited to participate in next spring’s pre-election debates between the leaders of the main parties, the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib-Dems.

And all because no other party has ever achieved anything like this: no other party has ever broken through that established trio to gain even a single, solitary seat in the House of Commons.

UKIP’s win last week changes the make-up of the House of Commons out of all recognition, as revealed by this up-to-date (and obviously very brief) list with four entries in it:

Party                              MPs

Conservative                         303

Labour                                  257

Liberal Democrat                    56

Democratic Unionist                8

Scottish National                    6

Sinn Féin                               5

Independent                          3

Plaid Cymru                            3

SDLP                                    3

Alliance                                 1

Green                                   1

Respect                                1

Speaker                                1

UKIP                                     1

Vacant                                  1

Total number of seats            650

The DUP's Ian Paisley Jnr – MP

It’s hard to work out what all the excitement is about. Or, more to the point, if UKIP has produced such a revolutionary result that it deserves its place in pre-election debates, then what about other parties that also have one MP or more?

In the media Establishment’s excitement, it is blatantly favouring one ‘alternative’ party over any and all others.

There is absolutely no logical reason why UKIP should be included in pre-election debates, over and above any other party. If UKIP gets on to the debates, so should all the others.

Anything else has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with a media Establishment that is delighted to promote one particular party and its ideology.

Once again, we see that the bulk of the mainstream UK media is not remotely interested in being part of what could be considered an honourable Fourth Estate, but simply in pushing the personal ideologies of proprietors and editors.

Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew – MP

Some observers are particularly upset with the BBC’s attitude in all this, harking back to some time that never existed.

The BBC may be wonderful in many, many ways, but on politics, it has always been a supporter of the status quo, from the General Strike of 1926 on, when director general Lord Reith made it clear that his idea of ‘impartiality’ in terms of newscoverage by the new broadcaster would not ‘offend’ the Establishment.

If we were really talking about the will of the people – and as discussed previously, the rise of UKIP is reflective of one reaction to a widespread disenchantment with mainstream politics in the UK – then based on the change-everything criteria of UKIP having won a single Parliamentary seat, all alternative voices should be heard.

But of course UKIP has councillors and MEPs too.

Yes: and so do other parties in that list.

The Green Party's Caroline Lucas – MP

If ever you wanted an illustration of the bias in much of the UK’s mainstream media, and of the agenda of its owners, then look no further.

The manner in which it has promoted UKIP – and ignored other alternative parties – would make Reith’s version of impartiality look like the real deal.

And good luck to the Green Party, which is considering taking legal action – if it can raise the funds – to challenge this blatant bias.

Perhaps the other parties being disenfranchised in terms of TV election coverage could join them in that endeavor. Now that might be some sort of victory for British democracy.

change.org petition to include the Green Party in any such widened debate (you can add a note that all parties should be included)

Kipper baiting still leaves the mainstream in a fishy state

Taking the proverbial is not difficult

Nobody should be surprised at the likelihood of a substantial vote for UKIP in the forthcoming local and European elections.

And although it’s come close to being a national sport for people and media from across the political spectrum, it seems facile to invest too much time in pointing out the more ludicrous comments and opinions that have come from ’Kippers, as supporters themselves have become known.

They have loons in their midst, but they aren’t going to poll more than a handful of votes because everyone who votes for them believes that Lenny Henry should ‘go to a black country’ or because they want to ‘hate those dastardly gays just like you can hate a cup of Earl Grey’.

The rise of UKIP – just like the rise of assorted unsavoury parties across the continent – is symptomatic of a general disillusion with mainstream politics, further revealed in the UK by increased use of ‘ConLibLab’ to describe those parties.

What that reveals is a belief that there’s so little distance between the three main parties that you could barely slip a cigarette paper between them.

In other words, there’s little meaningful choice.

And so we have a party that claims to speak straightforwardly, and promises to lift up Britain once more by stopping (most) immigration and hauling the country out of the European Union.

The main reasons for the UKIP leadership wanting us out of the EU don’t really matter to those for whom all this country’s real or perceived ills are down to Brussels.

However, the UKIP leadership wants to be able to reduce – or cut altogether – employment rights, from paid annual leave to sick pay to maternity leave.

It’s debatable whether they really do think that these are what is holding the country back or whether those of them who are employers simply want to be able to reduce their own labour costs.

Such an approach, together with a commitment to reducing the state still further, is entirely reminiscent of free-market fundamentalists in the US and indeed, a great deal of the language to be found on forums in the UK is borrowed from them.

But on UKIP’s part, it hardly seems ‘patriotic’ to want to butcher the rights of the same British workers that they like to pretend they’re on the side of, does it?

The EU as a political entity is fraught with problem – not least legislation that, in effect, enshrines neo-liberalism, irrespective of the democratic wishes of individual electorates.

But then it’s not neo-liberalism that offends UKIP – the party’s leadership wants to plunge ever further down the marketisation path, to scrap vastly more public services than current Chancellor George Osborne, and sack as many public service workers as possible.

But such pesky facts are not getting a very wide outing – and there’s a reason for that. They’re not necessarily obvious vote winners, while there’s a fair few other politicians in the mainstream parties, and more than one media proprietor, who would be in almost total agreement.

How have we reached this state?

The spin – and the perception of spin – from all the mainstream parties has been contributory, as has a perception that none of those same parties really cares about Joe and Joanne Public.

Election at Eatanswill (Pickwick), 1836, Phiz

A generation and a half has seen both Conservative and Labour parties change from what the majority of their followers – certainly the older ones – would consider those parties to be.

The Lib Dems earned themselves an increase in votes at the 2010 general election, primarily because people saw, in their commitment to electoral reform, a possible way to give a kick in the pants the system, but they had counted without the fact that Nick Clegg and many of his MPs proved to be interested only in an illusion of power.

The Conservative Party has become the out-and-out supporter of marketisation and big business: that is now its prime constituency, other than on election days.

Look back at it’s actions in office over the last four years and you will see this borne out time and again, from the privatisation of the NHS to the so-called lobbying bill, which has been used not to do what was intended, but instead to gag a whole range of groups from commenting on politics in the run-up to the 2015 general election.

Having, in opposition, rightly opposed assorted attacks on civil liberties and privacy, one talk from GCHQ has convinced it to champion mass invasions into private communications, while also using the porn panic to introduce censorship by the back door.

Labour, on the other hand, seems like the proverbial headless chicken.

Its leadership seems unaware that there is any alternative to neo-liberal marketisation, however much it might make a few noises about the problems of a low-wage economy.

Indeed, it seems to be as wedded to such approaches as the Conservatives, but with just an iota of embarrassment at such a betrayal of the party’s own history and its traditional followers and a belief that a tiny bit of tinkering around the edges will ease any problems.

The steady drip drip of stories about the venality and greed and absolute lack of ethics on the part of politicians has also had an unsurprising impact on public trust, who generally seem to harbour the illusion that it was not always thus.

Take a look at Hogarth and read Dickens’s Pickwick Papers if you believe that politicians behaving badly is new.

The South Sea Scheme (c1721), Hogarth's 'casino economy'

But it’s all well and good condemning any or all the above, if people themselves do not get involved and take responsibility.

The minimum that can be done is to use your vote – preferably after paying at least a few minutes examining what all the candidates you can vote for are promising and/or claiming to have done.

It takes perhaps a little more effort not simply to believe everything that you read in your newspaper of choice, but to look beyond a simplistic headline and story that confirms any personal opinions, and explore an issue in different media.

It takes yet greater effort to get involved in local politics – which doesn’t mean any of those mainstream political parties or even any smaller parties, but can involve community groups, for instance, or local campaigns.

It’s simple: an investment of time is required to educate ourselves and be involved politically – the things that offer us the possibility of having an influence and even of changing something.

But when the electorate becomes disenchanted to the extent that few even bother to vote outside general elections – although millions spend the money to vote for a contestant on Britain’s Got Strictly X Factor Talent – then perhaps the point that needs to be made is that we get the politicians that we deserve.

It’s easy to simply accuse those saying they’ll vote for UKIP of racism for worrying about immigration.

Far easier, indeed, than it is to try to get across the real reasons why, among other things, incomes for the majority have been declining for 30-plus years, the cost of housing has increased to such an extent, job security has disappeared and nothing comparable has replaced all the decently-paid, skilled manual jobs that formed a major strand of the national economy until de-industrialisation was commenced for ideological reasons in the 1980s – let alone to attempt to posit real alternatives.

And viewed from that perspective, taking the piss out of UKIP smacks of political onanism rather than a meaningful consideration of what has allowed that party to grow and how the situation can be changed.

UKIP’s workplace policies

Data on UK election turnouts

Voter turnout in western Europe [PDF]