So, the last few sorry months for the Labour Party appear to be culminating in a leadership election. Despite having voted for Corbyn last September, I am becoming ever more convinced that I won't be again this time around, although there's still plenty yet to happen, so I guess anything is possible. All that I can say with total certainty at this point is that I'm quite disheartened with the Labour party, but nevertheless, I've decided to put down some of my thoughts on the whole sorry affair below.
I think it's a fair criticism of Corbyn to say that he hasn't really shown the energy that many wanted from him when he was elected. If we're being honest, aside from John McDonnell's brief (red book aside, I think he's done a good job as shadow chancellor) we haven't really formulated any policies which weren't already supported by Miliband. This applies not only to external party policy, but also to internal party reform. Of course, Corbyn's been in a horrible position regarding PLP opposition, so it's easy to understand why he's chosen to tread carfeully, but a Nye Bevan quote comes to mind when it comes to Corbyn's reservedness on the policy front.
On the issue of winning elections, while I don't think he's done all that badly in local elections/by-elections compared to what one might have expected from a disunited party, I was quite disappointed to see Corbyn in the Vice documentary expressing such a negative view of the media in public. I can understand his anger towards the facile nature of media debate, and I've always been quite happy for him, once he's stepped down as leader, to encourage a national conversation regarding how well-suited the modern media is to British democracy - but leaders need to make the most of the hand that they're given. Considering that his image was always going to be the biggest obstacle that he would have to have overcome in the face of Conservative opposition and tabloid ruthlessness, Corbyn declining vital press coverage, and not particularly trying to win over wavering journalists seems to have been very naive on the part of him and his team.
Such mistakes have undoubtedly hindered the Party's bid to navigate its way out of the electoral rut that it has found itself in. Sadly, due to the nature of public perception, I also fear that too much political water has passed under the bridge since September for this to be achieved while Corbyn's still in charge. This problem was summed up for me when I went to get a haircut and the barber wanted to talk to me about politics, after asking me what I studied at university. He said that he'd had enough of politicians lying, that he hated the likes of Boris and Cameron, and that he opposed the cuts being forced through by the Tories. He said that he felt like he couldn't bring himself to vote for anyone, even though he had strong opinions on political issues. So I asked him how he felt about Corbyn, and I suggested that Corbyn's politics were seemingly aligned with his own, all he really replied was "I don't know much about what he's been saying to be honest, all I know is that everyone seems to hate him". I apologise if extrapolating general problems from one example is cringey, but I think it sums up our current electoral predicament quite well. Evidently, I don't enjoy politics being such a ruthless environment at the top level, personally I think a focus on rational debate over image and personality would result in better policy formulation and a more efficient politics in general, but when it comes to convincing the electorate within actually existing British democracy, first impressions such as these are difficult to overturn, even amongst those who you would rationally expect, considering their views, to be sympathetic. Many people thought Miliband was good in the 2015 short campaign, but by then the mass view of him as "weird" and "weak" was already cast, regardless of how irrational that may or may not have been. It's for this reason that I probably won't be voting Corbyn, in September I knew that voting for him was a risk, and that there would be many challenges for him to overcome, but I felt it was worth the risk because a) an election was 5 years away, so he had plenty of time to try and shape his own image, and b) I supported his policy platform. I thought (and still think) that many of his causes were worth standing up for, and more so felt that they could ceteris paribus be worked into a winning manifesto. The difficulty in this situation is that I just can't see him winning, and I don't really see how sticking with an unelectable candidate could be justified by the values which led me to support him in the first place. Or, for that matter, see how him staying could pragmatically benefit the left in the long run.
I do, however, feel like I ought to say that our current situation hasn't arisen out of personal failure alone, PLP disunity has dealt him, and the party, a great deal of damage - it's quite clear that this week's events haven't sprung up out of nowhere. I do think it's the case that the majority of Labour MPs are loyalists, so it would be unfair to say that all 170 odd MPs who voted in favour of a no-confidence motion against him were plotting for months on end, but there has been a committed groups of Labour figures who have decided to brief against him and criticise him ruthlessly in the media from day one. I think that they were wrong to do so. Of course all MPs should be allowed to express concerns and disagree, and I don't begrudge anyone who publicly disagreed over important decisions if they were issues of conscience. But I think this last point can be overemphasised, the most likely reality is that a minority within the PLP weren't ever willing to give him a chance. It may still be an ungratifying response to an overwhelming democratic vote, but I really hope that this was genuinely because they felt that his image and record would render him unelectable, because it's rather depressing to think that the party could potentially never be able to implement a left-wing manifesto, even in an alternative (and seemingly distant) reality with an Obama-like figure in charge, without sections of the PLP trying to sabotage the party's chances.
Some might think I'm exaggerating in highligthing this possibility, but I am of the belief that party politics is a lot more about personal moral disagreements over policy than those who sometimes talk almost entirely in terms of 'electability' would admit. For example, the argument supposedly justifying the mutiny which has taken place this last week is that remaining in the EU was of such moral importance, whether that was in order to defend immigrants and their right to a secure future, free from prejudice, or to guarantee Britain's economic wellbeing and the living standards of the vulnerable - that Corbyn's lack of enthusiasm towards the Remain campaign in itself served as grounds for his dismissal. If this was the case, then I don't understand why Miliband or the other 2015 leadership candidates weren't widely castigated for not supporting an expansionary fiscal policy when interest rates were low, particularly as it may well be the case that austerity has in fact been more damaging to the economy than Brexit will prove to be in the future. On a moral level, if Labour politicians and members are happy to accept this economic argument (although it goes without saying that some would dispute this claim), then I don't understand why supporting cuts to 'keep in touch with the electorate' is any more acceptable than supporting Leave to 'keep in touch with the electorate'. Likewise, I don't understand why some would argue that supporting Remain was morally necessary in order to protect immigrants and the principle of free movement, particularly considering the fallout from Thursday's vote, but would then still be happy to argue, like Andy Burnham did last summer, that Labour ought not be 'soft' on people who 'want something for nothing', not necessarily because adopting such a position is justifiable in a nation with 1.1 million people using foodbanks, but because the public don't trust us on welfare. It strikes me as totally hypocritical to criticise the Leave campaign, despite its electoral success, for fanning the flames of xenophobia, when it appears to be equally obvious that feeding the myth of an army of scroungers industrially defrauding the taxpayer has equally negative material effects on the lives of the individuals who rely on Britain's social safety net. The foodbank problem has reached such a large scale for three reasons, low benefit levels, benefit sanctions, and the bedroom tax. The latter policy was opposed by all of last summer's leadership contenders, but only Corbyn supported measures beyond a 'review' to the first two, I think anti-Corbyn figures should be more sympathetic to why this might gain Corbyn support.
Hypocrisy aside, however, I also fear on behalf of those who would like to see Corbyn replaced that there is no easy escape route. It is the membership who decide who should be leader, and the thinly veiled pretexts which have been wheeled out almost weekly by those most opposed to Corbyn about how he's responsible for all of the world's ills have merely alienated them from the membership more than they already were to start with, which has been truly awful planning on their part. If they were so sure that Corbyn would fail all electoral tests before him, they should have let him fail on his own accord. As it has turned out, results have been mediocre, yet the plotters' target audience, instead of questioning "is this because of Corbyn?", have been left to ponder whether results would have been favourable if it weren't for the constant undermining of his leadership from a vocal minority of MPs.
From this point on in the leadership campaign they really ought not to overplay themselves, and when they do make the case against Corbyn it should be along the lines of: We aren't going to dismantle large bits of his policy platform if he's replaced, we simply think that he won't be able to win a snap election in the next 12 months, and due to the chaotic effects of Brexit upon the Tories, we have a great chance of winning an election under a new leader. It has to be said though, their lack of a plan beyond perpetual resignation, and the drastic failures of the 3 non-Corbyn campaigns to adapt to the membership's mood last summer, doesn't fill me with much hope of a victory, let alone in their ability to organise a positive general election campaign based upon anything innovative beyond 'not being Corbyn'.
As for what Labour ought to do if it does find itself with a new leader and a general election on its hand, my views haven't changed all that much from last summer. And while I'm happy to concede that I don't have perfect judgement, in my mind Corbyn was closer to Labour's ideal strategy (trident excluded, as we clearly won't win that debate with the public) than any of the other candidates, even if Corbyn himself wasn't the ideal figurehead. Labour doesn't tend to win on negative messages, I think it's right to stand on a platform of investment and growth, rather than one which says that we need to be 'sensible' on the economy whilst appearing to hold too many moral commitments towards the poor to carry through with our own promises. This is what Simon Wren-Lewis seems to mean when he talks of a 'radical centre'. As such, I, amongst others very much hope that much of the 'New Economics' continues if Corbyn goes.
The very absence of a more mainstream figure supporting ideas such as Wren-Lewis', particularly when many Labour members view the subject matter at hand to be so morally important (myself included), is what I suspect got Corbyn elected in the first place last year. Not necessarily because of him - but because of his platform. Some people may dismiss this reasoning out of hand as naive, but I don't think that would be fair. As I've argued above, moral debate over policy is never as clear as merely compromising until you become 'electable'. Following Thursday, it appears that taking a very hard line against immigration, more so than the Tories, could help us win an election. We could promise to drastically reduce immigration apart from where it is needed to prop up the NHS and public services, such a platform might, although I appreciate that this is speculation, be enough to carry us to victory, and allow us to implement a wide ranging investment package which could not only raise people's incomes (although admittedly, at least partially offset by leaving the Single Market), but also see a material improvement in deprived working class areas. I imagine most members, pro or anti Corbyn, myself included, would see this as wrong. Why? Not because it's unelectable, but because it's wrong to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, to risk abetting racism, and to damage the economy out of an expedient yet false narrative about the social and economic damages caused by immigration. I may not agree with the conclusions he reaches, but Ben Cobley is right to state that nearly the entire Labour membership, both left and right, is united by an absolute moral support for liberal policies concerning liberation groups, which as a whole results in an innate distaste for 'anti-immigrant' sentiment or policy. In a similar process of reasoning, I hope that eventually everyone in the party comes to realise that the factors which push many people towards Corbyn are therefore not all all that different from some of the moral tenets which very few people in the party openly dispute, and I hope that as a result internally organised campaigns will in the future be shaped with this in mind. Because if the challenge against Corbyn, as was often the case last summer, frames itself as the 'grown up' campaign taking on the middle class placard holders, on behalf of those members who are really in favour of bettering the working class, then it's difficult to see how Corbyn could lose.
Sunday 26 June 2016
Brexit
Thursday's vote to leave the European Union was certainly, to steal a quote from Jim Callaghan, a 'lesson in democracy'. I'm entirely certain now, just as I was immediately before the vote, that this wasn't a sensible thing to do. Economists are almost entirely united over the notion that Brexit will prove to have a damaging effect on the economy in the short to medium term, while the majority are also of the belief that GDP growth will continually be held back in the future if we are denied full access to the single market - which will presumably be the case if the Leave campaign prove to be genuine in their opposition to EU regulation and free movement.
In the face of this decision, many, such as Labour MP David Lammy and the Lib Dems - although in their case, pending and imminent election, have called for the Brexit vote's mandate to be ignored altogether, while others have merely called for a second referendum. I'm interested to see how the Lib Dem strategy works, clearly, if they win a majority Government next year then the widespread conversion to Remain which social media seems to be convinced has happened post-Thursday has clearly materialised, with a degree of force at that. A Lib Dem majority would probably (quite rightly) result in its own anti-Brexit mandate, although while the Lib Dems with their 8 MPs have little to lose with this decision, I do wonder if this will reinforce their image as a non-serious party, which I'm not sure is beneficial to them in the long term.
Lib Dems aside, I am not in favour of ignoring the Brexit vote, it has happened and it ought to be respected. The only circumstance in which I would support another referendum would be if a choice needs to be made as to whether we ought to remain in the single market or not, and if it became clear that opinion was heavily in favour of Single Market membership, then it might be worth considering whether Remaining in the EU ought to be considered, due to the blatant downsides of the Norwegian model for single market membership.
This is very unlikely, however, and would require a very particular set of circumstances. So in general, I think that ignoring the democratic choice to leave is a dangerous path to go down. I've seen many people call the working class voters who opted for Leave either stupid, or worse, too stupid to deserve the vote. Considering that many people like myself are of the belief that the facts were heavily stacked in favour of Remain in this debate, such a slide towards JS Mill style elitism is understandable, and while I know it's mostly meant in jest, in a serious context I don't think it's either particularly justified or constructive moving forward. After all, we did have a system up until the early 1900s in which only well educated and wealthy men could vote in elections, yet it didn't end up in rational fact based policy and debate, it just resulted in much of the population starving to death while those at the top convinced themselves that the contemporary status quo was a result of the poor's fecklessness (although to say that this doesn't happen in today's Britain would also be a mistake).
Democracy is a good thing, and it ought not to be the target of the fallout of Thursday's decision. It might not be particularly popular, but I don't regret having supported an EU referendum for the last couple of years. There are problems with referendums, they force binary options concerning issues which often require deliberation, but there has clearly been a large proportion of the public who have been long opposed to EU membership, and I still feel that effectively denying them a say in democratic debate would be unsustainable and undesirable. For me, if there is a worthy target for scorn following Thursday's result, it shouldn't be democracy in general, it should be the woeful nature in which expert opinion prior to the vote was disseminated to the public. Of course the likes of the Sun and the Mail get away with telling absolute lies, and I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that the press regulatory board recommended by Leveson comes into existence soon - and that it will have the powers necessary to enforce large scale front page apologies in clear instances of deception, but the broacast media were also awful in covering this debate. The economic arguments surrounding Brexit were largely summed up by the likes of the BBC as "experts disagree", ignoring not only the fact that the vast majority of economists opposed Brexit (IPSOS Mori found this to be around 90%), but also the clear and accesible economic logic which dictates why leaving the Single Market would be bad for Britain's economy. In the midst of the Tories' political games with the BBC, many are keen to jump to its defence, but its obsession with 'balance' proved to have devastating consequences in this referendum. I'm just amazed that in its reporting of HSBC threatening to move 1000 jobs to Paris if we leave the Single Market, the BBC felt it newsworthy to state that there are 'concerns' that leaving the single market 'could' result in banks losing their passporting rights within Europe. This isn't news, it's a tautological statement, and I'm quite confused why this is being reported today but wasn't widely reported on within the last 6 months. It's not like the result of a leave vote wasn't forecastable, ever since the referendum was announced it has been crystal clear that the only two options following Brexit would be to follow Norway's model which would keep free movement and Single Market access, or abandon passporting rights to some extent, either through relying on WTO trading guidelines, or through spending years and decades negotiating various bilateral treaties with the EU. This should have been clear to every voter before Thursday. The likes of the BBC shouldn't have pandered to the deliberate deception of Leave when they tried to conflate both potential outcomes in order to avoid political scrutiny, nor should they have repeated the £350m a week lie ad nauseum. Democracy is necessary to ensure stability and to protect the vulnerable from those making decisions which heavily impact their lives, but it does require an attentive and informed public to work effectively, so I suppose you could sum this situation up with Churchill's claim that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".
However, while I've spent the above paragraphs detailing why I think this Brexit vote was a mistake, it would be rather hypocritical to defend democracy without addressing the numerous, and often justified questions regarding the EU's accountability. Unlike me, Tony Benn may have supported an EU exit, but I still largely agree with his assessment of the institutionalised problems within the current EU. Notably, the fact that the Commission, rather than Parliament, proposes legislation, the secrecy which surrounds decision making within the Council/Council of Ministers, and the problem of low turnout and lack of care on behalf of the public towards EU Parliament elections. While I would also add that there exists a wider cultural/media problem which means that few people are ever aware of decisions being made on an EU level, harming accountability. These are difficult issues to address, and to be honest, even though I supported Remain I wasn't particularly confident in achieving meaningful reform any time soon, the Single Market is largely what drove me to support Remain. In fact, these problems, until now anway, don't seem to have concerned The EU to the extent that they should have. If anything, the EU's contentment with passing important measures such as the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, and the Lisbon Treaty, with only the tacit consent of national populations shows that they have all too often used a lack of accountability to push their agendas without really thinking whether this could danger the EU's sustainability in the future. I can't help but feel that if the EU engaged with national populations more when making important decisions, political events such as Brexit wouldn't be happening now. Some people may oppose this sentiment, after all, it's quite clear that the overriding contention the British public have with the EU concerns free movement. Many might feel that conceding ground to any opposition to immigration helps feed prejudicial and often false narratives about immigrants (For example, nearly twice as many people think that immigration is bad for the NHS than good, even though the facts suggest the opposite is true), while others may fear that it could have very material effects in terms of encouraging outright racism towards EU migrants (and ethnic minorities) already living here. This is a difficult debate to address, and it will be a difficult one for the left to address amidst rather rudderless calls to seek electoral compromise. But on a realist level, in relation to the EU, it strikes me as incredibly naive to have ever thought that ignoring the overwhelming democratic resistance to free movement could have lasted indefinitely. Maybe, if 30 years ago the EEC tried to reach a transnational consensus on free movement, we could have achieved the sensible compromise on immigration which wouldn't have led to the reactionary, and often outright racist debate that we are having now.
In the face of this decision, many, such as Labour MP David Lammy and the Lib Dems - although in their case, pending and imminent election, have called for the Brexit vote's mandate to be ignored altogether, while others have merely called for a second referendum. I'm interested to see how the Lib Dem strategy works, clearly, if they win a majority Government next year then the widespread conversion to Remain which social media seems to be convinced has happened post-Thursday has clearly materialised, with a degree of force at that. A Lib Dem majority would probably (quite rightly) result in its own anti-Brexit mandate, although while the Lib Dems with their 8 MPs have little to lose with this decision, I do wonder if this will reinforce their image as a non-serious party, which I'm not sure is beneficial to them in the long term.
Lib Dems aside, I am not in favour of ignoring the Brexit vote, it has happened and it ought to be respected. The only circumstance in which I would support another referendum would be if a choice needs to be made as to whether we ought to remain in the single market or not, and if it became clear that opinion was heavily in favour of Single Market membership, then it might be worth considering whether Remaining in the EU ought to be considered, due to the blatant downsides of the Norwegian model for single market membership.
This is very unlikely, however, and would require a very particular set of circumstances. So in general, I think that ignoring the democratic choice to leave is a dangerous path to go down. I've seen many people call the working class voters who opted for Leave either stupid, or worse, too stupid to deserve the vote. Considering that many people like myself are of the belief that the facts were heavily stacked in favour of Remain in this debate, such a slide towards JS Mill style elitism is understandable, and while I know it's mostly meant in jest, in a serious context I don't think it's either particularly justified or constructive moving forward. After all, we did have a system up until the early 1900s in which only well educated and wealthy men could vote in elections, yet it didn't end up in rational fact based policy and debate, it just resulted in much of the population starving to death while those at the top convinced themselves that the contemporary status quo was a result of the poor's fecklessness (although to say that this doesn't happen in today's Britain would also be a mistake).
Democracy is a good thing, and it ought not to be the target of the fallout of Thursday's decision. It might not be particularly popular, but I don't regret having supported an EU referendum for the last couple of years. There are problems with referendums, they force binary options concerning issues which often require deliberation, but there has clearly been a large proportion of the public who have been long opposed to EU membership, and I still feel that effectively denying them a say in democratic debate would be unsustainable and undesirable. For me, if there is a worthy target for scorn following Thursday's result, it shouldn't be democracy in general, it should be the woeful nature in which expert opinion prior to the vote was disseminated to the public. Of course the likes of the Sun and the Mail get away with telling absolute lies, and I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that the press regulatory board recommended by Leveson comes into existence soon - and that it will have the powers necessary to enforce large scale front page apologies in clear instances of deception, but the broacast media were also awful in covering this debate. The economic arguments surrounding Brexit were largely summed up by the likes of the BBC as "experts disagree", ignoring not only the fact that the vast majority of economists opposed Brexit (IPSOS Mori found this to be around 90%), but also the clear and accesible economic logic which dictates why leaving the Single Market would be bad for Britain's economy. In the midst of the Tories' political games with the BBC, many are keen to jump to its defence, but its obsession with 'balance' proved to have devastating consequences in this referendum. I'm just amazed that in its reporting of HSBC threatening to move 1000 jobs to Paris if we leave the Single Market, the BBC felt it newsworthy to state that there are 'concerns' that leaving the single market 'could' result in banks losing their passporting rights within Europe. This isn't news, it's a tautological statement, and I'm quite confused why this is being reported today but wasn't widely reported on within the last 6 months. It's not like the result of a leave vote wasn't forecastable, ever since the referendum was announced it has been crystal clear that the only two options following Brexit would be to follow Norway's model which would keep free movement and Single Market access, or abandon passporting rights to some extent, either through relying on WTO trading guidelines, or through spending years and decades negotiating various bilateral treaties with the EU. This should have been clear to every voter before Thursday. The likes of the BBC shouldn't have pandered to the deliberate deception of Leave when they tried to conflate both potential outcomes in order to avoid political scrutiny, nor should they have repeated the £350m a week lie ad nauseum. Democracy is necessary to ensure stability and to protect the vulnerable from those making decisions which heavily impact their lives, but it does require an attentive and informed public to work effectively, so I suppose you could sum this situation up with Churchill's claim that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".
However, while I've spent the above paragraphs detailing why I think this Brexit vote was a mistake, it would be rather hypocritical to defend democracy without addressing the numerous, and often justified questions regarding the EU's accountability. Unlike me, Tony Benn may have supported an EU exit, but I still largely agree with his assessment of the institutionalised problems within the current EU. Notably, the fact that the Commission, rather than Parliament, proposes legislation, the secrecy which surrounds decision making within the Council/Council of Ministers, and the problem of low turnout and lack of care on behalf of the public towards EU Parliament elections. While I would also add that there exists a wider cultural/media problem which means that few people are ever aware of decisions being made on an EU level, harming accountability. These are difficult issues to address, and to be honest, even though I supported Remain I wasn't particularly confident in achieving meaningful reform any time soon, the Single Market is largely what drove me to support Remain. In fact, these problems, until now anway, don't seem to have concerned The EU to the extent that they should have. If anything, the EU's contentment with passing important measures such as the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, and the Lisbon Treaty, with only the tacit consent of national populations shows that they have all too often used a lack of accountability to push their agendas without really thinking whether this could danger the EU's sustainability in the future. I can't help but feel that if the EU engaged with national populations more when making important decisions, political events such as Brexit wouldn't be happening now. Some people may oppose this sentiment, after all, it's quite clear that the overriding contention the British public have with the EU concerns free movement. Many might feel that conceding ground to any opposition to immigration helps feed prejudicial and often false narratives about immigrants (For example, nearly twice as many people think that immigration is bad for the NHS than good, even though the facts suggest the opposite is true), while others may fear that it could have very material effects in terms of encouraging outright racism towards EU migrants (and ethnic minorities) already living here. This is a difficult debate to address, and it will be a difficult one for the left to address amidst rather rudderless calls to seek electoral compromise. But on a realist level, in relation to the EU, it strikes me as incredibly naive to have ever thought that ignoring the overwhelming democratic resistance to free movement could have lasted indefinitely. Maybe, if 30 years ago the EEC tried to reach a transnational consensus on free movement, we could have achieved the sensible compromise on immigration which wouldn't have led to the reactionary, and often outright racist debate that we are having now.
Saturday 18 June 2016
Political Context
A lot has been said and written following the tragic murder of Labour MP Jo Cox on Thursday afternoon, with many moving and heartfelt tributes having been made from across the country by her friends and colleagues, with the eloquent and inspirational call from her husband to unite against political hatred standing out like a beacon despite him being in the the midst of a personal loss on a scale that is difficult to even comprehend. Like many who have been shocked by Jo's death, I never had the oppurtunity to meet her personally, however, it is clear that as someone who spent her life fighting not only for her constituents, but also for those in danger across the world who lacked the voice they so desperately needed, that politics has lost a true asset. This loss is made to seem even more stark by the current nature of politics, in which all elected representatives are assumed to be liars and crooks, irrespective of the hard work that they do or of the sincerity through which they act. I simply don't think this is fair on most MPs - and such a climate sadly means that politicians such as Jo Cox, who had a background in working for charities such as Oxfam and the NSPCC, and who also possessed a proven track record of serving and representing her constituents, are often dismissed, hated, and ignored until a tragedy such as Thursday's forces a degree of retrospection and rational defence of our elected representatives, something which I feel is a massive shame.
Following Thursday this point comes across almost like a truism, however, the argument as to whether instances of far right political violence ought to be linked to the increasingly hate-filled nature of political debate has proved to be a far more divisive issue. The claim that politics is degrading is of course one that shouldn't be used lightly, but I simply can't see how one could properly repudiate such accusations following recent developments. On the morning of Jo's murder, Nigel Farage unveiled a poster which featured an overlay of the words "Breaking Point" above a photograph of queueing Syrian refugees. Now, on a mere humanitarian level, irrespective of opinion regarding so called 'economic migration', this poster is absolutely disgusting. Farage is a mainstream political figure, yet on Thursday morning he was proudly stood in front of a photograph of refugees fleeing war, which also shockingly features a seemingly scared crying child on the billboard's right side, to aid his case for leaving the EU. This is pure political charlatinism, our obligation to take in refugees has nothing to do with our EU membership, and Farage knows this, Thursday's stunt was merely an expedient attempt to avoid sensible debate on immigration by reinforcing public fears about migrants clogging up housing and public services, it goes without saying that Farage's willingess to plumb such depths indicates that he has little concern for the very material effects such scaremongering could have upon these refugees themselves.
However, it is one thing to condemn these shameful political tactics, but another to imply that such tactics increase the liklihood of political attacks such as the one on Jo Cox. Some have gone as far as stating that to debate this to any extent, particularly so early into the investigation, is speculative and offensive, while others have quite clearly set out their stall that attempting to do so equates to using Jo Cox's death to political advantage. However, as others have already observed, the very nature of Thursday's attack, one carried out by an individual who we can assume with increasing certainty is a right wing extremist, against a pro-refugee politician, in the midst of a very bitter and at times overtly prejudicial debate regarding the EU, makes it unavoidably political. Of course it would be ideal to have all the facts on the table regarding the killer's motives, but that might be impossible even when investigations have concluded and he's locked up for the rest of his life.
Lack of certainty certainly hasn't stopped the press from giving their view as to the causes of this attack. The Sun and the Telegraph have both run front page stories either implying that the killer was a 'loner' and 'deranged', or that he was in the throes of serious mental health problems. It is easy to see why such outlets, particularly the former, adopt this line, for such a conclusion extricates Jo Cox's murder, and the neo-nazi views of her killer, from wider political developments, which, as exemplified by Farage's poster, have normalised the demonisation of fellow human beings to an alarming extent. It would be very difficult to word an argument which linked the behaviour of mainstream political actors such as the Sun and UKIP with the rise of 'individual' violent right wing extremists without at least indirectly burdening them with some degree of responsibility for the resulting vioence. The image of a psychotic mental health patient, on the other hand, allows such introspection to be avoided. For a psychotic mental patient can be written off as totally irrational, and by extension their opinions can be deemed to exist in total isolation from real world developments, immune from the sorts of change in political culture which has led the UN's High Commissioner for human rights to compare the Sun's coverage of the refugee crisis to that embedded within Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. This isolationist view is totally unjustifiable, very few mental illnesses are characterised by total detachment from reality, and mental health illness isn't an excuse for crime. 25% of the public have some mental health concern, yet 25% of the population aren't murderers. This is an obvious point, and seems to apply particularly in this specific case considering the suspect was deemed lucid and fit for interview by police. Even if, as an aside, Owen Jones is right to highlight the hypocrisy of the likes of the Sun in being quick to blame mental health above ideology in this case, in contrast with their coverage of Lee Rigby's murder in 2013.
Such observations do not, of course, suggest that the Sun and UKIP are to blame in the very specific case of Jo Cox's murder. That would be unfair and unsupported, the left often canonizes Nordic countries such as Norway for their more mature approach to politics - yet Nordic political culture didn't prevent the attack carried out upon young members of Labour's sister party by Anders Behring Breivik in July 2011. On an individual level, each attack is clearly a result of numerous personal and environmental factors which render any clear causal relationship impossible. In light of this, implicating the leave campaign with Jo Cox's murder is likely to result in a degree of offense, for I'm sure that those at the Sun, along with the likes of Farage are just as shocked and saddened by this attack as anyone else, which is likely to be somewhat justified if it does indeed turn out that the perpetrator has held neo-nazi views for decades. Nevertheless, it is still the case that politics doesn't exist in a vacuum. All political actors ought to know that their arguments impact people. It appears that the prime consideration for most voters regarding this referendum is economic security for their families, which, for most people, according to Britain's leading economists is not negatively impacted by immigration (unlike leaving the EU). However, the overriding atmosphere across the country in the run up to June 23rd is not one regarding debate over economic policy, but one concerned with fear, fear that immigrants will block off their already tenuous access to vital public services, and fear that this will be made worse by Turkey's inevitable and imminent accession to the EU - a sense which exists irrepsective of the fact that Turkey almost certainly won't be an EU member state for at least 20-30 years. I don't think Farage or Boris Johnson seriously believe in any of these arguments, yet they serve as useful subterfuge for their real, less visceral reasons for favouring Brexit, which would provide a far less stable base from which to win a referendum.
So while it would be wrong to park responsibility for Jo Cox's murder at the door of the likes of Farage and the Sun, there should be no uncertainty that those who continue to politically fan the flames of fear will almost undoubtedly add to a political environment in which attacks such as the one upon Jo Cox become ever more likely. And I hope that if one positive comes out of Thursday's events, it's that the political class as a whole is forced to realise that the price of preaching hate over solidarity is far outweighed by any expedient political gains it may bring.
Following Thursday this point comes across almost like a truism, however, the argument as to whether instances of far right political violence ought to be linked to the increasingly hate-filled nature of political debate has proved to be a far more divisive issue. The claim that politics is degrading is of course one that shouldn't be used lightly, but I simply can't see how one could properly repudiate such accusations following recent developments. On the morning of Jo's murder, Nigel Farage unveiled a poster which featured an overlay of the words "Breaking Point" above a photograph of queueing Syrian refugees. Now, on a mere humanitarian level, irrespective of opinion regarding so called 'economic migration', this poster is absolutely disgusting. Farage is a mainstream political figure, yet on Thursday morning he was proudly stood in front of a photograph of refugees fleeing war, which also shockingly features a seemingly scared crying child on the billboard's right side, to aid his case for leaving the EU. This is pure political charlatinism, our obligation to take in refugees has nothing to do with our EU membership, and Farage knows this, Thursday's stunt was merely an expedient attempt to avoid sensible debate on immigration by reinforcing public fears about migrants clogging up housing and public services, it goes without saying that Farage's willingess to plumb such depths indicates that he has little concern for the very material effects such scaremongering could have upon these refugees themselves.
However, it is one thing to condemn these shameful political tactics, but another to imply that such tactics increase the liklihood of political attacks such as the one on Jo Cox. Some have gone as far as stating that to debate this to any extent, particularly so early into the investigation, is speculative and offensive, while others have quite clearly set out their stall that attempting to do so equates to using Jo Cox's death to political advantage. However, as others have already observed, the very nature of Thursday's attack, one carried out by an individual who we can assume with increasing certainty is a right wing extremist, against a pro-refugee politician, in the midst of a very bitter and at times overtly prejudicial debate regarding the EU, makes it unavoidably political. Of course it would be ideal to have all the facts on the table regarding the killer's motives, but that might be impossible even when investigations have concluded and he's locked up for the rest of his life.
Lack of certainty certainly hasn't stopped the press from giving their view as to the causes of this attack. The Sun and the Telegraph have both run front page stories either implying that the killer was a 'loner' and 'deranged', or that he was in the throes of serious mental health problems. It is easy to see why such outlets, particularly the former, adopt this line, for such a conclusion extricates Jo Cox's murder, and the neo-nazi views of her killer, from wider political developments, which, as exemplified by Farage's poster, have normalised the demonisation of fellow human beings to an alarming extent. It would be very difficult to word an argument which linked the behaviour of mainstream political actors such as the Sun and UKIP with the rise of 'individual' violent right wing extremists without at least indirectly burdening them with some degree of responsibility for the resulting vioence. The image of a psychotic mental health patient, on the other hand, allows such introspection to be avoided. For a psychotic mental patient can be written off as totally irrational, and by extension their opinions can be deemed to exist in total isolation from real world developments, immune from the sorts of change in political culture which has led the UN's High Commissioner for human rights to compare the Sun's coverage of the refugee crisis to that embedded within Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. This isolationist view is totally unjustifiable, very few mental illnesses are characterised by total detachment from reality, and mental health illness isn't an excuse for crime. 25% of the public have some mental health concern, yet 25% of the population aren't murderers. This is an obvious point, and seems to apply particularly in this specific case considering the suspect was deemed lucid and fit for interview by police. Even if, as an aside, Owen Jones is right to highlight the hypocrisy of the likes of the Sun in being quick to blame mental health above ideology in this case, in contrast with their coverage of Lee Rigby's murder in 2013.
Such observations do not, of course, suggest that the Sun and UKIP are to blame in the very specific case of Jo Cox's murder. That would be unfair and unsupported, the left often canonizes Nordic countries such as Norway for their more mature approach to politics - yet Nordic political culture didn't prevent the attack carried out upon young members of Labour's sister party by Anders Behring Breivik in July 2011. On an individual level, each attack is clearly a result of numerous personal and environmental factors which render any clear causal relationship impossible. In light of this, implicating the leave campaign with Jo Cox's murder is likely to result in a degree of offense, for I'm sure that those at the Sun, along with the likes of Farage are just as shocked and saddened by this attack as anyone else, which is likely to be somewhat justified if it does indeed turn out that the perpetrator has held neo-nazi views for decades. Nevertheless, it is still the case that politics doesn't exist in a vacuum. All political actors ought to know that their arguments impact people. It appears that the prime consideration for most voters regarding this referendum is economic security for their families, which, for most people, according to Britain's leading economists is not negatively impacted by immigration (unlike leaving the EU). However, the overriding atmosphere across the country in the run up to June 23rd is not one regarding debate over economic policy, but one concerned with fear, fear that immigrants will block off their already tenuous access to vital public services, and fear that this will be made worse by Turkey's inevitable and imminent accession to the EU - a sense which exists irrepsective of the fact that Turkey almost certainly won't be an EU member state for at least 20-30 years. I don't think Farage or Boris Johnson seriously believe in any of these arguments, yet they serve as useful subterfuge for their real, less visceral reasons for favouring Brexit, which would provide a far less stable base from which to win a referendum.
So while it would be wrong to park responsibility for Jo Cox's murder at the door of the likes of Farage and the Sun, there should be no uncertainty that those who continue to politically fan the flames of fear will almost undoubtedly add to a political environment in which attacks such as the one upon Jo Cox become ever more likely. And I hope that if one positive comes out of Thursday's events, it's that the political class as a whole is forced to realise that the price of preaching hate over solidarity is far outweighed by any expedient political gains it may bring.
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