Britain
prides itself on being a liberal state, tolerant of diverse points of
view with a judicial system based on law and evidence, but its recent
behavior has been anything but that.
by
Alexander Mercouris
Part
6 - The Change in Britain
The
reality is that today’s Britain has become a profoundly illiberal
place.
Very
much like the contemporary U.S., the media and political
establishment in Britain is today relentlessly hostile to anyone who
challenges the established orthodoxies of (1) unqualified support for
finance capital (concentrated in Britain in the City of London); (2)
support for “liberal interventionism” i.e., the U.S.’s regime
change wars; and (3) pathological hostility to Russia.
Even an
issue like Brexit is often framed around these orthodoxies, with
establishment opponents of Brexit blaming Russia—absurdly—for the
result of the Brexit referendum, and opposing Brexit because it
supposedly serves the interests of Russia.
Someone
like Corbyn, who disputes these orthodoxies with his long established
criticisms of the City of London, his refusal to join the rush to
judgment against Russia in the Skripal case, his staunch opposition
to all the regime change wars, and to the recent Syrian strike, is
guaranteed the intense loathing of the British establishment, which
manifests itself against him literally every day in defense of its
threatened interests.
This
disturbing picture does however come with a glimmer of hope.
Thursday’s
local elections in Britain once again emphasised an essential truth,
which is that the British establishment’s hostility to Corbyn and
what he stands for is clearly not universally shared by the British
public.
Both the
Conservative and Labour Parties significantly increased their votes
as compared to 2014, the year when these elections were previously
held. In the case of Labour that remains a remarkable fact given the
almost universal media hostility to Corbyn.
The
reality is that since 2015, when Corbyn was elected Labour’s leader
against the strong opposition of the leadership of his own party,
Labour has electorally consistently outperformed expectations, most
spectacularly in the general election last year. The breakdown of the
local council vote suggests that if a general election were held this
year Labour would beat the Conservatives and would emerge as
Britain’s largest party.
Needless
to say this is not how the British media is reporting the local
council election results. On the contrary, all the talk is of how the
local election results were supposedly “disappointing” for Corbyn
because he did not achieve the impossibly high targets the media had
set for him.
In light
of the establishment’s hostility to him, and how his successes
routinely get called failures, that should surprise no-one.
In
reality the local election results reinforce the view that
electorally speaking the British establishment is living on borrowed
time.
Hannibal
– otherwise known as Jeremy Corbyn – may not yet be at the gates,
but he is drawing closer.
***
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