When I left Britain after over a decade living there (to were I had moved from almost a decade in The Netherland, so that was the reference against which I measured Britain), having been there for the 2008 Crash and all the way until after the Leave Referendum and just before the actual Brexit, I was thoroughly convinced that the country in Europe (excluding Russia, which already is) most likely to turn Fascist was Britain.
If you constrast it with that of a country with Proportional Vote, British “Democracy” is already thoroughly subverted, from the voting system itself being First Past The Post (thus the current government has more than 50% of members of Parliament only a little above 30% of votes) and unelected head of state (who has actual power to block laws) and parliamentary second chamber, to the entire Press being either in the hands of billionaires or controlled by boards of people with Royal Titles who went to very expensive, very exclusive schools (curiously called “public schools” in Britain even though only the rich and the upper middle class can afford them) and the Judiciary being entirelly in the hands of the exact same slice of society (not the billionaires, the “lords”, “sirs” and public school educated types).
All Pillars of Democracy have long been subverted in Britain and as things started getting worse for the majority of people in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash and the way to local powers decide to handle it (save the Bankers and the Asset Owners, make the rest pay for it with Austerity), the entire system at all levels moved more and more to scapegoating outsiders (the EU, immigrants and later when the consequences of Brexit were felt, the blame for it was “Russia interference” as if almost all of that shit hadn’t been mainly pushed by local people such as billionaires and their newspapers) thus redirecting the righteous anger of the rest of society away from the local power elites who did the deeds and are the ones mainly at fault.
Meanwhile at the same time there was the ever tighter surveillance net (that the Snowden Revelations exposed to a large extent, but are other scandals less known outside such as for example how coppers infiltrated Ecologist groups and left behind pregnant women whose children never knew their fathers), which has only been made ever more extreme ever more openly, hence the recent “age verification” legislation".
So yeah, the continuation of the scapegoating trend, the ever more intrusive surveillance and the ever more authoritarian use of force against peaceful civil society groups, are all the totally natural continuation of what was already happenning under the exact same machinery already in place more than a decade ago (whose last parts were probably put in place back when Thatcher approved Murdoch’s consolidation of the Press, destroyed traditional Unions, started the Economy down the path of dominance by Finance and other Rent-seeking activities and used extreme Force against the Miners) - the machine just kept chugging along towards its natural destination (there was a hickup when Corby was elected leader of the Labour Party, but all that was dealt with by, with the support of Israeli backed Jewish Groups, slandering him relentlessly in the ENTIRE PRESS - thus neatly showing just how hard rightwing and propagandistic all if it is, including the BBC and The Guardian - as an anti-semite, which by the way goes a long way to explain why the guy who got the leadership of that party after that and is now Prime Minister, is extremely pro-Israel) and that destination are the levels of Propaganda, Surveillance, Civil Society supression by Force behind “It’s the Law” excuses and control of the Judiciary that you see in Fascist Dictatorships.
At most the British version of Fascism is just going to differ in being posher (same steel fist, but covered with a satin glove - i.e. the abuse of Force disguised more with “it’s the Law”, the Press control with “it’s the Free Market”, the Civil Society Surveillance portrayed as “to protect the children”) than the “loudmouth rightwing populist” version of it of the likes of Mussolini or Trump.
This is a great writeup I have to say, thanks for that and agreed on all parts tbh.
The word ‘democracy’ is far broader than most people assume it is as it encompasses like 300 different ‘forms of government’ at the very least. Having said that, the concept of democracy as it is expressed in the UK is deeply flawed as you laid out. Any real ‘resistance’ is met with incredible repression and violence. This system is broken to the point that it can not be repaired. It must be replaced entirely. But that’s the socialist in me, though when you lay out the fundemental rot like you did it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion.
Well, back in the 50s and 60s when a lot of working class people came back from WWII with military training, the elites did relax their choke-hold on power and the system did work much more as a Democracy, which is why things like Social Security, the National Health Service and most Public Housing in Britain date back to that era, but most of it has been walked back since and the present day Labour Party is a perfect example of how the era of electable politicians who actually represent most people is over.
Even with the growth of the Greenparty (disclamer: I was a member of that Party for a while when I lived in Britain) who are a mix of Ecologist and Social-Democrat (after all, consumer society and unfettered capitalism are incompatible with Ecology), the entire voting system is set-up to stop them getting a parliamentary representation matching their fraction of the vote (by quite a lot, even - for most of its life the party generally got 5% of the votes which that system translated to only 0.3% of parliamentary seats), the entire Press is set up to push them back (by relentlessly slandering their leaderes, the very opposite of what they do to the leaders of the far-right such as Reform UK) and there’s a long tradition of the police being caught having Ecologist movements and even elected Greenparty members under surveillance.
So yeah, the system will collapse due to its own weight (there’s only so far that debt-fueled rent-seeking can go before it collapses if the Homeland doesn’t have a lot of external territories - i.e. and Empire - to pillage to make up for producing less than it consumes) long before the power and money elites there ever concede the slightest drop of power or accept the tiniest slowing in the growth of their wealth - there is no prospect of the condition of post-War Britain with a strong united Working Class repeating.
One doesn’t even need to be a Socialist to see how Britain, even by Capitalist criteria, is neither stable nor politically or socially capable of resolving its instability in a fair way that minimizes pain for the many, so the likely futures are either collapse or increasing Authoritarianism with the country eventually morphing into a Fascist Dictatorship and, given that the elites would lose a lot in the former and much less in the latter, plus have a long tradition of belief in their inherent superiority and actually liking Fascism (there are pictures of back before Hitler invaded Germany, were the King was teaching his niece - Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth - to do a NAZI salute) plus last but not least the actual trend at many levels, from Press independence to Surveillance and political repression, the latter seems much more likely than the former.
When I left Britain after over a decade living there (to were I had moved from almost a decade in The Netherland, so that was the reference against which I measured Britain), having been there for the 2008 Crash and all the way until after the Leave Referendum and just before the actual Brexit, I was thoroughly convinced that the country in Europe (excluding Russia, which already is) most likely to turn Fascist was Britain.
If you constrast it with that of a country with Proportional Vote, British “Democracy” is already thoroughly subverted, from the voting system itself being First Past The Post (thus the current government has more than 50% of members of Parliament only a little above 30% of votes) and unelected head of state (who has actual power to block laws) and parliamentary second chamber, to the entire Press being either in the hands of billionaires or controlled by boards of people with Royal Titles who went to very expensive, very exclusive schools (curiously called “public schools” in Britain even though only the rich and the upper middle class can afford them) and the Judiciary being entirelly in the hands of the exact same slice of society (not the billionaires, the “lords”, “sirs” and public school educated types).
All Pillars of Democracy have long been subverted in Britain and as things started getting worse for the majority of people in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash and the way to local powers decide to handle it (save the Bankers and the Asset Owners, make the rest pay for it with Austerity), the entire system at all levels moved more and more to scapegoating outsiders (the EU, immigrants and later when the consequences of Brexit were felt, the blame for it was “Russia interference” as if almost all of that shit hadn’t been mainly pushed by local people such as billionaires and their newspapers) thus redirecting the righteous anger of the rest of society away from the local power elites who did the deeds and are the ones mainly at fault.
Meanwhile at the same time there was the ever tighter surveillance net (that the Snowden Revelations exposed to a large extent, but are other scandals less known outside such as for example how coppers infiltrated Ecologist groups and left behind pregnant women whose children never knew their fathers), which has only been made ever more extreme ever more openly, hence the recent “age verification” legislation".
So yeah, the continuation of the scapegoating trend, the ever more intrusive surveillance and the ever more authoritarian use of force against peaceful civil society groups, are all the totally natural continuation of what was already happenning under the exact same machinery already in place more than a decade ago (whose last parts were probably put in place back when Thatcher approved Murdoch’s consolidation of the Press, destroyed traditional Unions, started the Economy down the path of dominance by Finance and other Rent-seeking activities and used extreme Force against the Miners) - the machine just kept chugging along towards its natural destination (there was a hickup when Corby was elected leader of the Labour Party, but all that was dealt with by, with the support of Israeli backed Jewish Groups, slandering him relentlessly in the ENTIRE PRESS - thus neatly showing just how hard rightwing and propagandistic all if it is, including the BBC and The Guardian - as an anti-semite, which by the way goes a long way to explain why the guy who got the leadership of that party after that and is now Prime Minister, is extremely pro-Israel) and that destination are the levels of Propaganda, Surveillance, Civil Society supression by Force behind “It’s the Law” excuses and control of the Judiciary that you see in Fascist Dictatorships.
At most the British version of Fascism is just going to differ in being posher (same steel fist, but covered with a satin glove - i.e. the abuse of Force disguised more with “it’s the Law”, the Press control with “it’s the Free Market”, the Civil Society Surveillance portrayed as “to protect the children”) than the “loudmouth rightwing populist” version of it of the likes of Mussolini or Trump.
This is a great writeup I have to say, thanks for that and agreed on all parts tbh.
The word ‘democracy’ is far broader than most people assume it is as it encompasses like 300 different ‘forms of government’ at the very least. Having said that, the concept of democracy as it is expressed in the UK is deeply flawed as you laid out. Any real ‘resistance’ is met with incredible repression and violence. This system is broken to the point that it can not be repaired. It must be replaced entirely. But that’s the socialist in me, though when you lay out the fundemental rot like you did it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion.
Well, back in the 50s and 60s when a lot of working class people came back from WWII with military training, the elites did relax their choke-hold on power and the system did work much more as a Democracy, which is why things like Social Security, the National Health Service and most Public Housing in Britain date back to that era, but most of it has been walked back since and the present day Labour Party is a perfect example of how the era of electable politicians who actually represent most people is over.
Even with the growth of the Greenparty (disclamer: I was a member of that Party for a while when I lived in Britain) who are a mix of Ecologist and Social-Democrat (after all, consumer society and unfettered capitalism are incompatible with Ecology), the entire voting system is set-up to stop them getting a parliamentary representation matching their fraction of the vote (by quite a lot, even - for most of its life the party generally got 5% of the votes which that system translated to only 0.3% of parliamentary seats), the entire Press is set up to push them back (by relentlessly slandering their leaderes, the very opposite of what they do to the leaders of the far-right such as Reform UK) and there’s a long tradition of the police being caught having Ecologist movements and even elected Greenparty members under surveillance.
So yeah, the system will collapse due to its own weight (there’s only so far that debt-fueled rent-seeking can go before it collapses if the Homeland doesn’t have a lot of external territories - i.e. and Empire - to pillage to make up for producing less than it consumes) long before the power and money elites there ever concede the slightest drop of power or accept the tiniest slowing in the growth of their wealth - there is no prospect of the condition of post-War Britain with a strong united Working Class repeating.
One doesn’t even need to be a Socialist to see how Britain, even by Capitalist criteria, is neither stable nor politically or socially capable of resolving its instability in a fair way that minimizes pain for the many, so the likely futures are either collapse or increasing Authoritarianism with the country eventually morphing into a Fascist Dictatorship and, given that the elites would lose a lot in the former and much less in the latter, plus have a long tradition of belief in their inherent superiority and actually liking Fascism (there are pictures of back before Hitler invaded Germany, were the King was teaching his niece - Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth - to do a NAZI salute) plus last but not least the actual trend at many levels, from Press independence to Surveillance and political repression, the latter seems much more likely than the former.
You can’t vote them away. That’s it really.