Porter’s Pensées

I take Tony’s point, in his comment on my last post, that Eton has ‘produced’ (if that’s the word) some good Lefties as well as Borises. But that’s because they’ve rebelled against their background, as many kids do.

My take on Boris is that he’s never rebelled against Eton, or even really left the school. (Sorry, ‘College’.) In many ways he hasn’t grown up. Talk like his (‘piccaninnies’, ‘pillar-boxes’, ‘fuck business’) are part of the natural language of boys at these kinds of school. I know this from my experience at a school that tried to emulate the publics, and then at a very public-school dominated Cambridge college. It’s what passes there as ‘wit’. Some men never grow out of this; probably the ones whose ‘schooldays were the best days of their lives’. You still find it on Oxbridge High Tables, for example, among quite elderly – and, in their fields, of course, presumably brilliant – men. Others, including many of those who become Conservative MPs, still think in this kind of way privately, and in their gentlemen’s clubs, but manage to put on a more democratic and respectful veneer in public.

Boris has never been able to do this. He’s still  an Eton schoolboy – the Peter Pan of the Remove. I always imagine him in short trousers. That’s his problem; or, rather, our problem with him, when he becomes our PM.

Is it the same with independent school girls?

It’s largely Old Etonians who have got us into this ghastly situation. (I wonder what sort of History they teach them there?) So perhaps another Old Etonian should be made to get us out of it. But not Boris.

Rory Stewart, another Old Etonian, could be the man. He’s the most reasonable-sounding (relatively!) of the current bunch of Tory leadership hopefuls. Perhaps he escaped Boris’s History teacher? But of course the Conservative Party membership who are tasked with electing our new Prime Minister (what a farce!) won’t like that. So – unless Boris makes an utter fool of himself at tonight’s TV hustings, which is possible; and  enough of a fool to look foolish to the old buffers of  the Tory Party, which is less likely – it looks as though he’s is going to get it. And the rest of the world will fall about, laughing and crying. Sic transit gloria…

Eton Mess, by the way – the pud – is quite tasty. Just messy. A bit like Boris?

Many years ago I developed a theory that the reason why we in Britain didn’t guillotine our aristocrats in revolutionary times was that they played this clever game of making themselves out to be cuddly and eccentric old half-wits who were not dangerous enough to be worth executing. (I’m sure I put this in an early book, though I can’t now remember which.) But of course this was only a disguise – as we’re learning today with our present batch of recently-surfaced Old Etonians. OK, so these are not echt  aristocrats; but they’ve taken on all the characteristics of the old PG Wodehouse class, in order to lead the rest of us into a sense of false security. Who would believe that such a teddy-bear as Boris, or the Beano’s Lord Snooty-Rees-Mogg, could ever be dangerous? That’s what we were supposed to think. Cunning, these aristos.

For those aware of the plots against Harold Wilson and his governments in the 1960s – brilliantly chronicled in Ramsay and Dorrill’s Smear! (1992) and much more briefly in my Plots and Paranoia (1989) – it will come as no surprise that foreign governments are at least contemplating interfering in the British political process today in order to prevent Corbyn’s coming to power after the next election. In the ’60s the villain was mainly apartheid South Africa. Now it’s Israel – whose machinations are proven – indeed videotaped – here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-plotted-against-mps-set-up-political-groups-labour; and, secondly, Trump’s America, apparently in defence of Israel: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-pledges-not-to-wait-for-britains-elections-to-push-back-against-corbyn-and-anti-semitism/2019/06/07/dfeaa180-9c27-4495-9322-3d16b7d1541a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.207bd5f138d9.  For its part the USA of course has a long history of interfering in and subverting other countries’ elections, mainly in its own (supposed) interests. (As also, to be fair, has Britain.) Which is another reason why we should not be too surprised.

It’s this, I believe, that largely accounts for the ‘anti-Semitic’ smears against Corbyn and the Labour Party that have been surfacing – and then re-surfacing – in recent months, and about which I’ve blogged before: e.g.  https://bernardjporter.com/2018/08/01/6808/. None of this is rooted in any genuine evidence of significant anti-Semitism, but rather in Corbyn’s support for the Palestinian cause; which of course isn’t incompatible with support for Israel, but is  implicitly critical of the current Israeli government’s – and especially Netanyahu’s – typically imperialistic policies of apartheid, violence and colonial settlement. On the Israeli Right this makes no difference. Anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel are, or indicate, the same thing.

And mud sticks. You can see this in the speeches of many of the current claimants to the leadership of the Conservative party, most of whom can’t resist a dig at Corbyn and Labour on these grounds. In any future election they’re clearly going to play this card for all it’s worth. Some of this mud is even being slung by the ‘Jewish Labour Movement’, which goes back to 1903; possibly – in their case – as a ruse to get rid of the too radical Corbyn, or else out of a genuine concern for Jewish lives in Britain that the Israeli ‘lobby’ has stirred up. Not, note, the ‘Jewish’  lobby, which is a misnomer: partly because the JLM certainly doesn’t represent all Jews.

Indeed, it’s in order to counter claims that it does, that a rival organisation has recently been set up within the Labour Party called ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’. (See https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk.) I’ve just joined it as an ‘Associate’ member. (To be a full member you need to be a Jew.)

In connection with which, it has been heartening recently to read the contributions from many British Jews in response to the ‘anti-Semitic’ slur. Here are two; the first by the leading academic authority on the history of the Jews in Britain; the second (if you can get it up) from one of Corbyn’s Jewish constituents.

1. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/05/is-jeremy-corbyn-really-anti-semitic/
2.  https://secure-web.cisco.com/1PVO4aGYSrBkY0cymdIyNiK7BZUtaeoN9qz3khEuzjG2gbncIt2Rclmg3NhKC7fdwaKhdKxa1A5oeJ4M4Ahz1U7zCT4TeJII7OkbMNCQxO9gs9Jg0PDefymgjrhXtrEGrj8WXkv9M5kdarAp8FH3BpMqzzo_x1bL-2Q96dAzWXwDOx4Ud2Qzg9DozJs0BpGQ5lHiy430QOswlNQYM-YOEChR02T7fzxNpEWUfmi6LrATGmjN5YSd2ZNsMLFlBL4j3/https%3A%2F%2Fskwawkbox.org%2F2019%2F06%2F11%2Fvideo-councillor-and-grandma-on-being-jewish-in-labour-last-couple-of-years-have-been-best-for-many-many-years%2F.

But who will credit them, if their prejudices and political interests are better served by smears?

The case for ‘Remain’ is, in my opinion, unanswerable. The Left-wing argument against it, that it will free us from European neo-Liberalism and enable us to establish ‘Socialism in One Country’, disregards a more isolated Britain’s vulnerability to the demands of neo-Liberal imperialism emanating from the USA: chlorinated chicken, the NHS up for grabs, and all that. The 2016 referendum that was deemed to have established Brexit as the ‘will of the people’ is well-known to have been corruptly manipulated, and unlikely to reflect the ‘will of the people’ now. Even if the Brexit case could be stood up on its merits, which it can’t be, still the behaviour, characters and hidden agendas of those who have been leading the campaign for it, including most of the present candidates for the Conservative Party leadership, together with the occasional thuggery and incipient fascism of some of their stupid – or grossly misled – supporters, should have shaken any half-rational electorate out of it by now. And if those same electors had any regard for Britain’s prestige abroad, which as self-styled ‘patriots’ they profess to do, statements like that recently presented to the Foreign Office by one of its retiring ambassadors – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/12/brexit-shambles-has-ruined-uk-reputation-says-senior-diplomat, confirming, as it happens, my own experiences abroad, often retailed here – should have raised major concerns.

There can be little doubt that Brexit will be a deeply wounding and humiliating disaster for Britain. Let’s not mince words: it is barking mad. And yet two of the candidates for the Tory leadership threatened this week to prorogue Parliament, no less, in order to force a ‘No Deal’ exit – the most extreme form of Brexit – through by ministerial dictat. Surely a British Parliamentary democracy won’t stand for that? It gets madder every day.

God, I wish we could get out of it, and return to the not  terribly onerous relationship – has anybody been able to give examples of how exactly the EU has handicapped us? – that we had with our European friends before. Maybe we still can. Another mass demonstration is being planned in London for October 12 to urge the government to row back. I’ll try to be there. I feel that strongly about being European.

But…. oh dear. There remains that dreadful Referendum; and the massive distrust of authority in the country which it both reflected, and will be only confirmed and boosted, maybe dangerously, if the Government is seen to ‘go back on its word’ and flout ‘the people’s will’. For a democrat that must count for something, if not as much as is claimed for it. Even putting aside the chicanery and corruption, the Referendum result certainly didn’t give the government a mandate for a ‘no deal’ Brexit, but rather the reverse: voters were repeatedly assured that it would be the easiest thing in the world to get a deal with the remaining EU which would be as favourable as the arrangement we have now within the EU; to ‘have our cake and eat it’, as Boris Johnson put it during the campaign. But by the same token it didn’t – unfortunately – give any mandate for our remaining, as nor do any of the public opinion polls that have been taken more recently. (The original referendum result was close, with just 2-3% in it; polls suggest that any re-run would likely reverse that, but by no larger margin.) So Britain is still deeply divided on the issue. All of which should – I would claim – be an argument for compromise.

A reasonable compromise would be the one that Corbyn tried to urge on Theresa May, but which she flatly rejected: Britain’s leaving the political union but remaining in the European Common Trading Area, and so still subject to EU commercial rules, including free movement; otherwise known as the ‘Norway Option’, or something like it. If the extreme Leavers can’t swallow this, they should be reminded of the narrowness of their victory in 2016, and the basis on which it was secured. Leave voters would probably accept it, as having essentially respected their ‘will’. Remainers like me would be deeply disappointed, but then, as democrats, we should be willing to go along with it; both on democratic principle, and in order to forestall years more bickering and bad feeling over this issue, and even the possibility of civil war (of sorts).

That’s why, although I support the Remain option, I don’t blame Corbyn for not doing so more unambiguously.

I’m  at Arlanda, downing a storstark  before my flight back to a UK I scarcely now recognise, thrown into utter confusion by the stupidity – yes, stupidity – that is Brexit. I was planning to write a piece on that stupidity, until I spotted this New Statesman essay by a leading economist that says just about everything I wanted to, and much better than I could. Why waste effort on something when someone else has done it for you? Read it; it’s very good.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2019/01/why-uk-cannot-see-brexit-utterly-utterly-stupid?fbclid=IwAR03u7yoF4sinCLBxsOciLXnl47IraP8AnVqotPeP9ir7oAd98GRMnNZs4g

He’s right about foreigners, by the way. The Swedes I now live amongst are too polite to call us Brits stupid – politesse  is part of the Swedish character – but you know that’s what they feel underneath. And sorrow, for a country and a people they’ve generally rather liked.

I’ve always felt a little bit embarrassed to be British here, mainly because of the Empire (which I feel they don’t really understand); but now I feel nationally mortified, even, by being associated with the likes of Bojo, Govey, Moggy and Farage. My Swedish friends are very kind. ‘It’s OK, Bernard. We know it’s not your fault. Here, have an aquavit.’ Still, are the Brexiteers fully aware of the damage they’ve done to Britain’s reputation in Europe? Little Englanders that they are, do they even care?

A number of our Tory politicians began as journalists, and then moved on to politics. Not all journalists are rogues, but the ones who write for the Right-wing press very often are. Boris Johnson is a key example, filing anti-EU stories from Brussels that he knew were lies. The EU’s insisting on ‘straight bananas’ was one of his. He was once sacked by his editor for one of his lies, though not this one. Michael Gove is another, and arguably even more immoral than Bojo; writing pieces attacking middle-class drug-taking at the same time as it has now been revealed he was regularly sniffing cocaine; and that in his 30s, mark you, so hardly a ‘youthful’ indiscretion. His hypocrisy has even been called out by the Daily Mail, despite his wife’s working for the wretched rag.

Is it something about journalism, at this lower end of the scale? Journalists write for effect, which it’s possible to do while being honest and accurate too, but easier if you have little regard for the truth. Both these clowns, one of whom seems likely – though not certain – to win the Tory leadership over the next few weeks, seem to speak and legislate also for effect, without any deep research, thinking or regard for honesty. They’re our equivalent of the Fox News/Trump phenomenon in the USA, and probably equally dangerous. (They’re very friendly with Trump.) Just contrast them with the transparent honesty, even naivety,  of Jeremy Corbyn; yet it’s Corbyn and his team who are vilified in the Tory Press. Look at the treatment Diane Abbott got when she was found drinking a small can of rum and soda (or something) on a train a few weeks ago; and contrast it with the sympathy accorded (in the main) to Govey for his far more serious – imprisonable, as it happens – crime. Of course, Abbott is (a) a woman and (b) black. And as a socialist she threatens all the press lords’ ill-gotten gains.

I first took against Gove when he gave evidence to the Leveson Committee on the Press, when he gave a historical account of the development of the Press in Britain which no-one there tried to counter, because they didn’t know as much about it as I do. I won’t go into details; but he mainly argued that the British press was always as bad as it is now; based on the false premise that if you can find something happening many centuries ago, it must always – that is, in all the years in between – have been thus. (If I remember rightly he went back to Roman times.) That was nonsense with regard to the nineteenth century British newspaper press before it was taken over by speculative capitalists around 1900. But Gove was so smooth and arrogant with it! It’s curious that he should be so widely regarded as an ‘intellectual’, for he has none of the sense of truth or rationality – the intelligence therefore – that true intellectuals should have. Maybe the cocaine affected his brain.

I might be able to forgive his drug crimes in the 1990s; as I can all the other Tory leadership hopefuls – eight of them so far – who have been suddenly admitting to much lesser drug offences – marijuana, etc. – and at much earlier periods of their lives, over the past few days. But the dishonesty: no.

Still, I probably shouldn’t worry. Cuddly lazy-but-funny upper-class eccentric Bojo will probably beat him to the leadership of the Conservative Party. The Tory ex-colonels, small businessmen and blue-rinse ladies who run the party in the country love a ‘card’, especially if he’s a reactionary. (And he’s just promised to reduce the higher rate of tax for them!) So he’s the one we should be worrying – nay, panicking – about.

Moral: don’t trust journalists in politics.

So I’m a Swedish citizen. It says so. Back in the good old EU again. F*ck you, Farage!

Maybe now that worried look and the bags under my eyes will disappear.

National independence, at least in modern times, is a myth – an illusion, a chimera, a lie, a Trumpism. Every country is dependent on others, including even ‘superpowers’, which depend on others being subservient to them. Imperial Britain depended on her colonies for her markets; modern America depends on the Middle East for its oil. For ‘lesser’ nations, independence is never one of the choices available to them. They must either be subservient to other, ‘greater’ powers, or bound together voluntarily in order to be able to resist their demands. That latter was the choice made by Britain when her Empire fell to pieces after the last War; which now however looks like being exchanged for the other choice – subservience to the USA – if Brexit goes through. Trump’s ludicrously gaffe-prone visit to the UK and Ireland this week makes this clear. Without a ‘free’ European market Britain will depend largely on the USA for its essential trade, which means bowing to American demands with regard to food standards, and (probably) selling off its much-prized National Health Service to American capitalist firms. Where’s the ‘independence’ in that?

No wonder Trump is so much in favour of Brexit, and so pally with our ‘hard Brexit’ politicians. Over on the other side of us, Putin also seems to be playing the Brexit card for all it’s worth, although more cleverly and subvertly. Shouldn’t that make the Brexiteers think again? Or is a status as an informal colony of the USA what they really want?

That takes me back, historically, to the turn of the twentieth century, when every clear-sighted person realised that the Empire couldn’t last for ever – Britain had just been humiliated by a bunch of rough Dutch farmers in South Africa – and that it could only be preserved by drastic means. One that was mooted was coupling up with the new emerging super-power of the twentieth century, which might be seduced into rejoining the Empire it had broken away from in 1776, but with the centre of that Empire now shifting to Washington. An odd American historian called Carol Quigley thought he perceived a great conspiracy behind this – one of the biggest and most successful of modern times – planted by the capitalist-imperialist Cecil Rhodes, by means of a secret society – the ‘Round Table’ – and scholarships given to American students to study at Oxford University to cement the ‘speclal relationship’. Bill Clinton was a ‘Rhodes Scholar’. And Trump’s favourite Brexiteers, of course, were Oxford educated. (Apart from Farage.)

QED? Of course not. I doubt whether any of our upper-class Brexiteers are aware of this. I’m sure that they’re merely misled by the superficial myth of ‘national independence’ that any imperial historian worth his salt should be able to disabuse them of. I only hope that Trump’s much publicised inanities (including that unbelievably stupid one about the Irish border) will bring them to their senses in this regard. But they may have too much invested in Brexit for that.

An excellent piece here by the redoubtable ex-diplomat Craig Murray.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/06/a-swedish-court-injects-some-sense/?fbclid=IwAR3x9OgvOukAPdQkfqYJ4933_1wD0NQ9sfLlRg8sNpj-QKAgJ6gpK5EoNWE.

It looks as though Sweden has finally come to her senses and abandoned the effort to extradite Assange on the very flimsy ‘rape’ charges laid against him (by his prosecutor, improperly) four or five years ago. (See https://bernardjporter.com/2015/01/09/julian-assange-and-the-european-arrest-warrant/, et passim.) Whoopee!

But hold your horses. The dropping of the Swedish extradition request now, of course, leaves the American  one the only one left on the table. And that’s much more serious. In Sweden he probably would have been acquitted. If not he’d get a couple of months in a comfortable Swedish prison. (I’ve visited one. It was better than some B&Bs I’ve stayed in.) But there’s much less chance of that in the USA, and far more danger of a really draconian punishment for Assange if he were found guilty: decades in one of those awful American gaols, or worse. And for what? For being a journalist and uncovering American military atrocities.

The glimpse of light in all this is that, in these circumstances, it might be difficult for the British authorities to agree to his extradition to the USA; firstly for decent, liberal reasons, and secondly because of the outcry it would – certainly should  – provoke in Britain. A ‘political’ extradition would be far less publicly acceptable than one for a sexual offence, in this ‘Me-Too’ age. A pro-American Brexit government might not demur.  (Look how the leading Brexiteers are just now cosying up to Trump.) Until that comes about, however, this will be a far hotter potato to handle than the Swedish one. The Foreign and Home Offices must be worried. I bet they wish he was out of the way.

Not that this can have anything to do with the sudden deterioration in Assange’s health since he’s been incarcerated by the English courts in Belmarsh prison, can it? Of course not. Britain doesn’t do that sort of thing, does she? – I genuinely think not; but you can see why more conspiracy-minded folk will be suspicious. In any event there’s trouble afoot. Watch this space.