Porter’s Pensées

So, the results are in (the Swedish election), and the sky hasn’t fallen in. Sverigedemokraterna are up on last time, but not by as much as widely predicted a couple of months ago; and so are the Vänster (Left). The SDs are the third largest party, not the first or second, as was also predicted. The centre ‘Establishment’ parties have suffered the most. This repeats a pattern seen all over the ‘Western’ world, which means that it’s part of a global, not a narrowly Swedish trend. (You’ll know what I attribute it to: late-stage capitalism. Not immigration. That’s just a scapegoat.) So the Swedes shouldn’t blame (or congratulate) themselves. After all, 83% of voters rejected the SDs. For the moment, the last domino (see my previous post) still stands.

Which is not to say that we Lefties can relax. The ‘global trend’ is producing a European and USA-wide politics which is rejecting the old conventional Middle, and resorting to more radical ways. One of the proffered solutions to this, certainly in Britain, is to seek to revive the Middle, by ‘detoxifying’ both the Left and the Right (Corbyn and Johnson) so that they can come together; re-inventing the centrist Liberal Democrats, or even forming a brand-new party – headed by a non-politician, perhaps. There’s much Westminster chatter along these lines. A more likely alternative is that one of the ‘extremist’ parties, through popular persuasion, garners enough supporters and voters to see the other extreme, and the Centre, off. In that event they might come to be seen as not so extreme. (Corbyn, after all, is only trying to revive the British national post-war consensus. He wouldn’t have been seen as ‘extreme’ then. Could the same be said of Bernie – simply going back to the ‘New Deal’?) That’s what one really excellent piece by Professor Chantal Mouffe in today’s Guardian seems to be suggesting: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/populists-rise-progressives-radical-right. The Labour Party under Corbyn has begun this process, though it still has a battle on its hands against unregenerate Blairites, the billionaire-owned Press, and the subvert efforts of the Israeli state.

In Sweden the next stage is the formation of a working government, out of five or six parties none of which can form a natural coalition to make a majority. But Sweden has worked through this sort of problem before. Its present government, after all, is a minority coalition, which has worked pretty well. I’m sure it can do it again. I hope Löfven stays on as PM. He seems a good bloke, and is still head of the largest party. We’ll see in the next few weeks.

Today is the day of the Swedish general election. Usually Swedish elections pass pretty unnoticed in the British press, but this one is arousing unprecedented interest there due to the rise of the extreme right-wing, anti-immigration, Nazi-origin Sweden Democrat party (Sverigedemokraterna, or SD), currently standing at around 20% in the polls.

The internet is on fire with dire warnings. One contributor to a ‘British Expats in Sweden’ site I follow has just posted this:

I am making contingency plans. Everything goes on a pallet at work, then I just up and leave with the same suitcase, laptop and the clothes I stood up in back in December 2013. Once back in England, I shall pursue every politician until every last Scandinavian has been ejected from the UK. It’s my experience that Swedes (and I am generalising) when they are angry about something are more dangerous than 1930’s Germans. I would not put anything past them. Take some advice from Q from James Bond … “Always have an escape plan”.

Or is that a joke? – On the other hand there are those mocking the ‘scaremongers’. Don’t worry, they say, Sweden is a civilized democracy; you’ll be OK.

Some of you seem to be describing Sweden as some Middle-Eastern totalitarian society if the SDs are to gain power. Well, Sweden is NOT that. and regardless of the outcome, Brits are and always will be welcome in Sweden. So please people, calm down, wind in those necks and let Sweden do what it needs to do.

There are two things that need to be said about that.  Firstly, the writer – on the same Facebook thread – seems to be only concerned with his own situation as a foreigner there, rather than with the repercussions of an SD success on the Swedes. Isn’t that a bit self-centred? Imagine someone saying that to a Brit about Germany in the 1930s: ‘don’t worry, you’ll be alright.’ – Secondly: he’s very wrong about Sweden being fundamentally different from other liberal countries in this regard. Many of the nations that fell to fascism in the 1930s had been comparatively liberal before then. As was the USA before Trump; or, if you like, Britain before UKIP. Liberal and democratic regimes can easily flip. Those of us who know our pre-War history can spot the parallels between then and now. Always keeping a suitcase packed may be a tad alarmist; but ignoring the warning signs is the height of irresponsibility.

It’s not only the Sweden Democrats who want to destroy Swedish liberalism. Right-wing Americans, of course, always have. Sweden undermines their whole premise of government: that it’s only the unfettered free market, harsh punishment and the Christian religion that make a country prosperous and virtuous. Sweden’s general contentment despite having none of these advantages is difficult for them to swallow. For years American Rightists have been trying to persuade their compatriots that despite appearances Sweden is really a very sick and tyrannical place, as evidenced in its Nordic Noir detective novels (mostly, incidentally, written by socialists, now dead, who would turn in their graves if they knew their work was being taken in this way); illustrated in several of Donald Trump’s public and libellous outbursts about Sweden – for example https://bernardjporter.com/2017/02/24/rinkeby/; and analysed in a recent New York Times op-ed (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/opinion/how-the-far-right-conquered-sweden.html), and in several books, one of which – Kajsa Norman’s Sweden’s Dark Soul. The Unravelling of a Utopia, due out at the end of next month – has just fallen through my letter-box for me to review. In Sweden some are starting to lay the blame for all this hostile propaganda on the activities of Russian hackers and trolls (are those the right words?) on the internet – with one of Russia’s foreign policy aims, of course, being to undermine democracy wherever it’s found. The Social Democratic middle way – which describes Corbyn’s position in Britain too – is coming under enormous threat from every direction. Sweden’s collapse, as the last liberal domino standing (I thank John Field for that metaphor), would be the greatest prize.

Or perhaps Sweden’s Dark Soul will persuade me otherwise. I haven’t read it yet. In the meantime, I’m posting this now in order to get it out before the results of the Swedish election are announced in a few hours. They may give us a clue.

A lot of Brits are now turning against Brexit, in the light of recent revelations about the ‘dirty tricks’ employed by the Leave camp during the Referendum, the inclarity of the choice that was being offered to us by the Brexiteers then, and the bleaker future now being authoritatively predicted for us for when the separation is finally achieved. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to grant us a ‘rethink’ – a new vote on the actual terms of the eventual Brexit treaty – before the die is finally cast.

The main obstacle to this seems to be the argument of finality  that the Brexit side is currently plugging: that we’ve made our decision, which expressed the ‘will of the people’, finally, it is implied; and which to seek to overturn – however much the ‘will of the people’ may have changed in the meantime – would be an ‘undemocratic’ endeavour. That’s the line that Ukippers and the rabid Right-wing press are pushing right now, in order to prevent a second vote; and would doubtless continue to argue if a second vote went against them. The political passions that have been aroused, or more likely brought to the surface (see https://bernardjporter.com/2016/06/16/is-it-really-about-the-eu/), by this gruesome contest augur an uncomfortable future for the country, whatever the eventual outcome; even amounting, in some estimations, to virtual – though hopefully relatively bloodless – civil war.

That’s the reason why so many ‘Remainers’ are reluctant to argue for a re-run: fear of the attacks that would be launched on them by the press barons and others on the Right – ‘treason’ would be the least of the former’s charges – stifling rational debate and appealing to the very real and in many ways justified resentment of the poor and neglected – the ever-feared ‘great unwashed’ – against ‘the Establishment’.

One solution to this problem might be if one or more of the pro-Brexit Establishment reneged. This is why I was struck and mildly encouraged by this recent report in a London paper: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/boris-johnson-deeply-regrets-going-down-brexit-route-close-sources%EF%BB%BF-reveal/07/09/. It looks very much like tittle-tattle, and so not to be trusted; but if Boris is  having a re-think, and trying to extricate himself from the Brexit morass, wouldn’t it be good if he came out publicly as having changed his mind on the whole issue? His career hasn’t been much damaged by volte-faces  in the past. It might even serve his prime ministerial ambitions, to be seen as a wise leader. (His hero Churchill was inconsistent, too.) It could be presented to him as the patriotic  thing to do. And it would surely be more likely to bring over a lot of present Leavers to the Remain side, bearing in mind the influence he seems to have had on them during the (first) referendum, than anything the Establishment Remainers could do. That might be Remain’s only hope.

So the Labour NEC have given in over ‘anti-semitism’, and agreed to accept all the ‘examples’ appended to the IHRA definition of anti-semitism, as well as the definition itself (which they had already accepted two years ago). I can see why they did it – to get the Jewish community, or what is claimed to be the Jewish community – off their backs. But I still wish they hadn’t felt they needed to. The examples were offered not as parts of the definition itself, but as attitudes which might turn into or be hiding anti-semitism, and for discussion only. Some of them really are problematical. Here are three:

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Surely all these positions are at least arguable; and are argued even by some Jews. I’ve offered the opinion myself, only the other day, that Israel is self-evidently a religio-racist state; and the observation that Netanyahu’s rhetoric echoes Hitler’s in some regards (see https://bernardjporter.com/2018/09/03/anti-semantics/). As for the first of these ‘examples’: that seems to me to be amply borne out by the conduct of Margaret Hodge and a few other Jewish Labour MPs recently, in allowing their views about Israel to endanger the election of a Labour government in Britain, in what Labour MPs like Hodge ought surely to regard as the highest ‘national interest’ right now. Do these view now make me  anti-semitic, or disqualify me from membership of the Labour Party?

OK, so the NEC had to do it. But this whole affair – and the virulence and dishonesty of the ‘Jewish’ campaign against Corbyn – surely can’t have made Labour members more supportive of British Jews or even of Israel than 99% of them were before. It certainly hasn’t had this effect on me.

“The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.” That’s Binjamin Netanyahu, tweeting on 29 August. See https://twitter.com/IsraeliPM/status/1034849460344573952; which also carries the context. (It’s the perceived threat from Iran.)

Context is important. But several commentators have noticed the striking similarity between those words and some of Hitler’s in the 1930s. (They are, of course, pure ‘Social Darwinism’.) Does this make those critics ‘anti-semitic’ under the terms of the definition being urged on Labour today by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)? One of the ‘examples’ appended to that definition – not included in the definition itself, which Corbyn accepts in its entirety – warns against parallels being drawn between present-day Israel and Nazi Germany; which the IHRA claims might  indicate anti-semitism – but, it is implied, not necessarily. (Corbyn’s critics don’t appear to have noticed this.) Wouldn’t forbidding this comparison cut off a whole area of free and useful discussion? Semantics is often regarded as an area for nit-picking academics only; but here it really could be vital.

Of course Netanyahu – and Hitler – could be right… But that doesn’t invalidate the comparison.

We are now asked to at least try to understand  the concerns of many British Jews’ – hopefully not a majority – about Jeremy Corbyn. But we already know the reason. It’s not really because they feel he’s an ‘existential’ threat to them – that is, to their very lives in Britain. By comparing Corbyn to the notorious 1960s racist Enoch Powell, or even to Hitler, critics like Lord Sacks and Margaret Hodge are making grotesque fools of themselves. That Corbyn is a racist of any kind is a ludicrous charge, which an intelligent people – and aren’t the Jews stereotypically supposed to be that? – should be able to see through easily.

In fact Jewish concerns have little at all to do with the situation of Jewry in Britain. Britain has nearly always been, and still is, one of the least anti-Semitic, and therefore safest, countries in the world for Jews to live and work in. Labour has generally gone along with this. That’s not what really worries Corbyn’s critics. Insofar as their concerns are about Jewry at all, and not merely a cynical excuse for Labour ‘moderates’ and the Right-wing press to get at him, it’s Corbyn’s criticisms of radical Zionism, which is basically a political  ideology, although arguably founded on racism (a ‘National Home for the Jews‘), that are at issue; together with his hostility to the current extreme Right-wing government of Israel; and his support for the Palestinian people who were originally dispossessed of their lands to make way for the state of Israel, are undergoing further dispossessions at the present time (the new ‘settlements’ on the West Bank), and are being systematically oppressed by the Israeli authorities in a number of ways, even in the lands – like Gaza and the West Bank – they are presently allowed to eke out a miserable existence on.

The over-the-top extremity of the attacks on Labour ‘antisemitism’ must surely backfire on Corbyn’s critics eventually, to the benefit of the Labour cause. Let’s hope it doesn’t backfire on the Jewish community as well, actually stirring up the antisemitism it is supposed to be directed against. (See https://bernardjporter.com/2018/08/01/6808/.) But it may also have another positive effect. Before it came up few people in Britain outside the Jewish community knew much about Israel, its history, its activities on its borders, and its subvert interference in British politics. (On that, see https://bernardjporter.com/2018/08/10/the-plot-revealed/.) Now they know a little more, at least; and also about the Palestinian cause which Corbyn has championed so consistently. That could redound to his credit, and to the discredit of those who are seeking to undermine him. It could be a dangerous game they’re playing.

Summer is quite short in Sweden. (About six weeks; though Kajsa insists seven weeks at least.) But you know when it has come to an end when all the repeats of Midsomer Murders on Swedish TV suddenly stop. I’m convinced that the BBC makes MM mainly for the Swedish market. It gives stay-at-home Swedes their idea of what modern England is like.

In that connexion, we (English) used to complain that MM was too ‘white’ (although that’s how English villages probably still are – blacks are urban), and full of silly women, like the original Barnaby’s wife Joyce. Now that’s changed a bit. You occasionally see a darker skin or two. The new Barnaby’s wife is a professional woman (a teacher). And some of the murderers, even, turn out to be women. Is that a nod in the direction of gender equality?

CORRECTION (2 Sept). There was a MM  on one of the obscurer channels last night;  the old series, featuring a (literally) bloody battle between two church choirs. How much more English can you get? All-white, Joyce as sweet and vulnerable as ever. Perhaps Channel 8 don’t know the summer is over?

I’ve posted about our (British) voting system before: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/02/29/first-past-the-post/. Here’s an interesting piece put out by STV, showing how the British and Swedish parliaments would look under each other’s systems. It’s in Swedish, but I’m sure you’ll cope.

https://www.svt.se/special/valsimulatorn-uk/

Of course, this doesn’t take on board the likelihood that British voters would vote in different ways if they had proportional representation. There would be fewer ‘wasted votes’, for example. And it would be easier to form new parties. – Incidentally, one of the main arguments in favour of our British (and US) ‘first past the post’ system, I remember, used to be that it produced more stable governments. That doesn’t seem to cut much ice today.

Tomorrow week we have our general election here in Sweden. It looks as if it will be close. We’ll see how it works out. My first impression of the electioneering on TV is that it’s far more polite and cerebral than in Britain. Also, of course duller, for those who would like their elections to draw blood. The election posters are dire – none of those ‘evil eyes’, or queues of Turks. Just a face and a milky-mild slogan. That’s good Swedish manners for you.

This is the best response to a Brexiteer I’ve read for a while. Author unknown, but copied by one Fiona Niedermayer and posted on Facebook.

“A private conversation with a brexiloon friend:

Keith [Anon.] – you said this:-

“John, the best you can look forward to is a Transition Period where not only can you mourn the loss of your beloved EUSSR, you can overcome your fear of change.
The worst you can look forward to is paying your taxes for the £350m/week, our laws being dictated by foreign eurocrats, no control of our borders/immigration, maybe the Euro, our military following the orders of foreign Eurocrats, buying OUR fish off Spanish trawlers, oh no I got that wrong, that is the best for you isn’t it. ”

Keith mate, you do seem determined to display your spectacular ignorance on what the European Union is – and how it works. The regurgitation of discredited slogans seems to be all you have – which is quite sad.

1). Beloved EUSSR..?
The only groups with connections to Russia are UKIP and Trump. How does it feel for you to be supporting a pathetically small UK political movement with connections to – and funding from Russia..? Does that make you a patriot..?
EUSSR my arse..!

2). “Paying your taxes for 350m/week”.
I happily pay my six quid a week for all the benefits that membership of the world’s richest and most powerful free trade area give me. The world’s premier free trade area, literally a footstep away. If you can’t afford the cost of a couple of pints just send me your bank details and I’ll cover it for you with a Standing Order.
Paying taxes for 350m/week my arse..!

3). “Laws dictated by foreign eurocrats”.
No laws are dictated by foreign Eurocrats Keith. We’ve had this conversation before haven’t we. Remember..? Remember when you thought you’d played a trump card by mentioning an obscure EU aviation safety directive which limited your overtime and/or earning power..? It was a safety directive Keith – for civil aviation safety. Remember when I pointed out which EU country had proposed this legislation..? That was funny wasn’t it..? The U.K. government was fully in support of this aviation SAFETY directive but you claimed it had been forced on us by the unelected bureaucrats of the unelected EUSSR. Your next card was the “Tampon Tax”. That was a cracker wasn’t it..? A tax on women’s sanitary products that is only imposed now because it was in force in the UK at the point we joined the EU. For the same reason, there is no Tampon Tax in Ireland because they never had it before they joined. Then you played your killer card:- the Working Time Directive. You actually claimed this WTO prevented anyone from working more than 48 hours a week. You really did think that didn’t you..? When I explained that the WTO prevented you from being FORCED to work more than 48 hours a week and proved it, you did astonishingly admit your error. Anyway mate – I see your point. Even though we sit at the top table with France and Germany AND we actually help to draught EU legislation AND we don’t have to adopt any laws if our sovereign parliament reject them, I suppose it’s fair to say that our laws are forced upon us by the unelected Eurocrats of the EUSSR.
Laws dictated by foreign eurocrats my arse..!

4). “No control of our border/immigration”.
That’s quite laughable isn’t it..? I came back from Lanzarote last week. I was in the queue for border control at Gatwick for almost an hour. Had my iris’s scanned and my digital passport checked before I was let in – and I’m White Caucasian Keith..! – although I was sporting a bit of a suntan. I also went to northern France for a few days last month. Had to show passports twice on the way out and twice again on the way back. I’m not even going to bother telling you about the EU regulation that states any EU citizen in the UK for more than 3 months can be told to prove they have the financial means to support themselves AND have private health insurance. It’s an EU law that applies to all 28 countries and is applied in almost all of them. Is the fact that our government don’t bother enforcing this rule the fault of the UK or the EU..?
No control of borders/immigration my arse..!

5).”Maybe the Euro”.
When the Euro was launched we could have joined at more that 1.70 Euro to the Pound. Now the exchange rate is 1.10 Euro to the Pound (if you’re lucky) and falling fast. Who are the mugs..?
Maybe the Euro my arse..!

6). “Our military following the orders of foreign Eurocrats”.
There has NEVER been an official EU proposal to form a EU army. What was proposed was a European Defence Force, with all member countries cooperating in the event of en external threat. This is a bad thing why..? Although I suppose if your allegiances are with Russia you’d be against it.
Our military following the orders of foreign Eurocrats my arse..!

7). “Buying OUR fish off Spanish trawlers”.
The UK is allocated about 30% of the EU’s total catch even though it has only 13% of the total sea area. The UK exports 45% of its catch. 80% of that quantity goes to EU countries. For example 90% of fish landed in Ramsgate are sold in the Boulogne Fish Market – for 15% more in value than they would get at home. When you visit North East Scotland you see vast European registered refrigerated trucks driving south and many don’t stop until they reach France or Spain. UK fishing vessels fish in the waters of other EU countries. In addition to wider sovereign waters fishing rights UK fishermen have rights within the 6-12 mile limit of four other member states: Ireland, Germany, France and the Netherlands. For example trawlers out of Brixham exploit the valuable scallop stocks in the Baie de Seine. Trawlers out of Peterhead fish in Dutch and German waters. Many of the foreign vessels fishing in UK waters do so because the companies that own them bought from UK fishermen and with them the right to fish.
Buying OUR fish off Spanish trawlers my arse..!

Seemingly unsatisfied with projecting spectacular ignorance of the workings of – and the reasons for the EU, you now seen to be intent of sharing your expert knowledge on the operation and rules of the WTO.
I’ve stocked-up with popcorn, so off you go.

p.s. I explained all these things to my dog and he seems to have a better grasp of the mechanisms of the EU than you – AND I only had to explain it all to him once. His name’s Rupert and he’s a twenty-one month old Black Lab. Can he contact you on my behalf..?”

Boris Johnson’s comparison of women in burkhas with pillar-boxes was impolitic, certainly, and could be regarded as worse than that if he was deliberately using it to garner support among racists for his bid to become leader of the Conservative party. But how was it ‘disrespectful’? And if so, so what? Why should we have more respect for ancient superstitions than for other ways of life and systems of belief? Can’t Muslims live with a bit of ribbing based on the unusual mode of dress of some of them; just as I had to for being made by my school to wear a ‘boater’ (a flat straw hat) in the summers, or my college to wear a mini-gown in the streets? Is their religion too fragile to allow them to deal with that? (As our pride in the sort of school and university we went to – a sort of religion in itself – was supposed to enable us to laugh off the abuse we got hurled at us in our boaters and gowns by the plebs.) Why should the feelings of burkha-wearing Muslims be regarded as particularly sensitive and important; something, indeed, that should be protected by law?

I have no love, or even ‘respect’, for Boris Johnson (look at how he was made to dress at Eton!); but in a free society insulting people on grounds of their religion should surely be as acceptable as satirising them on the grounds of their political beliefs. Otherwise what happens is that superstition simply gets a free run; with the sorts of terrible results the blessed Polly Toynbee writes about in the Guardian today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/28/religion-ireland-catholicism-abusers. Tolerate religion, by all means – peacefully and as politely as you think it deserves; and there’s some good stuff there – but don’t privilege it.