Britain’s Continued Lurch To The Right
Unelected Rishi Sunak and his Tory government are taking Britain closer and close to the extreme right in politics. According to the University of Oslo:
“Right-wing extremism is usually defined as a specific ideology characterised by ‘anti-democratic opposition towards equality'. It is associated with racism, xenophobia, exclusionary nationalism, conspiracy theories, and authoritarianism.”
Although we are not yet an extreme right-wing nation there are those in the Tory party who would, and have, taken us further towards this goal than ever before. The most extreme Tory government was that headed by Liz Truss.
A study by the Financial Times claimed the Tories under Liz Truss had become the “most right-wing government" in the world in terms of economic policies.
“The decision to slash tax for the rich, lift caps on bankers’ bonuses, and provide next-to-nothing for working class citizens has spooked international markets. Over the last few days, we’ve all looked on in horror as the value of The Pound fell like a stone.” (The London Economic: 30/09/22)
Liz Truss was very quickly deposed, but ONLY because the value of the pound went into free fall. If the money markets had not reacted so negatively towards Truss’s economic strategy she would still be Prime Minister along with all of her other right-wing policies. We have to remember that even before the Conservative party choose right-wing Liz Truss as its leader, the right was in the ascendancy, sparking headlines like this:
“The new Tory right is fanatical and dangerous…” (Guardian:05/12/21)
That danger has not gone away with the appointment of Rishi Sunak as PM. His government has been full of right-wing politicians, from the now disgraced authoritarian bully, Dominic Raab to the anti-human rights Home Secretary, Suella Braverman. A former co-chair of the Conservative Party publicly accusing her party of failing to deal with “vile evidence of racism in the party a every level from MPs to activists”, while the present deputy chairman Lee Anderson has been accused of links with far-right groups, and of “parroting far-right information”.
The definition of far-right politics also includes the tendency to believe conspiracy theories and this is certainly a characteristic of Sunak’s government, Bully Raab firmly believed his civil servants were conspiring against him, which is one of the excuses he used in defence for bullying his staff.
We all know that despite the promises of the Tory Brexiteers things are not going as promised, their xenophobic and exclusionary nationalism leading to massive manpower shortages in our NHS, and a failing economy. Despite economic growth being at a standstill and inflation still in double figures, Sunak’s right-wing government continues to ignore the evidence of its actions and instead continues to push “free-market” economic policies because it is ideologically driven. While bankers have their bonus caps abolished public sector workers are expected to take real-term pay cuts and slide further towards poverty.
Worse, Sunak’s right-wing government is quite prepared to take workers to court to stop them from striking in support of a fair wage claim. And should anyone take to the streets to protest against this governments woeful running of the country then the police now have powers to stop and search individuals without suspicion, and the courts can ban individuals from being in certain places at certain times, and even limit the way they use the internet.
The UN is so concerned about the new police powers that were passed into law only this week they had this to say:
“It is especially worrying that the law expands the powers of the police to stop and search individuals, including without suspicion; defines some of the new criminal offences in a vague and overly broad manner; and imposes unnecessary and disproportionate criminal sanctions on people organizing or taking part in peaceful protests…” (United Nations:27/04/23)
If the UN is concerned about Britain becoming a right-wing police state then surely it is time we did the same.