While Western liberal opinion has wrung its hands over authoritarian measures deployed against protestors in Hong Kong and Moscow, less attention has been paid to the low level counterinsurgency that the French state has been engaged in against its own citizens for several months. To get away with violent repression, it turns out you just have to be seen as a liberal globaliser fighting against the ‘left behinds’.

Left: Woman shot in the eye with suspected bean bag round during Hong Kong protests. Right: just four of the Gilet Jaunes protesters who have lost an eye from police 'non-lethal' flash rounds. In total 24 protesters have been blinded in one eye since November 2018.

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In Denmark’s June general election the Social Democrats emerged as the biggest party, returning to government as head of a ‘Red Bloc’ left-wing coalition. This bucks the general downward trend in the fortunes of the historic centre-left parties across the developed world. But what lies behind this victory? Following a change of leadership in 2015, the Social Democrats have taken an aggressive stance against hyper-immigration. And in reconnecting with their working class base have, in combination with other parties, sapped electoral support from the extreme Right.

Danish election results: 2015 and 2019

 
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Until recently liberals have been happy to describe Donald Trump as a ‘populist’ or ‘white supremacist’. Then London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggested that he resembles a ‘20th century fascist’. A couple of days later the rising star of the American Democratic Party went a shade further. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chooses to describe the detention centres on American’s border with Mexico, designed to corral illegal immigrants prior to deportation, as “concentration camps”. She argues that as only a fascist would create concentration camps, ergo Trump is a “fascist”. She didn’t say that Trump is actually “Hitler”, although in following up on the theme a CNN presenter, Don Lemon, would actually do so. Read the rest of this entry »

25 years ago, the deputy leader of the Labour Party Roy Hattersley declared that the ‘working class would vote Labour whatever the party did.’ Strike one. 15 years later, Guardian columnist Nick Cohen insisted that ‘Europe votes fascist, we don’t’. Within twelve months the BNP would take close to a million votes in the European elections. Strike two. Read the rest of this entry »

Everywhere you look, the principle of free speech is under the cosh. The self-censoring failings surrounding the child-grooming scandal in Rotherham are not simply being forgotten – they may soon be cemented into law. Approving liberal left activists meanwhile wantonly denounce everyone and anyone as ‘white supremacist’ just at a time when a flinty eyed far-right is beginning to shoulder its way through the populist throng. Even by the standards of an increasingly out of touch Left, to insist on screeching wolf when real wolves are about is a dangerous and appalling new low. Read the rest of this entry »