The Tories Move from Right to Hard-Right

By TruePublica: The Tories fought over the centre ground for years up to and including 2010 when a coalition was ushered into No10 Downing Street. David Cameron then fought a campaign with a manifesto and his ‘Big Society’ at its very heart. They pledged to reduce the deficit, freeze council tax, tackle the pensions crisis, cut government expenditure and rid themselves of quango’s, cut corporation tax and sort out the bankers who blew the system up. A bit right of centre, but that was it.

In 2015, they pledged to tackle the housing crisis, help those on low wages, double free childcare allowances, increase the inheritance tax allowance, stop rail companies over-charging, add an extra £8bn to the NHS budget, open 500 free schools and last on the list – an EU referendum. Actually, that was arguably a bit left of the previous manifesto.

Here we are barely three years later and the havoc and chaos wrought upon Britain is seismic. Those manifesto pledges have become irrelevant, no-one remembers them, with the exception of Brexit.

Just as relevant as Brexit though, is where British politics is going. Especially concerning is the Tories. A chasm in the centre ground suddenly appeared and no-one thinks it worthy to bother investing in. And yesterday, the Tories, already now a right-wing party has just demonstrated its new found home in the shape of the hard-right.

A new, formless as yet alliance has appeared in Europe. They have no name and are not led by a single leader, but one should be very wary of what is to follow.

Tory MEP’s sided with Ukip along with the right-wing populist governments of Hungary and Poland and other continental far-right parties that include the French Front National, Austria’s FPOe, and Sweden Democrats.

This new alliance was formed against the European Parliament’s home affairs committee, which ended in a vote of 37 to 19 in favour of triggering Article 7 against Hungary. This is an EU provision which has already been used against Poland after its crackdown on what the felt was the decline of the rule of law by that country’s government.

Right or wrong as far as the EU is concerned, Britain should not be supporting such destructive political elements.

Sophie Int Veld, the Dutch liberal MEP said: “This is a damning indictment of the state of British European policy and completely destroys any credibility the Tories might have left.” Veld went on to say what is glaringly obvious and points to Tory hypocrisy.

“On the one hand calling for sanctions against Putin, on the other hand supporting one of his closest allies in the EU.  Even Conservative governments of the recent past were always promoters of democracy and the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe, but in providing cover for Orban’s descent to authoritarianism, they have today trampled on this legacy.”

And Veld is quite right. This is hypocrisy on a grand scale.

Theresa May, as Veld points out later, keeps telling the world that she would indeed stand up for the international rules-based order, an order that must surely demand a stable, democratic and secure Europe, but in reality, says Veld – “she is jumping into bed with Viktor Orban’s destructive vision of illiberal democracy. Voting with Orban is the true Tory Brexit: the exit from European values. A sad day.”

Theresa May and the Tories more widely, seem to have forgotten the Russia-phobic campaign kicked off with the fantastical Skripal story in Salisbury. Forgotten is the anti-Putin rhetoric, the boycott of the world cup in Russia and many other infantile political stabs at Russia.

May seems to have also forgotten that she has just sanctioned and fully supported a populist, hard right wing element in Europe that could destabilise the entire European project. How will that help towards Brexit negotiations and what does this say about both Britain and the Tories.

May seems to have forgotten what Hungary and their supporters stand for these days.

 

Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a leading member of Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party supported the “Muslim invaders’ claim of the party leadership. They are a party that strongly opposes multiculturism.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban singled out China, India, Turkey, and Russia as the “stars of international analyses.”

 

These countries now have a shared belief that large popular mandates entitle them to do almost anything they please. Normally, conservatives in the centre gound would be the first ones to point out that this type of unconstrained majoritarianism leads to the type of tyranny we have all been told to fear. Yet the likes of Tory MEPs somehow feel compelled to jump to the defence of Central Europe’s rising autocrats.

And what is it that Theresa May and her MEPs are really supporting? In Poland, the judiciary has been forcibly replaced with ‘yes men’ who can decide whether judges have been judging court cases in the political favour of the ruling government.

Hungary is rapidly declining in the world freedom index, described as a crisis of democracy. It now lies 57th in the global corruption index. Over the past decade, Hungary’s performance on all of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators has declined in tune with other falling metrics of good governance.

In 2006, the country was in the 83rd worldwide for “rule of law” and “voice and accountability,” respectively. In recent years, it has fallen further in both categories. And that is not hard to see as the amount of government-sponsored propaganda has all but overtaken the free press.

Hungary’s new anti-NGO laws will allow the government to fully criminalise groups that decide to help refugees or migrants. It goes further than that as human rights groups have clearly stated that freedom of assembly is now threatened.

 

These are the new values of the Conservative party because that is who they are supporting. They are not supporting the likes of the more moderate voices of the EU. Most people in Britain take little notice of what is happening in the European Union as they now feel they will inevitably be not a part of it. Like all divorces where family relations are still required, you can’t just walk away. Europe is on our doorstep and we have many relationships with it, like it or not.

The Tory party in Britain really, truly has become the nasty party, a party that endorses and fully supports leaders that enforce strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom – also known as – authoritarianism. These are the true colours of a party whose current leader, once the longest-serving post-war minister of the Home Office brought us the undisclosed 360-degree surveillance techno Stasi-state, crushed our hard-won privacy rights, right to protest and wants to see the destruction of human rights and civil liberty in Britain. This same PM will not serve for long, and when she is replaced, anarchy by the rich and powerful will be the result as the establishment loses control of the public reaction against a failing Tory ideology.

The trajectory that Britain is on right now should alarm all normal thinking people because the near future is increasingly looking like a dark, dismal place.

An electronic concentration camp has already been constructed with laws to protect its leaders from public protest. Oppositional voices are already being censored and silenced and as mentioned, strict obedience will be observed by all when we start the post-Brexit era where EU laws mean nothing. This is not going to end well.

 

 

 

 

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