Democracy: The Puppet, His Masters And A Right-Wing Coup

By TruePublica Editor: There, I’ve said it. It’s in the headline. Without so much of a scuffle and without a whimper, Britain has fallen to what really amounts to a right-wing coup.  Democracy is dying in plain sight. We did not notice because it was years in the making – and when it came – its manifestation was the puppet of donors and dark money. You do not know who these people really are or what they want. We do know some were the offspring of Russian KGB agents. Others were global oil giants and the powerful, well-funded organisations of American religious bigots that have ripped up fifty years of women’s rights in the USA. They are all coming for us now.

As many admit – the puppet held a pint, made crass jokes and seemed like he could be your mate in a pub. He arrived in a blonde wig, the mask of a clown and an ill-fitting suit. No one really suspected what was going to happen in just two years of power as the puppetmasters started pulling their strings.

In the 1930s the same thing happened. The German people did not notice what was going on either. Even though the government eventually took away the rights of the people such as applying mandatory ID checks at elections and gave themselves the power to strip citizenship and that peaceful protest was criminalised – no one complained. Our government has done that – and more. Our government is now able to decide what counts as fair political campaigning and with its attack on Judicial Review, always intended to be unaccountable. As with the German people, driving a wedge through society was its main tool for getting into power and staying there. It is the same now.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the foundation for modern human rights. After the Second World War, the international community recognised the need for a collective expression of human rights. Soon, that will not be the case in the United Kingdom. Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, the declaration sets out a range of rights and freedoms to which everyone, everywhere in the world, is entitled. Soon, that will not be the case in the United Kingdom.

Six years after the European Court of Human Rights was created in 1966, the UK granted what is known as ‘individual petition’ – the right for people to take their cases directly to the court in Strasbourg. Soon, that will not be the case in the United Kingdom either.

We now know as a matter of fact that the UK government’s legislative crackdown on protest with the Policing Bill in England and Wales was dreamt up by a secretive right-wing think tank that had been funded by the vested interests of American organisations.  What do they want?

In March last year, Russia was declared by the state Britain’s No1 danger. This year, Russia is a global pariah for attacking Ukraine, reducing large parts of that country to rubble and killing tens of thousands. And yet, only last week, Boris Johnson was tapping Russian donors for more cash. Johnson was then accused of being a national security threat. This accusation is hardly surprising now we know the wife of a former Russian deputy finance minister for Putin’s regime has gifted almost £2m to the Tory Party. What do they want?

The enemy is within. But don’t take my word for it.

Rob Merrick, political editor of The Independent reports that the UK is “dangerously close” to becoming an “elected dictatorship” under Boris Johnson. Veteran Tory Ken Clarke has said Johnson’s disregard for “constitutional constraints” is appalling calling his party “more nationalist than at any time in my lifetime”. ITV’s Robert Peston makes the same point – Britain looks like an ‘elected dictatorship.‘

The Metro ran an opinion piece with the headline – “Boris Johnson is a creeping dictator – we need to stop him in his tracks.” The London School of Economics published a scathing article entitled – “We are perilously close to Hailsham’s ‘elective dictatorship.’ Even the rampantly right-wing rag, the Daily Express went with the headline – “Boris urged against dangerous step to dictatorship.”

I could go on, but the reality is no one appears to be listening. If one government in the space of two years can take away so many of your hard-fought-for rights, what do you think they will do in the next two years – or worse, what if they were elected again?

An LSE article published two years ago warned us of the likelihood of an elective dictatorship in the guise of Johnson when it wrote – “Until recently, the powers of government within Parliament were largely controlled either by the opposition or by its own backbenchers. It is now largely in the hands of the government machine so that the government controls Parliament and not Parliament the government. Until recently, debate and argument dominated the parliamentary scene. Now it is the whips and the party caucus. Not so long ago, influence was fairly evenly balanced between government and opposition, and between frontbenches and backbenches. Today, the centre of gravity has moved decisively towards the government side of the House – to the members of the government itself. The opposition is gradually being reduced to impotence, and the government majority, where power resides, is itself becoming a tool in the hands of the cabinet … The sovereignty of Parliament has increasingly become, in practice, the sovereignty of the Commons, and the sovereignty of the Commons has increasingly become the sovereignty of the government, which, in addition to its influence in Parliament, controls the party whips, the party machine, and the civil service.”

In other words – a handful of people now have control of democracy itself.

With this level of control, rules do not mean much – nor, as we are increasingly learning do laws matter. One former minister has blasted the “culture of casual law-breaking” inside Number 10. Two ethics advisors appointed by the PM have walked – the last one saying – “I could not be a party to advising on any law-breaking”. The Times newspaper went with the headline – “Boris Johnson’s government is a circus of law-breaking.” Does this sound like a functioning democracy to you?

As Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis in 1916 warned – “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” And this is what we have. I warned about anarchy by the rich and powerful back in 2016.

The UK has suffered three general elections, a referendum, lost two Prime Ministers and installed a donor-funded puppet since 2015 under the Tories. They have brought political and economic instability. There is now a renewed constitutional crisis with Northern Ireland because the lies have been exposed for what they are. Scotland has now called for a second referendum. It will be a difficult journey to get there for all manner of legal reasons – in the meantime – another wedge is being driven through society.

It wouldn’t surprise anyone if Johnson took the opportunity to call a general election at the same time if Scotland got that right to ask if it still wants to be part of the UK. It would divide everyone in all political camps. All of this, so the puppetmasters can continue with the reign of chaos. That reign of chaos is very, very profitable but only if you’re in their small club. But you are not.

In the words of the late, great George Carlin when referring to the impending fall of democracy and rights in America:

 

“They own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends – and you know something? They’ll get it.”

 

If you care to look at the state of election campaigning, all you’ll find is fiction. Manifestos are filled with ‘pledges’ that hardly ever come into being. They are now reduced to slogans like some sort of corporate advert with promises that include the impossible or the inappropriate. “Get Brexit Done. Unleash Britain’s Potential. Britain Deserves Better.” These three election Tory slogans from 2019 are laughingly irrelevant looking at the terrible state the country finds itself in. This is not democracy in action – it’s a deception.

It’s not the 1970s as many analysts and commentators are saying – it’s the 1930s again and we’re heading down a dangerous path led by people in the shadows with a puppet in a blonde wig and the mask of a clown in an ill-fitting suit.

In 1765 John Adams said – “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” By doing nothing our democracy is being strangled by these same forces.

 

 

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