Politics: pride before the fall
RICHARD NORTH
It had been arranged some time ago at the Horntye Park sports club in Hastings – one of those dreary photo-ops the prime minister so loves – this one to launch an extension to the “Pride in Place” transformational programme that nobody has ever heard of.
But that was before the release of the latest round of Epstein files performed their own transformation on the prospects of Mr Starmer, converting the event into an emotionally-charged confessional which had all the legacy media stars slumming it in this slightly dingy provincial seaside town.
To accommodate the stars, the front-end of the speech had been hastily rewritten to include the mea maxima culpa (but he lied to me Guv!), leaving the rest largely untouched and almost entirely ignored by the gathering of the fourth estate’s elite.
This is actually a pity. Although the event was originally intended to be routine, the speech wasn’t. With the Gorton and Denton by-election in the offing, this was part of the fightback against “the toxic division of Reform” and the racist Tories – a bid for the moral high ground in the coming fight.
You can tell that it was essentially a political speech by the number of the passages in the official version which had been redacted for political content, leaving it a pale, bloodless rendition devoid of red meat. To make any sense, it had to be perked up by the addition of the missing parts, transcribed from the YouTube video.
Once the confessional is out of the way and the preliminaries were done with – which entailed Starmer professing his undying love for this country (it’s just the indigenous peoples he hates), he got stuck in.
Declaring his belief in British values, “in rules that protect those in need, in the freedom to live and let live, in decency and tolerance, in respect for difference under the same flag – a common good”, he told us he also believed in the idea, fundamental to the Labour Party, that a nation is not just a collection of individuals but rather that we are bound by values, by common endeavour, and by responsibilities that we owe one another as partners in the project of this nation.
And that’s the fighting talk of the socialist civ-nat which denies ethnicity and ancestry and defines a nation as a group of people (any people) bound by a common set of values.
Embracing the moment, Starmer extended his belief system to include “our way of doing things when it comes to integration”, a “British way”. This is one that has always been grounded in the fairness of the two-way street, in rights and responsibilities, in contribution.
Thus, to Starmer, it is only “common sense” that people who come here, who work hard, contribute to our success, embrace our rules and buy-in to this project, can become, not just citizens, but neighbours, friends, equals and “part of us”.
Oddly enough, he doesn’t mention the millions who don’t work hard (or at all, except when drug dealing or raping white teenagers), don’t contribute to our success, don’t embrace our rules and don’t buy-in to this project.
In a world that increasingly preys on weakness (mainly those who don’t contribute to our success, don’t embrace our rules and don’t buy-in to this project), these values, like a magic talisman, “make us strong”, and all the stronger for being “a tolerant, decent and respectful country” – especially when it comes to tolerating third world rape gangs,
Nevertheless, we have to accept that the practice of these values in recent years has often become poor, although this is all down to “the scorched earth of Tory austerity”, where high streets, libraries, youth clubs, the places that shape our lives, that bring different people together, that create the bonds of memory and pride in so many towns, were just abandoned.
Now, sometimes from the very same people, we have politics that has no interest in rebuilding any of that, only in exploiting the social scars. “You see it in the industrialised grievance factory in parts of social media, miserable video after miserable video telling you that entire cities and towns – the great communities of this country – are “wastelands”, no-go zones and worse, selling the lie, defied every day by millions of people in this country that people who look different cannot really live together”, says Starmer. But never mind, he rejects that “completely”.
Warming to his theme, the prime minister tells us that we also see it in politicians like the Reform candidate for Gorton and Denton, who look at people like Rishi Sunak, Shabana Mahmood, and presumably Marcus Rashford, Shirley Bassey and Anas Sarwar, and say they can’t really be English or Welsh or Scottish because they are not white.
That, Starmer says, is as big an affront to British values as I’ve seen. “And I tell you”, he adds – summing up all the indignation that should have been focused on Mandelson – “as long as I have breath in my body, I will fight against that politics”.
And just to round off, he tacks on a dig at the official opposition, saying that he never thought he would see the day when the Conservative Party would tolerate for months a man who went to Birmingham and said the city had failed at integration because he didn’t see enough white faces.
That, says our indignant one, is a disgrace and he should have been sacked months ago – thereby illustrating something about which we have long been convinced, that the man is “wrong in the head”. If there were now no whites alongside non-whites in a previously homogenous, white area, how can integration be a success?
Evidently with Gorton and Denton in mind, we are then advised that the Labour Party “is the institution that stood with working class communities in cities like Glasgow and Liverpool and, door by door, street by street, turned a politics shaped by grievance and religious sectarianism into one of national renewal”.
That, declares our man, “is our task again because politics in this dangerous era is no longer about left or right but a contest between renewal and grievance, between those who believe that society is a zero-sum competition and those who believe we can unite for a higher purpose of our community, our country, our common good.
And believe it or not, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is not 42 but “the path of unity” because that is the only way we can change Britain, the only way we can take control of our future, stand up to the world and walk forward together.
Mark my words says Starmer, that is a vital task. Enemies of Britain are active in this country, trying to destabilise it, so a strong society is imperative, not just on its own terms but also for national security. And if we are going to defeat the politics of grievance, the solution is simple: we must tackle the cost-of-living crisis and we must raise living standards, not just in a few cities or regions, but across the entire country.
Secondly, it seems, “we need to reform the state”, but only so that it recognises contribution as the common-sense basis for integration, most of all on migration.
Migration is bound up with who we are, says the man: “Of course it is, it’s fundamental for the stories people tell about themselves, their family, their history and relationships and I will never denigrate the contribution migrants make to our society and our story – quite the opposite”.
And if there are any problems with that, you know where to look. “It seems obvious to me that failures in Britain’s migration system under the Tories were so shocking that they weakened trust in politics, faith in democracy to deliver what people vote for and now exploited by politicians of grievance who support the idea that diverse people can never truly come together”.
And this is the hill Starmer wants to die on: “I reject that politics with every fibre in my being”, he proclaims, although he does play lip-service to taking control of our borders. But, most of all, migration is about “contribution” as with Windrush where these upstanding migrants came here because Britain needed them and because they wanted to come. Britain wanted them to make a contribution and they did – they helped rebuild this country.
The tragedy here is that the man evidently believes this tosh, so all we need to do to resolve current problems is “boost integration” and “restore trust”. That will help return us to a situation where migration policy cannot be exploited by people who think whiteness is the same thing as Britishness.
Thirdly, we need to more vigilant in asserting British values, calling out those who want to divide us – whoever they are. We need to be much clearer as a society, about what we expect of people, and the responsibilities that come with rights. We will stand, united and together against any individual or organisation that does not want to shoulder the responsibility of British values, Starmer says.
Fourth and finally, we’ve got to reverse the devastating decline in our communities, give power, agency and control to people who want to improve their community. This finally gets us to what the day was all about – “Pride in Place”, a £5billion programme with an extra £800m added, investing in 284 neighbourhoods in every corner of our country.
Pride, says Starmer, “is the social glue, the force that holds together a community and a country”, presumably as long as it is not pride in ancestry and the achievements of the white indigenous peoples. Fired up by [the approved] pride, we can create a Britain “truly built for all” and show, in defiance of the politics of grievance, that we can walk forward together.
The amazing thing is, he got out alive. But then, no-one was listening.
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