Where to begin with her three page epistle? We learn that Braverman extracted a price from Rishi Sunak when he signed her up for the second crack at Home Secretary. Their alleged agreement committed him to reducing immigration, introducing legislation that would box out the provisions of the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, stick with the Northern Ireland Protocol as was and keep the Retained EU Law bill, and formally institutionalise transphobia through the issuing of statutory guidance to schools. By my reckoning, that's three issues that weren't in the 2019 manifesto and, indeed, the last one breaks it. The Tories were previously committed to LGBTQ inclusive education.
The rest of Braverman's letter is a long complaint about how these unilaterally declared policies went nowhere. "I wrote you letters", she whinges, "but you never answered them!". She moans about how robust legislation wasn't in place that would put the disgusting Rwanda scheme on a firm footing, and how Sunak wasn't interested in pursuing this further/ He was seemingly content to leave it to the fates or good fortune. Instead, the government were thwarted in the courts. This should have been taken as a warning, but nothing more has been done to save the scheme ahead of the Supreme Court's imminent decision on Wednesday. As such, Braverman concludes that her former boss has "no appetite for doing what is necessary, and therefore no real intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British people". Ouch.
She then has a go over the Palestinian solidarity marches, showing no contrition for her role in Saturday's white riot. Braverman says she's "become hoarse in urging you to ban the hate marches [sic]" on grounds that they, not she, threaten "community cohesion". Again, she complains about his weakness and refusal to use his office to do things. I.e. Turn the country into an outright authoritarian hellhole in which Braverman has free rein to prosecute and persecute any groups she wishes to.
I can't really blame Braverman for not understanding why she was appointed, seeing as the Very Smart People paid to comment on politics don't either. Her purpose was to say racist things, be outrageous, wind up the public, and ram home new wedges the Tories might profit from. In search of some post-Brexit condiment to make the Conservative dish more appetising before the next election, Braverman was the woman to administer it. Would you like some xenophobic, anti-immigrant sauce on your chips sir? But the actual implementation of the policy didn't matter. Sunak was unconcerned about delays to the Rwanda plan because he only believed in it as a means of creating new opportunities for friction and grandstanding. He doesn't want to be known as leading the most authoritarian and racist government of recent times, especially with the glamorous thrum of Silicon Valley in his near future. And, to be fair to Sunak, he learned the importance of appearing to do something while doing nothing from Boris Johnson.
The chutzpah of the lies though. Not just the usual rubbish about the Palestinian solidarity movement, or claiming her policies are the people's priorities, or that they were in the manifesto. But the funniest and most desperately grasping line was this: "It is generally agreed that my support was a pivotal factor in winning the leadership contest and thus enabling you to become Prime Minister". Pah, she wishes. Of the 60-strong right wing group Braverman is loosely affiliated with, only 20 of them could be bothered to dial in or turn up for their "emergency meeting" after her overdue sacking. Interestingly, they have today launched yet another research group. The splintering cadres of post-war Trotskyism has nothing on these guys. The truth is the briefcase tendency stepped in after the Liz Truss disaster and agreed among themselves that Sunak was their man because the membership could not be trusted to make the right decision. The then just-resigned Braverman didn't have enough backbench supporters to make a blind bit of difference. Besides, she was hardly going to support Penny Mordaunt - the only other viable candidate.
And there, one has to hope, ends Braverman's career as a minister of state. Someone utterly without principle, driven by self-aggrandisement, petty-mindedness, and an authoritarian disrespect for the law and the lives of others. She's the sort of candidate UKIP would have rejected 10 years ago for being "too extreme". And yet here we are, a fascist-adjacent politician who slithered her way up the Tory pole and made the kind of speeches that might have given Nick Griffin pause. May a long period of irrelevance on the back benches beckon, followed by a richly deserved humiliation in the next Conservative leadership contest.
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Sorry Phil, it’s hard to take seriously the pantomime going on in the British Parliament at the moment with the backdrop of the slaughter in Gaza of some of the poorest and most oppressed people on earth. I don’t know about the rest of your blog audience but I ain’t sleeping too well these days. I am 70 years old and I don’t think I’ve ever felt more estranged. I don’t know how bad things have got to get before what is going on in Palestine will prick the conscience of the people in the established media who are reporting this stuff. At some point they are are eventually going to have to say ‘enough is enough’.
ReplyDeleteI feel there is no way back for the Labour Party. That goose has been well cooked. If they can’t oppose genocide what do they stand for?
@Dialectician
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. If anyone doubted what the cosying up to the establishment meant, and just how depraved that establishment is, its there for everyone to see on our screens. Blood, pain, fear, death and destruction rained down by high-tech military driven by ideology, greed and vengeance. All dressed up in a coat of justificatory lies, omission and misdirection to paint a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide as 'self-defence'.
When 'they' kill it is hate driven, inexplicable and an expression of their inner inhumanity and evil nature. When 'we' kill it is targeted, controlled, careful and with regret. We have a little tear in the eye as we target the missiles. Our soldiers feel sad as they squeeze the trigger on that old lady hobbling through the ruins, or slam a shell into an apartment block. They don't enjoy it like those 'terrorists'!
That's the difference, isn't it. We kill regretfully, but necessarily. They kill with a grin, pointlessly. That's all that matters. It's not what you do, its why and how you feel about it.