Jamming the Tory Party Sewer

Every so often, the speed at which politics moves is stunning. In the fall out from the Speaker's unconstitutional blocking of the SNP's motion on Gaza to spare Labour's blushes, a straightforward vote on stopping Israeli committing war crimes morphed into an issue of Commons procedure. From there, we went from a constitutional dispute into being very, very concerned about the safety of honourable members. It was then a hop, skip, and not much of a jump into criticising "intimidation". Or, to you and me, bravely speaking out against demonstrating outside Westminster and protest activity aimed at morally bankrupt MPs. And from there, targeting the supposed culprits of this ghastly behaviour - activist "thugs" and "bully boys". But some just can't stop themselves from going overboard.

In a clunky effort to capitalise on Wednesday's parliamentary mess, Suella Braverman penned an article arguing that Islamists and far left had taken over Britain. "The truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now. They have bullied the Labour Party, they have bullied our institutions, and now they have bullied our country into submission", she says. You might ask what she's talking about, because all this exists entirely in her head. If she really believes it at all. As we've seen with Braverman, it falls into a pattern of behaviour. Say things that are categorically untrue, whip up a hate mob if it suits, and try and ride the wave of shit into the Tory leader's office.

Not to be outdone, Lee Anderson took to GB News Friday evening and took matters further. Disagreeing with Braverman, he said "He’s [Sadiq Khan] given our capital city away to his mates ... I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan, and they’ve got control of London." He might not be deputy chair of the Tory party any more, but Anderson is still fulfilling the duties of the job.

From crowing about "nasty" protests against dropping bombs on children to stirring up hatred toward Muslims, the pair of them are absolute filth. And coming in the week where hate crime figures show reported attacks on/abuse against Muslims are up 334% since October, it's fair to say BNP membership is too good for them.

Yet there's still more. Fresh from making a fool of herself at the somewhat overshadowed Popular Conservatism conference, Liz Truss popped up this afternoon palling around with Steve Bannon. She said it was the "deep state" that brought her government down. We've heard this drivel before. How the Bank of England is "woke", and that the Treasury employs more communists than the old Gosplan offices. Nothing to do with her own political stupidity, and the interests she so slavishly championed. While not as egregiously cracked as Braverman and Anderson to be explicit in stirring up racist hatred, the far right tropes are there in Truss's language. As if to underline this, the cover of the US edition of her coming book, Ten Years to Save the West, has "globalism" on its cover - as much of an antisemitic dog whistle as "Cultural Marxism" is.

These are manifestations of the Tory party's death throes as every day brings it closer to electoral oblivion. With no way out of their predicament, the Tories are going with their basest instincts and hoping - and some no doubt genuinely believing - that anti-immigration, anti-Islam and openly racist politics is going to save them. As the polls have shown, their adventured in hate and scapegoating are having no effect whatsoever in restoring their fortunes. So they double down even more. To them it makes sense, seeing as past triumphs could (unconvincingly) be read through a right wing lens and taken as signs of these wretched policies having popular purchase. For everyone else, it looks like the party is having a full on nervous breakdown.

Today's disgraceful display, however, is different. On this occasion all three of these horrors have transgressed the niceties of bourgeois politics. It's one thing to mimic the language of the far right, but quite another to hang around with American far right figures and strongly imply your successor was part of a globalist deep state plot to overthrow them. You can talk all kinds of shit about Islam and Muslims because of this country's hierarchy of racism, but to suggest Sadiq Khan has turned London into a fundamentalist-run hellhole is beyond the pale. And lastly, Braverman can do her unhinged lying turn in the Tory press as much as she likes. But when she says she was sacked because Rishi Sunak is soft on Islamist terror, that more or less draws a far right target on the Prime Minister's head. Will Sunak do anything about these electoral turds, or will he continue to let them jam an already disgusting sewer with a never ending flood of effluent?