Charlie Napier has a Critic piece on what is now a permanently topical issue, the predictable growth of sectarian politics in the UK. Napier identifies three possible outcomes.
- Management of sectarianism
- Failure to manage sectarianism
- The victory of one group over the others
The whole piece covers familiar ground but is well worth reading as an issue our political establishment has created and cannot manage.
The disunited kingdom
The establishment must confront the disturbing realities of sectarian politics in the UK
Slowly, and by no means surely, the British political establishment is being forced to acknowledge the divided nature of the country over which it now presides.
This process has not been without significant resistance and self-delusion. Having ignored the doubters when they embarked on a policy of mass migration during the 20th century, the ever-more frequent case studies which proved the folly of this project were, one-by-one, ignored.
The vote-rigging scandal amongst Birmingham’s Muslim community in 2004 was largely written-off as a unique case. George Galloway’s by-election victory in Bradford West, 2011, was written off as well — this time, as an isolated case of public frustration with Western foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Lutfur Rahman case in 2015 was likewise treated as an isolated incident. The fact that a local mayor was able to win elections by exploiting family networks amongst the Bangladeshi community, should have been the canary in the coal mine — but it wasn’t.
On, and on, and on — but slowly, the reality of the situation has begun to dawn on those who created it.
The establishment must confront the disturbing realities of sectarian politics in the UK
Slowly, and by no means surely, the British political establishment is being forced to acknowledge the divided nature of the country over which it now presides.
This process has not been without significant resistance and self-delusion. Having ignored the doubters when they embarked on a policy of mass migration during the 20th century, the ever-more frequent case studies which proved the folly of this project were, one-by-one, ignored.
The vote-rigging scandal amongst Birmingham’s Muslim community in 2004 was largely written-off as a unique case. George Galloway’s by-election victory in Bradford West, 2011, was written off as well — this time, as an isolated case of public frustration with Western foreign policy in the Middle East.
The Lutfur Rahman case in 2015 was likewise treated as an isolated incident. The fact that a local mayor was able to win elections by exploiting family networks amongst the Bangladeshi community, should have been the canary in the coal mine — but it wasn’t.
On, and on, and on — but slowly, the reality of the situation has begun to dawn on those who created it.
4 comments:
From the Daily Sceptic: In 1817, the now long-forgotten satirist Thomas Love Peacock published Melincourt which tells the strange tale of a crooked plot to instal a trained orangutan dressed in human clothing into the House of Commons to act as an MP under the puppet-like control of sinister outside forces – or, in other words, the life-story of Angela Rayner 200 years too early.
A Labour man speaks: "the different bits of the party should come together behind Andy.” Steady on, old boy.
One of the biggest - and I think most unacknowledged - problems here is a morality at odds with the values and perception of individual responsibility which we, as a nation, evolved via the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
While most of those of us reared as natives here would acknowledge that, in the interests of fairness and democracy, the law of the land should be followed in electoral procedure (and those who break it, by and large, are knowingly transgressing), the Tower Hamlets resident who hands his postal ballot form for completion to a family elder, a husband or a senior figure at the local mosque is, by his or her lights, acting with the utmost moral integrity and dutiful virtue.
dearieme - ha ha, I don't think I've read that one but yes, Angela Rayner 200 years too early. Is that casting aspersions on orangutans though? They look harmless.
Steady on indeed, do Labour chaps listen to themselves?
Macheath - I agree, it's a good point. The importance of individual responsibility should have been a factor within immigration policy, but the perceived importance of it seems to have declined at much the same time as immigration policy became irrationally political.
Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch Dead Bishop on the Landing where Eric Idle says "It’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame."
Post a Comment