cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13315099
Having lived in the UK and even participated in a politics there (as a member of the Greenparty, FYI) it seems to me that both the English’s power elites’ support of an ethno-Fascist regime abroad even while it activelly commits Genocide (reminiscent of Thatcher’s support of Apartheid South Africa and of Pinochet in Chile) and their authoritarian solutions to Environmentalism as a “problem” of people demonstrating rather than the Environment being destroyed, are all part of a broader pattern of Rightwing Authroritarianism were also fit things like the extreme Civil Society Surveillance denounced by Snowden (which, curiously, whilst in the US some was deemed unconstitutionally and walked back, in the UK laws were passed to make it all retroactively legal and the Press was shut up using D-Notices) and other general trends in the exercise of power in the country (remember how the Tories passed a law that de facto created minimum £1000 penalties in all criminal cases).
This is not even new - Environmentalist organisations were infiltrated by undercover police back in the 80s/90s who even left some women there carrying their children and things like kettling were used against demonstrators back in the big anti-Finance and anti-Austerity demonstrations in London after the 2008 Crash were even an unarmed and non-violent person got killed by a police officer (a case were the officer in question ultimatelly got out with no meaningful penalty).
Brexit wasn’t born in a vacuum and compared with the rest of Europe the UK has been further Right and more Authoritarian, copying the worst bits of the American system rather than the best and mixing them with a heavily and well entrenched classism and the idea that people should know their place, with no tradition of rule by consensus and an electoral system - First Past The Post - that generally results in Winner Takes All outcomes were a mere 35% of votes is enough for absolute majorities which are pretty much all powerful since Britain foesn’t have a written Constitution.
Having lived in a few countries in Europe, I came out of over a decade in the UK with the idea that it was the country in Europe most likely to turn Fascist. A posh style of Fascism but Fascism none the less.
Sadly New Labour, who ideologically are something else altogether than (old) Labour, seem just as prone to Authoritarianism as the Tories, which actually makes sense given that it was during New Labour’s last period in Government that the most extreme civil society surveillance apparatus in the West was built in Britain.
TL;DR in summary, Britain even under New Labour is very rightwing and riddled with authoritarianism and their unwavering support (once again) for violent Fascism abroad fits the pattern and is a nice reminder of how its power elites think.
