So long as we live in a world where the Scottish parliament’s former Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, insists that male politicians “wear a shirt AND tie,” we also live in a world where women are expected to dress in a certain way. Let me be clear, these are not my rules. I make a point of never dressing the way I am expected to dress. Other than the fact that I just don’t look good in black (it does nothing for my skin tone), the cassock, stock, and Roman collar are self-defeating in the twenty-first century; they look is far too authoritarian.
Changing of the Guard
In his more sober moments – not that they’re many, even Johnson knows he isn’t driving the Brexit bus here. His mistake is a classic one. Like Cameron and May before him, he thought he could use the racist far-right to his advantage, but the outcome is always and everywhere the same – this particular tail always ends up wagging the dog, and Johnson is being wagged. We all are. The genie is out of the bottle in British politics. The far-right in the guise of the Brexit Party, UKIP, the EDL, and every thuggish messiah of British nationalist street politics is on the march.
Are You Listening Now?
Britain is making these preparations because Britain’s domestic political and military leaderships understand what will happen – not what might happen – when food and medicines are cut off from the continent and when the stockpiles are exhausted (which will succumb to corruption). Brexit, the Brexit we now face, presents the United Kingdom with certain unavoidable realities; war in Ireland and a renewed and intensified IRA bombing campaign in England, food and medicine shortages, civil disorder, and widespread rioting over England, Wales, and Scotland.
The Threat to the Scottish Parliament
Scots are genuinely and rightly concerned about the future of devolution. There is nothing permanent in the current constitutional arrangement, and nor can there ever be. It matters not a jot what the Scotland Act says or what any one politician says; sovereignty in the United Kingdom rests only in Westminster. No law and no treaty can bind the power of this or any future London government to any particular course of action. We can talk about the Claim of Right and Scots Law all we like, the legal reality, for so long as we remain a part of the United Kingdom...
The Anton Drexler of British Politics
There are plenty of open calls for violence against Muslims. “Punish a Muslim Day” was not a one-off, it was merely a call to action from the far-right that, thanks to the internet, came to more people’s attention. Theresa May and Boris Johnson know about these calls for pogroms and acts of violence. In fact, they are no longer threats. Muslims all over the United Kingdom are regular targets of violent attacks and routinely subjected to Islamophobic hate speech.
This is Not a Drill
Risking making the greatest understatement of the decade, it’s fair to say that we are in a mess. Given that both the government and the opposition are committed to leaving the EU, and given that right-wing mobs are now gathering around Westminster with placards depicting executions and advocating political violence – a sure indication we have reached a pre-revolutionary phase of this unfolding shambles, there will be no re-run of the Brexit referendum and there will be no so-called People’s Vote. Those ships have sailed. Whether we like it or not, we are now heading into the abyss.
Just Let it Burn
When faced with the powerful self-destructive drive of England, especially when we are so completely powerless to help, we are forced to adopt the calm reasoning of Fr. Anthony De Mello: “Maybe they should suffer a little more. Maybe they ought to touch rock bottom…” Of course, what some need is to suffer less, and those we must help, but there are others – like the alcoholic and the drug addict – who need to hit rock bottom first, who need to suffer a little more.
Not in This Day and Age?
In the coming weeks the United Kingdom is going to slip chaotically into the deepest political and social crisis it has experienced since the outbreak of the Second World War. The very existence of the British state, given the conditions of an “Apocalypse scenario” Brexit crash out, will be on the line. Civil disorder caused by food shortages and lack of essential medicines will bring matters to a head in England, Scotland, Wales, and those parts of Ireland still under British occupation.
Random Public Journal 