This is not what should happen in a free and democratic society. Our leaders have power only because we consent to be governed. They press the flesh of police officers and soldiers at photo-ops, they do not use them as witting or unwitting props in a campaign of intimidation. Democratic leaders do not politicise the police and the army and otherwise make their members instruments in a partisan conflict in which it is likely some level of force will be used. This is an upsetting development and one we must now all watch closely.
Nigel Farage: The Threat to Democracy
Students of the far-right are well acquainted with this strategy of waiting. Since Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, all the essential ingredients of true ideological racism – white supremacism and fascism – have been patiently waiting in the undergrowth, moving through a series of permutations; the National Front, the BNP, UKIP, and the Brexit Party – to name a few. Farage is not like the more obvious racists. He’s not like Nick Griffin or Tommy Robinson.
Treating Independentistas as Suspected Terrorists
This style of political policing – all the way down from Whitehall in London to the police officer doing her or his job – has one objective: To subtly and then not-so-subtly intimidate people. The hope is that it will put average, law-abiding people off activism. No one wants to be of interest – no matter how friendly they are – to the police, and less still want to be watched by the intelligence services of the state. But what this is, in reality, is an attempt on the part of the British state to disempower us – the electorate, the demos of the democracy.
The Road to Hell
In this broken democracy – which is no democracy at all – seats are won and power secured in a loop; the media manufactures fears and blames powerless, invariably foreign, scapegoats and the careerists bang the drum of security and ethno-nationalism. This is the state of politics in the United Kingdom today. It is much the same across Europe and even more so over the Atlantic in the United States. Democracy in any meaningful sense has died and we are right now in the rapid descent into the abyss of totalitarianism and fascism – both coming a-creeping like saviours.
Normalisation
This comes about through a process known as normalisation, in which the seemingly absurd is made acceptable over a protracted period of time. Wealthy and powerful corporate agendas, either by ownership or by influence, are packaged by the media and sold to an increasingly docile and depoliticised public – steadily changing public opinion. Ultimately this shift in opinion creates a rising political demand not being met by the establishment political parties.
La Violència: Violent Political Policing in a Democracy
Our problem with such violent political policing is not the violence per se. We are used to violence. Western civilisation was built on violence, and is perhaps the greatest purveyor and consumer of warfare and state sponsored violence in the history of the human race. Rather, our problem with this sacrilege is that it shatters our illusions pertaining to the nature and power of democracy. It reminds us that democracy is a pacifier; a ritual that sedates people with the tranquiliser of the mere impression of control while the state qua the ruling establishment is free to get on with the business of power.
The Bureaucratic State, Fear, and the Kafkaesque
In this reality the author self-censors and conforms freely for fear of being seen and scrutinised by the now realised Big Brother state and state-dominated society. This is a democracy that behaves itself by conforming to the will of the state – to the will of power – en masse as a result of accepting as true the “promises of later success” and with vague hopes of the benefits and vague fears of the powers of the masters.
Are Capitalism and Democracy Heading for a Divorce?
This is only the tip of the iceberg, and left unchecked it is difficult to see how our economic Frankenstein will not eventually turn on and destroy the democracies which have heretofore kept it in line.
Random Public Journal 