McFilter

Most of Us Want a More Progressive Country, Why Can't We Have It?

A few days ago I tweeted a link to the terrible list of Government behaviour and actions of just a few days of their administration.

I was appealing for even just a fairer Tory Government, because (a) the bar is set so low, I have lived through better Tory Governments myself, and (b) I'm more interested (as ever) in working out how we can all move forwards together, and lots more people voted Tory at the last election.

My mate Ross (amicably) disagreed, but I've always assumed that the alternative would be revolution, and that's not going to be a good thing to live through.

Then yesterday I came across a couple of old blog posts: What's Going On?, from 2013, and Bewildered, from 2016. Both happen to talk about how as a country we'll "muddle through". In 2013 I was "sure" that we would, by 2016 I wasn't so sure:

"I had hoped that we'd muddle through in that seemingly very British way where we don't seem to veer too extremely in any direction, but I'm scared that that won't be the case."

This morning I read Why does England vote Tory? by Adam Ramsay, and now I don't think I want us to "muddle through".

I don't want a bloody revolution either, but thousands of us are already dying every week thanks to the actions (or inaction) of the upper-classes in power, and the dead are far more likely to be Black, minority ethnic, and the working class.

As Ramsay says, "There is no non-controversial way to do this.". We need to work through the controversy and our discomfort with it.

Ramsay's earlier post Churchill must fall is also an interesting read. He points out the racist atrocities that Churchill perpetrated, partly during his leadership in the Second World War. It was also Churchill who sent a warship from the Royal Navy to sit in the Mersey, ready for use on his own people, in the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike.

I don't think a Culture War is useful, as that's just a class war between the middle- and the working-class, which serves the upper-class very well. The far right is seen by liberals as a white, working-class problem from outside the cities. I don't think that's true, there are racists all across Britain, in all classes.

We need solidarity between the Black community, the working-class, and the middle-class as we understand our differences and work towards our common aims.