Beyond The Fringe

Still not a peep about Harriet Harman’s old links to the Paedophile Information Exchange and Paedophile Action for Liberation.

Well, of course not. The sectarian Left of the Seventies (social, cultural and constitutional in ways actively hostile to social-democratic economics) and the sectarian Right of the Eighties (economic in ways actively hostile to conservative social, cultural and constitutional arrangements) comprise the new ruling class in this country.

In advocating never-ending wars abroad and ever-more-draconian “anti-terrorist” measures at home, they now function as a single entity, the entity that now runs the country. Put together the list of signatories to the Henry Jackson Society and the original list of those to the Euston Manifesto, and there they all are: the old Communists, Trotskyists and fellow-travellers from back in the day, alongside the old contributors to Right Now! and other such publications in support of apartheid South Africa, Pinochet’s Chile and all the rest.

Yet these people, every one of them utterly unrepentant, have the gall to present themselves as moderate, mainstream and centrist. But unbridled global capitalism is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist. Unrestrained social libertarianism is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist.

European federalism under overall American control, and in the twin causes of unbridled global capitalism and unrestrained social libertarianism, is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist. The waging of endless wars and the erosion of ancient civil liberties, in those same twin causes (and therefore also in the cause of European federalism under overall American control), is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist.

The uncritical, unconditional and unlimited support of statelets based on those twin causes (and in at least one case on European federalism, while in all cases on overall American control) in such places as the Levant, the Caucasus and the China Seas, is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist.

And refusing to apologise for having supported either the Soviet Union, or the likes of apartheid South Africa and Pinochet’s Chile, is neither moderate, nor mainstream, nor centrist.

For all its many faults, the party with the closest historical connections to the two traditions – Liberal, and social democratic within the Labour Movement – that were most consistent in being equally opposed both to the Soviet Union, and to the likes of apartheid South Africa and Pinochet’s Chile, is the party that has stood firmest, both against these people’s most recent wars, and against their attacks on British freedom.

That party eventually woke up to the true character of the war agenda. In the coming realignment of British politics, the local communitarian populists, and the battlers for causes, currently organised in or around that party will have a significant contribution to make. If they wake up to the true character of capitalism, of radical libertarianism, of European federalism, and of the new ruling class’s constitutional programme.