Bulldog Breed?

Is Rachel Reeves going to put up taxes with Angela Rayner sitting next to her? Momentum endorsed Rayner against Richard Burgon. How does that look now? The powerbase that comfortably won her the Deputy Leadership was the activist Left and the union machines, not always the best of comrades, but in those days both very keen on her. Neither of them has much of a presence in the Parliamentary Labour Party, she has disappointed the unions, and the Left, fond of the word “betrayal”, has legitimate cause to use it in her case. She’s finished.

But are those who have defaced her flat going to be treated in the same way as Palestine Action? If not, why not? In fact, there has lately been rather a lot of paint-based criminal damage in at least a vague, and sometimes a very specific, political cause. There have also been rather a lot of breaches of planning regulations to rank with any at the Bell Hotel, Epping. There is mass, flagrant and organised breach of the anti-protest legislation that the last Government enacted and which those who have replaced it did not oppose, so have not repealed.

And of rather older laws than that, with no shortage of flying pickets. The Right has form here. The Ulster Workers’ Council strike of 1974 was the only strike in the history of the United Kingdom to have been purely political, with no industrial dispute at its root. In bringing down the power-sharing arrangements of the Sunningdale Agreement, it was fully successful. Behind the Ulster Workers’ Council was the Ulster Army Council, coordinating the activities of those who have turned their attention in Ballymena from neighbours whom they at least thought were Romanians, to neighbours whom they at least think are Filipinos, while marching in much the same interest through Dublin in support of Councillor Malachy Steenson of, at various times, the Official IRA, the Continuity IRA, the Real IRA, and the INLA.

To their great credit, both the Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons of the DUP, and the local MP, Jim Allister of the TUV, have been fulsome in their condemnation of the Ballymena pogroms. Allister has a majority of only 450, delivered by people who thought that Ian Paisley Jr was too softline. The pogromists will put up someone against him, as there will be similarly minded candidates to give even Nigel Farage (Douglas Carswell?), Richard Tice and Lee Anderson pause for thought, and gravely imperilling Sarah Pochin’s majority of six.

Although of course they would not all have been from Great Yarmouth, until a few hours ago 500 revellers were to have congregated there this weekend having paid £72 per head to hear Crucified, Whitelaw, Pressure 28, Last Orders, Bulldog Breed, London Breed, Combat BC, Wellington Arms, and Birthrite. The main organiser was Rob Claymore, who plays in more than one of those bands, but the local pointman was Robert Bray of Blood and Honour, which in January had its assets frozen as a domestic terrorist organisation. It has not, however, been proscribed. Unlike Palestine Action. Rupert Lowe had said nothing about “the biggest White Power gig in Britain in 10 years”. Bray’s electoral showing would be negligible by normal standards, but a Reform UK candidate will certainly be fielded against Lowe, and his majority is only 1426, so even a thimbleful of votes will be significant. Atop his N-tower, James McMurdock’s majority is all of 98. Think on.