There's a great deal of voter
dissatisfaction with the two-party system of politics in Britain (Labour/Tory)
and the beneficiaries of this are likely to be Nigel Farage and Reform UK's
brand of right-wing populism. Farage recently said that all politicians are
wankers but at least Reform UK are honest about it.
As the left in Britain has become
more obsessed with identity politics and less with class politics, it has
become more socially irrelevant to the lives of many working-class people.
Identify politics has taken social-class out of the equation and is less
concerned with equality, redistribution, and the class struggle. That's why
many corporate bodies buy into it and are happy to promote it.
The English left is well known
for being fractious and sectarian socialism is the norm in Britain. Some 57 varieties
of socialist, communist and Trotskyist groups, vie to lead a non-revolutionary
proletariat.
I remember some years ago writing
an article about a Trotskyist nutter called Royston Bull, who was a former
member of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Bull was rather like the
malevolent journalist Quintus Slide of the 'People's
Banner', who appears in Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels. He edited a
magazine with the grand name of the Economic and Philosophic Review (E&PR),
which was basically just a rant on paper. From the safety of his living room,
Bull would often verbally threaten and harass his political opponents and
detractors via his scurrilous publication. Bull rose to the dizzy heights
of vice-president of Arthur Scargill's SLP before he was 'voided' by the SLP
when they realised just how big a nutter he was.
My article was about how Bull had
expelled the Greater Manchester political activist John Pearson, from his
branch of the SLP. The way John described his expulsion to me sounded like the
Salem Witch-Hunt in Arthur Miller's play 'The
Crucible'.
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