English Labour's embrace of fascism

Published in the Herald, September 25th, and The National, September 27th.

• An ongoing genocide in Gaza that has by now wiped out at least 200,000 civilians and wounded hundreds of thousands of others.

• A terror campaign against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank carried out by illegal settlers, aided by one of the world’s most advanced armies.

• The planting of explosives in pagers that have maimed and killed thousands of innocent people in Beirut.

• More than a thousand airstrikes in southern Lebanon that have murdered hundreds.

• Assassinations of foreign leaders on their sovereign territory.

These are just a few of the recent atrocities committed by the rogue state of Israel, a state that the UK government is arming and politically supporting.

At yesterday’s Labour party conference, a young man interrupted a preening Chancellor Reeves to protest the UK selling weapons to this outlaw state. After he was tackled by security personnel, dragged from the hall, knocked against the wall and put into cuffs, Rachel Reeves, with a rictus smile, said:

“This is a changed Labour Party. A Labour Party that represents working people, not a party of protests.”

No truer words were spoken. English Labour is a party that allows no protests, that allows no dissent from the Starmerite party line, that shuts down voices demanding justice for the poor, the old, children, the disabled and the persecuted.

English Labour is embracing the draconian 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, the 1986 Public Order Act and the 2023 Serious Disruption Regulations passed by Tory governments that suppress and silence dissent.

Authoritarianism has come to the UK, but also to the US and EU, where free speech and the right to protest have been under sustained attack.

Corporate control of western media and governments is propelling this descent into fascism. Politicians are funded by and beholden to these interests, the most powerful of which is the Zionist Israel lobby. English Labour, no doubt influenced by Labour Friends of Israel, has banned the words ‘genocide’ and ‘apartheid’ from its party conference.

The journalist Caitlin Johnstone summarised the Orwellian ‘rules’ on how we, the hoi polloi, are required to think and talk about Israel’s warmongering:

Rule 1: Recorded history began on October 7 2023. Maybe some things happened before that date, but nobody can remember.

Rule 2: Anything bad that Israel does is justified by Rule 1. This is true even if it does things that would be considered completely unjustifiable if it were done by a nation like Russia or Iran.

Rule 3: Israel has a right to defend itself, but nobody else does.

Rule 4: Israel never bombs civilians, it bombs terrorists. If shocking numbers of civilians die it’s because they were actually terrorists, or because terrorists killed them, or because a terrorist stood too close to them. If none of those reasons apply then it’s for some other mysterious reason we are still waiting for the IDF to investigate.

Rule 5: Criticizing anything Israel does means you hate Jewish people. There is no other reason anyone could possibly oppose military explosives being dropped on areas packed full of children besides a seething, obsessive hatred for a small Abrahamic faith.

Rule 6: Nothing Israel does is ever as bad as the hateful criticisms described in Rule 5. Criticism of Israel’s actions is always worse than Israel’s actions themselves, because those critics hate Jews and wish to commit another Holocaust. Preventing this must consume 100 percent of our political energy and attention.

Rule 7: Israel can never be the victimizer, it can only ever be the victim. If Israel attacks Lebanon, it’s because Hezbollah attacked it completely unprovoked while Israel was innocently minding its own business trying to commit a little genocide in peace. If people protest against Israel bombing entire cities into dust, then Israel is the victim because the protests made Israel’s supporters feel sad.

Rule 8: The fact that Israel is literally always in a state of war with its neighbours and with displaced indigenous populations must be interpreted as proof that Rule 7 is true instead of proof that Rule 7 is ridiculous nonsense.

Rule 9: Arab lives are much, much less important to us than western lives or Israeli lives. Nobody is allowed to think too hard about why this might be.

Rule 10: The media always tell the truth about Israel and its various conflicts. If you doubt this then you are likely in violation of Rule 5.

Rule 11: Unsubstantiated claims which portray Israel’s enemies in a negative light may be reported as factual news stories without any fact checking or qualifications, while extensively evidenced records of Israeli criminality must be reported on with extreme scepticism and doubtful qualifiers like “Lebanon says” or “according to the Hamas-run health ministry”. This is important to do because otherwise you might get accused of being a propagandist.

Rule 12: Israel must continue to exist in its current iteration no matter what it costs or how many people need to die. There is no need to present any logically or morally grounded reasons why this is the case. If you dispute this then you are likely in violation of Rule 5.

Rule 13: The US government has never lied about anything ever, and is always on the right side of every conflict.

Rule 14: (Americans only) Nothing that happens in the middle east is as urgent or significant as making sure the correct person wins the US presidential election. Ignore any inconvenient facts which distract you from this mission of unparalleled importance.

Rule 15: Israel must be protected because it is the last bastion of freedom and democracy in the middle east, no matter how many journalists it has to assassinate, no matter how many press institutions it needs to shut down, no matter how many protests its supporters need to dismantle, no matter how much free speech it needs to eliminate, no matter how many civil rights it needs to erase, and no matter how many elections its lobbyists need to buy.

If Scotland is to have any chance of escape from this fascist dystopia and regain its international voice, it knows what it has to do.