A central feature of the cultural hegemony of our ‘new elite’ is that it is sustained by pharisaical levels of hypocrisy. We’re currently being treated to an example of this in the form of the Suella Braverman non-crisis that is dominating the airwaves, and which provides what it is nowadays fashionable to call a ‘teachable moment’.
To briefly explain for overseas readers: Suella Braverman was until today the Home Secretary here in the U.K. On Wednesday last week, she wrote a piece for the Times (available behind the paywall here) in which she expressed some fairly mild criticism of the way in which protests in London were being policed. Her accusation, which almost anybody will notice to be true, was that the Metropolitan Police simply don’t treat all protests on the streets of London in the same way. If it’s BLM it’s kid gloves. But when it’s anti-lockdown protestors, it’s truncheons and tear gas. Braverman then reminded the police that it was important to enforce the law properly when it comes to pro-Palestinian marches (a large one of which having been planned for, and since carried out, last Saturday).
The wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed was truly extraordinary. Braverman, it seemed, was violating an ironclad principle of the English constitution, which is that it is never acceptable for a member of the Government to say anything whatsoever that might be interpreted as havig anything to do with police ‘operational matters’. Braverman’s article, it was hinted darkly, was setting us on the slippery slope towards a police state, in which the Government orders the police who to arrest and directs the force to silence political enemies. This was categorically something up with which we could not put. And today Braverman has duly been dismissed from the Cabinet.
Of course, there is no such ironclad principle of the English constitution – or, if there is, it is one which is routinely ignored by everybody. British readers will cast their minds back a mere nine years, and recall the then-Home Secretary Theresa May turning up at a police conference in Bournemouth to accuse them of having “contempt for the public” and to call them out for their racism – particularly in reference to ‘stop and search’ tactics – and sexism. Or they might cast their minds back a bit further to remind themselves of then-Home Secretary Jack Straw’s comments expressing concern about “wide variation” around the country in the way in which police were using “out of court” penalties. Fresher faced readers might recall Matt Hancock when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care “backing the police” who fined two innocent Derbyshire women for daring to go for a walk together around a lake during the winter lockdown of 2020-21 (one of many, many, many, many, many interventions by Government ministers in what would properly have been called ‘operational matters’ during the lockdown era, a large proportion of which seemed to concern whether somebody should be arrested for eating a scotch egg in a pub, or something). In none of these cases was the politician in question sacked from the Government, and in none of these cases did the columnists at the Guardian unite in mass fits of pearl-clutching. There was a bit of mild finger-wagging directed at Hancock regarding the Derbyshire incident, but he suffered absolutely no political consequences for his comments. I don’t recall there being anything said about Theresa May’s comments about stop-and-search in 2014 other than praise for her ”bravery“.
It is difficult to express in polite terms, then, what utter bollocks it is to claim that there is some supreme constitutional norm holding that it is illegitimate for an elected politician, or even a member of the Government, to remind the police that their job is to evenhandedly enforce the law. If anything, the truth is the opposite: this is among the job of elected politicians, and rightly so. The separation of powers is violated when a member of the executive directs the police to arrest an individual, or intervenes in a criminal prosecution. But Braverman’s article did nothing even approaching that. The people complaining about it are by implication either not thinking things through properly or being disingenuous – or both.
But then, enforcing constitutional principle, as anyone sensible can see, is the last thing on anyone’s minds here. This is plainly not about the rules: it is about Braverman. And Braverman is rapidly becoming the most interesting political figure in the country – one of those rare individuals, like Boris Johnson or Donald Trump, who so enrages members of the new elite as to give rise to a unique ‘derangement syndrome’ of their own. She has achieved this by daring to give voice to a significant chunk of the electorate, who are a bit socially conservative, and also by being a Right-wing woman who is a member of an ethnic minority. Being a bit socially conservative in itself enrages the new elite, and her being a conservative non-white woman dangerously discombobulates their asinine and simplistic view of the moral and political universe. They therefore necessarily visit their ire upon Braverman as the avatar of everything they hate and fear in public life.
So much I think is fairly obvious. There is, though, something deeper going on in this story. A while back, I wrote a piece for the Daily Sceptic in which I drew readers’ attention to the important concept of artificial negativity. The essence of this concept is that hegemony can only really secure its position through a plausible narrative of necessity. If the hegemon acknowledges that it is in fact the hegemon and that its victory is total, it will deflate like a sad hot air balloon. Instead, it must present the situation as being one in which the forces of truth and justice, which it embodies, are permanently engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a rotating cast of various powerful and dangerous baddies. This is how the members of a cultural elite motivate themselves and get themselves up in the morning, and how they strengthen their cultural dominance. “What the country needs is yet more of what we represent,” the message must go. “Because without us, dangerous fascists like Suella Braverman are poised to take charge.”
Ritualised episodes of confected crisis like this one are therefore entirely characteristic of a society that is in the grip of a cultural hegemony. And, when we look at the subject from this perspective, things begin to make a lot more sense. Our new elite hates Suella Braverman, but if she didn’t exist, it would have been necessary for them to invent her. To get the juices flowing, threats need to be imagined, and dangers manufactured. One of these dangers, absurdly, is a Tory Government sweeping to power and installing authoritarian rule. That the Tories have been in Government since 2010 and done absolutely nothing of the kind shows us just how absurd this fear actually is. But it is important to remember that it isn’t a genuine fear – it is a kind of cosplay which the new elite participates in to work itself up for yet more entrenchment of its own position. The shrillness and outrage is palpable, but it is really within the same category as a Violet Elizabeth tantrum – it is theatrics for a particular purpose, which is cementing power. Rishi Sunak, in giving in to this tendency, is therefore exhibiting nothing but the rubber spine of a weak parent unable to resist acceding to his child’s demands so as to secure an easy life; but then I suppose that’s hardly surprising in a conservative politician in the U.K. in 2023.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. He is the author of the News From Uncibal Substack.
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Braverman – fired because she criticised her own office ie the appartchik uncivil serpents and that useless anti-white, anti-English blob called the Plod who are fine with Moslems screaming their Jihad and hate speech, but will send 8 officers over pronto if you criticise a mentally ill pervert who thinks his sausage is a womb.
Her problem is that as Minister she has zero real power to reform anything.
As soon as she started on the Met and the failures of the HO – she was done. So it goes in the Convict party. They ‘Bridgen’ you for dissent or criticism. All fall into line. Swing the arms, goose step in rhythm. And shut your mouth and obey the uniparty-WEF dogma.
I seem to remember Priti Patel, trying to get a job done, much to the annoyance of the blob, and the plod.
Why do upticks not work. Mostly?
if only Priti Patel, Braverman, Truss and her Chancellor were to join Reform it could create results.
And also that the Home Sec is not the only top dog over the Met Police. The Mayor of London comes to mind. In the UK overall, the Police organisations come under the local authorities financially as well, not directly under the Treasury. Have a look at your Council Tax bill, if you are responsible for the annual rates.
‘But when it’s anti-lockdown protestors, it’s truncheons and tear gas.’ Actually, that’s not true of my relatively extensive experience of the marches. I went on the three biggest marches in London – I was right in the thick of it – for several hours each time, and the police were fine – I didn’t see a single instance of police brutality and saw no tear gas. Never been on or near a BLM demo so can’t comment on that.
You didn’t attend the one on the 26th September 2020 in Trafalgar Square or the protest during November 2020. When the police attacked the peaceful protest on the 26th September 2020 after two hours it felt as though they were acting on orders from a politician. The timing prevented a speech from Dr Heiko Schoning, which I thought was suspicious then and still do.
I don’t remember any tear gas. However, the police did attack using batons and they might have used tear gas elsewhere.
Then i saw more than you from Youtube. I suggest you speak to MP Christopher Chope who spoke out against Police when they arrested a 90yo. And there was also the Park incident where they went after people listening to a band, until the crowd fought back. People were arrested for hugging, going for a walk, nit having a substantial meal, wake up FFS!
But you might have noticed they let people lay down in the street and glue themselves to stuff, disrupting everyone’s life, and pouring paint over buildings and destroying works of art in galleries. That isn’t protests. It is public disorder. Would you or I get away with this if we never had a “Just Stop Oil” T shirt on? ——-Braverman is correct. You will policed depending on who you are and what you are protesting about.
We are now less free than the Chinese. At least their citizens are free to buy whatever car/boiler they please. We’ve now seen the deep state decapitate anyone who veers even mildly off script. Truss/Braverman are hardly Boudicca.
“One of these dangers,
absurdly, is a Tory Government sweeping to power and installing authoritarian rule.”Which they are well on the way to achieving.
Generally agree, with the exception of this:
Lockdowns, and all the bullying diktat that came with it, mass coercion to inject everyone with an experimental product, the appalling cancellation of people (even people in government) with the wrong views, the upending of democracy within the Houses of Parliament (think the treatment of Andrew Bridgen), the perpetual fear-mongering surrounding manmade climate change, the zero tolerance approach to motorists etc etc etc I would say is pretty damn authoritarian. It doesn’t matter that this is all leftist thinking, it’s so-called Conservatives who’ve been at the helm whilst this has all happened. When will people finally get their head around this – THERE IS NO CONSERVATIVE PARTY. It doesn’t matter what they call themselves.
A useful analogy used by Chris Hope of GBN is that the Conservative Party behaves like a snake, chucking off it’s old skin and carries on growing.
And don’t forget the Energy Bull that never gets a mention. Also, they didn’t mandate the jabs because of the NHS workers challenging the narrative. What planet is the author of this blog on!
David bloody Cameron though. At least Suella ‘Braverwoman’ had the lady bollocks to call out the craptastic policing and the enabling of the Nazi/Hamas fan club marches, which appear to now be a weekly fixture in the capital, as well as during the week all over the place, for all the students who’ve got the time on their hands. Good for her too, given that her husband’s Jewish so it’d be a bit strange if she didn’t stick her head above the parapet and call out the blatant antisemitism that is now being normalized in society. Come vent your spleen on a ‘Jew-hate march’, and why not?..It’s allowed, because ‘free speech’!
“Daddy’s home,” texted lawmakers aligned with the center of Britain’s governing Conservative Party to the liberal mainstream media as they reveled in the return of David Cameron to one of Britain’s great offices of state on Monday.
The former prime minister reemerged from the political wilderness and accepted Rishi Sunak’s invitation to run the foreign office in a cabinet reshuffle that saw Suella Braverman, whom many believed to be one of the only genuine conservatives still in Sunak’s administration, dismissed from her role as home secretary.
And in one fell swoop, the U.K. Conservative Party accepted its fate of being out of power for a generation.
It is hard to fathom that the flailing U.K. prime minister, languishing in the polls and in critical need of a power play to be even remotely in with a chance of clinging on to power at the next election, took the view that inviting Panama Dave back into the fold was his trump card, more the ace up the sleeve that fell face up on the felt and revealed Sunak to be an unserious, incompetent player who is totally out of his depth.
To be so oblivious to the irony of bringing back a man who died on the hill of retaining EU membership as his main foreign policy objective as the politician in charge of Britain’s foreign policy seven years later is as staggering as it is deeply offensive to the British electorate.
As one former Brexit donor told Remix News, the prime minister only needs to bring back John Major as Brexit minister to complete the job.”
https://rmx.news/commentary/swapping-suella-for-dave-will-consign-the-conservatives-to-the-lower-echelons-of-british-politics-for-a-generation/
Out of power is not enough. We have to destroy the CP.
Tory plucked defeat from the hands of victory ( to use a football analogy) An 80 seat majority turned into a hiding . ——The good news might be that Braverman comes back to haunt Sammy Davis Sunak after the public wash their hands of the parasite Starmer and she can then rub his WEF face in it.
You have omitted that this is the latest of a series of controversial remarks often against the wishes of Sunak.
And? He is prime Minister not Ming the Merciless.
Controversial to who? Certainly not the public. ——And isn’t it the public these people are supposed to serve? Instead, they serve themselves and are simply a bunch of UN and WEF lackeys
I just heard Hesseltine saying how good Cameron’s appointment was for Britain. That tells me how bad it actually is.
Might have spent too much time watching the telly today, but one of the latest conspiracy theories was that one of the reasons to sort it out now may be to allow the chucked out Ministers a clear 6 months so as to be allowed to take on alternative high salary private sector jobs under the normal rules, when they lose their seats. That would open the prospect of a May election in tandem with all the local Council ones next Spring. Either that, or they’ll hope for the best next Autumn, otherwise there’d be a Winter election in 2025.
Sunak is just following orders from his handler to install the useful WEF puppets to further the Great Reset….
Nothing to do with left or right…
All to do with one world government & the destruction of nation states.
Sunak won’t regret a thing.
I welcome Mrs Braverman’s expulsion from the government for the sole reason that it is now impossible for the present PM to pretend to be anything other than what he is…. namely a leftist charlatan in temporary charge of a leftist party with no conservatives left in it. Suella was the front-woman for Ritchy’s confidence trick, whereby he sought to entice some former supporters back to the ranks.
Let’s be clear. Braverman was only appointed by Sunak as a sop to the proper conservatives in the Party.
She has been obstructed, muzzled and restricted at every stage by the globalist cabale that now controls the modern Conservative in name only party.
The make up of the government is now entirely globalist, remainer, WEF. Everything Sunak’s people have done is directed by this agenda.
Join the dots.
Seconded
The supreme court is going to deliver it’s ruling on the Rwanda plan on Wednesday. Has Fishy been told in advance that it will be declared illegal and got rid of Braverman so he doesn’t have anyone in the cabinet calling for us to leave the ECHR?
Yesterday on GB news Edwina Curry was laughing at the “right”. She wants the Conservatives to be “moderate” so they can win votes. So in other words just another vanilla flavoured party hoping to get more votes that the other vanilla parties. But I hear the tory handwringers on TV this morning say they are a “broad church”.—— But not broad enough for Braverman apparently, or any others who are not very vanilla.