We need Save Our Rights UK. We need people like this. They are brave, enterprising and wonderful: they do things I can’t. And we cannot afford to lose a single dissenting voice. Yet I cannot help having mixed feelings about Save our Rights UK. I joined its Facebook page a few weeks ago, after a look around, endless news feed and a number of failed attempts to post on it I decided it wasn’t for me. That’s a pity because I believe in what they’re doing. Why do I feel this way?
I have to be frank: SORUK has its problems. Its leaders are inarticulate, seem to have no professional background and there is something odd about them. Its speakers have mixed levels of effectiveness. Gareth Icke can be a half-decent public speaker. His father David, though charismatic and at times compelling, is associated in the minds of many with eccentric and fringe ideas seen as ludicrous by some. Now I’ve read some of his work, and though he asks a number of sound questions, provides evidence for questioning mainstream narratives and is very assiduous, some of his ideas are somewhat bizarre and his use of words like “the psychopaths” in rallies is only preaching to the converted: his language is too incendiary to be persuasive, when what we need most is persuasion and accessible sophistry (rather than the doctoral-thesis, convoluted intellectualisms of people like Sinead Murphy.) Piers Corbyn, though eccentric enough to become a national treasure and undoubtedly super-intelligent, again, is too passionate to persuade. Now, this is not to suggest for a moment that none of the things these guys are doing is worthwhile: quite the opposite. There’s nothing wrong with being a public speaker who doesn’t have an Oxbridge background and a Ph.D in Hegelian philosophy. In this day and age it’s absurd to suggest social caveats of this kind on public speakers. But we are in an impasse. Though we desperately need demonstrations, bigger and better, more unity and more power, am I alone in feeling there is something vaguely problematic about SORUK and that we might be able to do better? Would more of us support them and take them seriously if they had a more polished brand? Or are we content to hide in the bunkers like me and write stuff on social media to try and fight a long battle?
I’m aware that there is something a bit sanctimonious about what I’m saying. I can hear you saying, “Just a minute, when were YOU last in a demonstration?” And you’re right, of course. But what we need is some sort of effective, cohesive movement. If we had a live movement that attracted as speakers people like Brendan O’Neill, Douglas Murray, Peter Hitchens, Sir Desmond Swayne and Lord Sumption, would it gain more followers and be more effective? I know this is too much to expect, but all of the above are compelling, highly articulate and tend to be taken seriously. As media figures they are easy to find and have a strong platform, but they are differing voices with differing world-views. And that’s my point. SORUK in its present form cannot in my view expect to achieve any more than it has already done, which is to give a platform for people who feel as we do, although one of its weaknesses is a perceived “conspiracy-theorist” association in some people’s minds. Is there anyone who is an articulate and compelling speaker, with a political history and experience, a media presence and the passion to front a successful drive to bring the anti-lockdown narrative further into the mainstream of public debate who is willing to do so?
Well, yes there is. I’m afraid it’s Nigel Farage. And whatever many people think of him, he does have all these assets and is now in that debate. It’s a shame that we are, many of us, myself included, comfortable to stick with a small enclave in the wider sceptic community. But to bring it all together needs an extraordinary figure and we do not have a Gandhi, a King or a John Kennedy to help shape the future. SORUK is a raw, grass-roots movement. Its work is noble, its leaders tireless soldiers. I salute them. But to break through to the millions out there with their drivel about “risking lives” and “if we all follow the rules everything will be OK.” (the opposite is true) the world cries out for a welding together of the whole “movement.” I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. Maybe you do.
If you do have an answer, share it. And if you have been on a demonstration, well done.