Racism, anti-Semitism and the Conservative Party

While the controversy over anti-Semitism has raged in the Labour Party, the question of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party has gone largely unnoticed. That happy state of affairs for the Tories has been brought to an end with the recent accusations made by Baroness Warsi that Theresa May was burying her head in the sand about Islamophobia in the party. As the BBC comments: 
"Former party chairwoman Baroness Warsi said the PM had failed to "acknowledge" or "tackle" the problem and this was "symptomatic" of her wider leadership."

 The Conservative party has since suspended 14 members for making Islamophobic Facebook comments. Significantly, the BBC goes on to say:

 "The suspensions followed messages posted on a Facebook group called the "Jacob Rees-Mogg Supporters Group...She (Baroness Warsi) suggested the "rot had set in" several years ago and accused senior party officials of being "in denial".

With all due respect to Baroness Warsi, while the Tory party may have problems with Islamophobia now, the "rot" of racism and anti-Semitism set in with the Conservatives a long time ago.

From its founding in 1834, the Conservative Party has had a "problem" with anti-Semitism. The party founder, Sir Robert Peel, was a vocal opponent of Jewish Emancipation. Benjamin Disraeli, a Jewish convert to Christianity, was shunned by fellow Conservative MPs following his election as an MP in 1837. The Conservatives fought against the Jewish Relief Act until its passing in 1858.

With the influx of Jewish refugees from Tsarist persecution at the turn of the 19th century, Conservative party members founded the para-military British Brothers League and the  Parliamentary Alien Immigration Committee, both of which exerted pressure to pass the Aliens Act of 1905.

 Fast forwarding to the 1930s, the Conservative government expressed no condemnation of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews, dismissing it as an internal matter. In more recent times, Alan Clark, who later became Minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, wrote in his diary in 1981:

 'I really believed it (National Socialism) to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished'

Both Edwina Currie and Leon Brittain reportedly felt that they were criticised unfairly by other senior Tories simply because of anti-Semitism.

More recently, there have been a number of instances of anti-Semitic activity at national and grass roots level. Boris Johnson has held talks with the alleged anti-Semite, Steve Bannon. In November 2017 it was revealed that Conservative Party activists were members of a Facebook group called Young Right Society, which posted anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying and racist material. Conservative history on this matter dwarfs Labour party anti-Semitism into next to nothing - no wonder the Tories have been so quiet on the subject.

As for racism against black and Asian people, we saw clear manifestations of this in the Tory party with the election of Peter Griffiths, MP for Smethwick, in 1964, and the infamous so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech of Enoch Powell, in 1968. In 1978, Margaret Thatcher, then Leader of the Opposition, said on TV:

 ""People [in Britain] are rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture"

She also described Nelson Mandela as a "terrorist", and did nothing to stop Conservative university students distributing "Hang Nelson Mandela" posters. Also, it's forgotten now, but future Tory PM David Cameron went on a "sanctions-busting jolly" to South Africa with the anti-sanctions Conservative Research Department.

It's no surprise , then to learn of incidents such as this, taken from REKNR:

"In a 2002 column for the Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson (then MP for Henley) described black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. He apologised six years later in 2008 (when running to be London Mayor). No disciplinary action was taken by the Conservative Party at any point."

Or this:

"In January 2010, Tory Councillor for Colne, Smith Benson, complained that there were “too many P***s” in his town.  Council Leader Tony Beckett refused to discipline him and said, “I think for the Labour Party to say he should be sacked for making a sweeping statement is a bit strong.”

One last example:

"In December 2015, it was revealed that Oliver Letwin, then an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, had made a series of racist remarks following the riots in 1985, describing black people as having “bad moral attitudes”, and saying schemes to help black people would be spent in “the disco and drugs trade” and employment programmes would only see black people “graduate… into unemployment and crime”. The Conservative Party took no disciplinary action and Mr Letwin remains a government minister".

All of which points to a far worse situation in the Conservative Party than a recent outbreak of Islamophobia. The worst racists I have ever known were all Conservative Party members or supporters; the passage of time and the development of a multicultural and multiracial society has clearly not eradicated those racist attitudes among the Tories. Good luck, Baroness Warsi - you've got your work cut out. 

No Show Without Punch...or George Galloway

The recent formation of an Independent Group of ex-Labour and Tory MPs has caused huge controversy in the media and among political personalities. Among the latter, partly because I can't think of a better way to describe him, I include the ex-Labour and Respect MP, George Galloway, seen above. As Mr Galloway is no longer in the Labour Party and the fact that the other party for which he served as an MP (Respect) no longer exists, he is now something of an Independent himself,we might expect him to have some sympathy or respect (small "r") for the Independent group in Parliament. 

Alas, this is not the case. Commenting adversely on "the gang of eight" ex-Labour MPs, The Mirror reported:

" He (Galloway) branded one of the eight, Joan Ryan, "an agent of the Israeli embassy in London" - claims she vehemently denies - and claimed another, Jewish MP Luciana Berger, was not really leaving due to anti-Semitism. In comments that attracted fury online, he said the new group was "really a black op" and told a Sky interviewer: "The Goebbels is you".

The Goebbels reference is to the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Not the most delicate choice of historical figure to quote when discussing Jewish MPs, but Mr Galloway must know that. 

In fact, Mr Galloway's hypocrisy on this issue is breathtaking. On TalkRADIO, he denounced the ex-Labour independents as traitors, out to stab Jeremy Corbyn in the back. Yet he himself has stood against Labour in elections and regularly belittled Labour politicians whom he disliked - especially Tony Blair. As John Mann, MP, said of Mr Galloway on Sky News:

“There’s a man who did stand as an independent, as a traitor to the Labour Party."

I suspect that Galloway's new respect (that word again) for Jeremy Corbyn stems from his desire to rejoin the Labour Party. Fortunately for Labour, that won't happen. As "GG" has stood against Labour in elections, he cannot rejoin. John Mann again:

"Once a traitor, always a traitor. So Galloway should not be allowed back in.Galloway was a traitor, he stood as an independent."

Galloway has presumably never heard the old proverb about pots calling kettles black. 

Now, I have an issue to address here, for which I fully accept the need. Some people, rightly, will question the wisdom of attacking Mr Galloway yet again. Lots of people have attacked him in the press and online (so have I). By his antics on Big Brother, his outrageous statements on various issues, his alliance with Nigel Farage on the EC Referendum ("Churchill and Stalin") and his praise for the Iraqis who fought British troops in Iraq, you'd think him dead in the water. Then there was his infamous statement on the rape allegations against Julian Assange. As the Independent noted:

"He argued that if a woman consents to sex once, and then wakes up to find the same man having sex with her again without her consent, that is not rape. Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion,” he said."

Then there is his link with the regime in Iran. There's no secret about the fact that he works for the Iranian regime's propaganda outlet, Press TV. His weaselling defence of the Iranian tyranny's persecution of LGBT people has been attacked by Peter Tatchell. As Tatchell says:

"His (Galloway's) claim that lesbian and gay people are not at risk of execution in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights organisation, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the International Lesbian and Gay Association. None of these esteemed bodies are anti-Iran warmongers, as Galloway has subsequently seemed to imply."

And, if I may add my two pence worth, "GG" has been strangely quiet about the imprisonment on trumped-up charges in Iran of the Iranian/British mum, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and other dual nationals.

Why then, not just ignore this mountebank, this ex-Labour popinjay? The answer is simple: we can no more ignore Galloway safely than we can ignore the Holocaust denier, David Irving. Both these men have a cult following online and in print. If we do not challenge them, they will regard it as a victory, and grow even bolder. Turn your back upon Mack the Knife, and you will eventually be stabbed between the shoulder blades.

The Labour Split and a Growing Divide

On Monday, a very nice lady from Hounslow Labour Party knocked at our door. She wanted my views on local issues, but we soon got round to talking about national issues and my own political history. I explained that I would be happy to rejoin Labour, but was concerned about reports about anti-Semitism in Hounslow Labour Party. She assured me that no such feeling existed, and no anti-Semitic group would be tolerated. I said that the expansion of the Labour Party nationally had drawn in many undesirable members and she agreed that more checks on such people should have been carried out. I reassured her that I would still vote Labour at the next election, and she went away happily.
Next day, the news broke about the departure from Labour of seven MPs, seen above. I was stunned; I knew that there were rumblings of a breakaway group, but never expected it to happen. I have a habit of making the wrong call in politics; I never thought Britain would vote to leave the EC. I got it wrong again.
Although I half-expected it, I was astonished at the response on social media. Almost instantaneously, these MPs were being vilified as cowards and traitors. To be fair, Jeremy Corbyn has been quite restrained, saying:
 "I am disappointed that these MPs have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945"
Not everyone was so restrained. As the BBC report says:
 "In response, many Twitter users did not hold back in their criticism of the breakaway group, using phrases such as "splitters and Red Tories" to describe the seven."
Very few people made any effort to understand why the seven had taken this course of action, although Tom Watson spoke out against an over-the-top reaction.
The seven MPs had their own reasons for leaving, but I fail to see how anyone couldn't understand why Luciana Berger left. As the BBC says:
 "Ms Berger, who was one of the most prominent Jewish MPs in the party, cited the harassment she has received online as one of the main reasons for her quitting".
And there's no doubt about that. Four people have been convicted for anti-Semitic abuse directed at her, one of whom was a member of National Action. Mrs Berger said: 
“In the wake of one of those convictions, a far right website in the United States initiated the #filthyjewbitch campaign, which the police said resulted in me receiving over 2,500 violent, pornographic and extreme anti-Semitic messages in just one day alone...There is currently one more person on remand, having made threats to my life because of my faith."
Besides threats from fascists, Ms Berger, like the other MPs, faced harassment in her constituency party. The Liverpool Echo quoted Ms Berger on this, from her farewell letter to her local party: 
"She said that antisemitism stained the Labour party, and added: "When the executive of our own Constituency Labour Party can call a meeting to debate no confidence motions in me, one of which was moved by a man who has publicly described me as a ‘disruptive Zionist’ I believe we have a serious problem."
Now, I know many Labour Party members and ex-members who will be astounded to learn that there are problems with anti-Semitism. I have already read posts on Facebook to this effect, and they concern me. We should always beware of complacency. Just because you haven't experienced something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I have never suffered from Typhoid, but I know it's out there. 
Anti-Semitism in Labour is something new. There have always been divisions over Palestine and Israel, but that never stopped Zionist and anti-Zionist Labour members campaigning together. This, however, is more focussed and nasty (ask Luciana Berger). There have been 673 reports of anti-Semitism in 10 months.  This nastiness, I believe, arises from the influx of new members following Jeremy Corbyn's ascension as party leader. I have no evidence, but among them must have been supporters of the violent anti-Israel elements of the far left. Some may scoff at this, but I think some far-right extremists must have joined as well - it's not unknown. This could explain why the atmosphere surrounding anti-Semitism and other divisive issues in the Labour Party has become so toxic.
All this, I believe, points to a wider problem in society. Divisions of opinion now often degenerate into slanging matches on social media and, sometimes, violence on street demos. Part of the cause, I think, comes from the rancour that exists between Leave and Remain supporters over the referendum about EC membership. Another factor is the nature of trenchant intolerance caused by social media isolation, where the opponent in an argument is somehow not perceived as human. This is part of a growing divide - not just in the Labour Party, but among ourselves.
I am not saying that these seven MPs do not deserve criticism, but I think that they should be listened to with fairness, and not with unthinking abuse. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said that Labour must carry out a mammoth listening exercise to hear criticism from its own MPs. I hope it succeeds, but it smacks of too little, far too late. 

Shamima Begum: Issues and non-Issues

The recent discovery of Shamima Begum in a Syrian refugee camp has not exactly shown the British Government at its brilliant best - as if this government ever could be brilliant. On the one hand, we have the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, writing in The Times that he would do everything in his power to stop her return. On the other hand, we have the Security Minister, Ben Wallace, saying that she has the right, as a British citizen, to return. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing! Besides this, international law states that no person can be made stateless. This, together with her family's impassioned appeals for her return, some sympathetic voices in Parliament and some of the media surely points to the probability of her return in the near future, making the present controversy something of a non-issue, given the fact that she has a right of re-entry.

The outrage at her probable return, however, is an issue. Many thousands of people, not just the extreme right and the tabloid press, are outraged at the possibility of Begum's return. Over 100, 000 people have signed a petition calling for ex-ISIS members to be banned from returning to the UK - 3000 in Merseyside alone. The Sun newspaper, that organ of impartiality, speaks for many when it says: 

"Jihadi bride Shamima Begum must never set foot in Britain again". 

I have some sympathy for this viewpoint, even though I do not share it. Ms Begum knew full well what kind of an outfit ISIS was before she left Britain with two friends when she was only 15. She knew of the atrocities Daesh were committing - the burning to death of a downed Jordanian pilot had happened just before she set off to join Daesh. Besides this, she knew of the terrorist attacks here in the UK which claimed the lives of so many of her fellow British citizens. In her first two interviews with The Independent and Sky News, she expressed no remorse whatsoever for any of the attacks in Europe, or the crimes against the Yazidis, Christians, Kurds, Shias and captured Iraqi military by her Dutch husband's comrades-in-arms (and, more than likely, him). In her third interview since discovery, with the BBC, she does express sympathy for the victims of the atrocities. To my cynical eye, it looks staged, but perhaps I am being too harsh. She does, however, seem sincere in her wish to return home and genuinely concerned for her new baby. Interestingly enough, she has named her son "Jarrah", after an Arab warlord who lived 1, 300 years ago, and specialised in massacring Jews. Begum is clearly still under the influence of radical Islamic ideas and will bear watching and/or prosecuting when she comes "home", but we must bear in mind that 400 former Jihadis are said to have returned to the UK already. Since some are probably ex-fighters, is it right for us to refuse entry to a young mum and her baby? Perhaps she is truly sincere when she told the BBC:

"I actually do support some British values and I am willing to go back to the UK and settle back again and rehabilitate and that stuff."

 The Begum family lawyer descended into pomposity when he said that Ms Begum was being treated worse than a Nazi war criminal; he clearly doesn't know much history. She must face investigation, trial and surveillance when she returns, but her youth surely qualifies her for an attempt at rehabilitation. 

Please note - I am not pleading for leniency for Ms Begum. Even she realises that she will be investigated thoroughly upon her return if it happens. She may well face a prison term and, even upon release, she will be a hate figure. Bethnal Green residents fear a right-wing backlash should she ever returns to live in her parents' home, and she may be forced to change her address, name and appearance.
To conclude, I have to say that I do understand why so many British people think that ex-ISIS/Daesh loyalists should be barred from return, but there is a historical precedent for the rehabilitation of renegades. In 1944, the Nazis managed to recruit 57 British and Commonwealth POWs into a crackpot unit called "The British Free Corps". This collection of former Mosleyites and misfits included some strange and sinister characters. There was one Francis McLardy, an ex-Blackshirt pharmacist from Liverpool; Private John Eric Wilson of No. 3 Commando who was "sexually obsessed"; most sinister of all was one Thomas Cooper, who had previously served in the SS and bragged how he had shot 200 Poles and 80 Jews in one day in Warsaw.All British Free Corps members were rounded up after the war. Yet, as Guy Walters says:
"...the sentences meted out to these traitors were surprisingly lenient".
Cooper was sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment and released in 1953; McLardy was sentenced to  15 years in prison, but served only seven. Many were either fined or not tried at all, despite being obvious traitors. Walters goes on to say:
"...members of the BFC reintegrated themselves into British society with little difficulty after they had served their prison sentences".

I hope I've made my final point clear: if we can rehabilitate a bunch of fascist traitors and murderers, shouldn't we at least try to do the same for a deluded young mum of 19 who claims never to have fired a shot?

Defaced Memorials, Bomber Command and Dr Kehinde Andrews

Last week, vandals defaced a number of war memorials in London, including the statue of Winston Churchill, seen above. The Bomber Command memorial, the Royal Marines Memorial, the Canada Memorial and the statue of Franklin Roosevelt were also targeted. Significantly, the Bomber Command memorial has been attacked three times before. This apparent animus to Bomber Command means that the attackers, whoever they are, are likely to be drawn from one of three main groups: Neo-Nazis, the pacifist extreme Left or Jihadists. No-one has admitted responsibility yet, and perhaps never will. These three groupings, whom I shall ironically describe as the "Triple Alliance" from now on, actively hate each other and would like to see the blame fall on their enemies.

Understandably, there was a wave of public anger over the attacks. Nor were matters improved when Dr Kehinde Andrews, pictured above, went on TV Tuesday morning to say that building memorials to Bomber Command was akin to justifying terrorism:

"He said: ‘We are talking about a war crime. I think it is a tragedy they died, but we don’t need a statue.’ "

From this, then, we infer that Dr Andrews believes that all the men who flew with Bomber Command were terrorists and war criminals. Piers Morgan and others who conducted the interview were understandably angered at this viewpoint. So was I initially, until I became more analytical and realised that this viewpoint is common to two strands of the Triple Alliance; David Irving says much the same thing in his books. Dr Andrews is a professor of black studies in the school of social sciences at Birmingham City University. He has published several books attacking racism in British society, but his views on Bomber Command and Winston Churchill match those of the extreme Right.
 Now, I am not doubting Dr Andrews' sincerity, but I suspect that he has other motives behind his apparently unorthodox stance. History is a difficult academic discipline to succeed in, and it is not unknown for up and coming historians to take a "maverick" stand. David Irving is an extreme example of this, but other examples are those of Professor Gary Sheffield and Dan Snow, who were both reviled for writing favourably about Britain's WW1 generals. I cannot prove this about Andrews, but there are indications. Before his appearance on TV, he tweeted that he was headed "into the lions' den", which indicates to me that he is revelling in the storm of publicity he provokes.

In fairness, I must quote Dr Andrews at length. He said about the defacing of the memorials:

‘I’m not defending the vandalism of memorials at all. What I’m saying is the way we put up these memorials is the wrong way" (Would upside down have been better?).

He went on to say:

‘It’s a tragedy, and those lives lost were also a tragedy. But the majority of those bombers were going to civilian targets – over half a million German civilians, men and women, were killed. This was a war crime...In that story we forget the 500,000 people who died. We don’t hear about the killing of civilians, which was a war crime'.

At this point, it needs to be said that every Neo-Nazi and Leftist /pacifist member of the Triple Alliance would agree with Professor Andrews. Indeed, there is much horror at the results of the Allied bombing of Germany in WW2 beyond the ranks of the Triple Alliance (TA). What is significant, however, is that the TA only deplore British bombing, not American or Soviet Union bombing. This appears to be irrelevant to the TA. Instead, they focus determinedly (and dementedly) upon the area bombing policy of R.A.F. Bomber Command, with particular focus upon one terrible event: the bombing of Dresden. This attack is still controversial, as to whether it was right or wrong to launch "Operation Thunderclap" in 1945. Discussion of this topic would take up too much space here. Instead, I would like to add some observations of my own.

As far as I am concerned, we should take a longer view of Allied bombing of Germany in WW2. The whole debate about Dresden, Hamburg, etc, should be set in a wider context. As Tariq Ali said of Viet Cong atrocities in 1968 (as far as I can remember):
"We dismiss them as irrelevant. The French Resistance in WW2 committed what might be considered atrocities. What matters is the cause".
Yes, the Allies committed atrocities: the RAF incinerated Hamburg and Dresden; British naval officers shot survivors of damaged U-Boats; American GIs killed POWs; the French Resistance killed innocent civilians in reprisals; the USA dropped atomic bombs on Japan; Soviet troops committed sex crimes by the thousand in Germany. However, we must not fall into the moral relativist trap that the TA want us to drop into. Atrocities they might have been, but they were retaliatory actions, as distinct from the crimes of genocidal aggression perpetrated by the Nazis and the Japanese military. Set these admittedly deplorable actions by the Allies against the crimes of Hitler's regime, and they pale into anaemic irrelevance. As W. H. Auden wrote:

 "Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return". ("September 1, 1939")

Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, as were many political and religious opponents, resistance fighters and gays. The Soviet Union suffered unbelievable damage.

It is strange  how those who deplore the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden overlook these issues, but that's the TA for you. Facts such as the Blitz, the Holocaust, the 20 million dead of the Soviet Union are irrelevant to them. In the case of the neo-Nazis, it is understandable; for the pacifist Left, it is inexcusable. Whatever else may be said, there is a moral difference between the Allies and the Axis in WW2, as there is between the violence of the attacker and that of the defender. Let's not forget: Britain, France, the USA and USSR did not start the war, nor did they set out to invade and subjugate other countries, or practise genocide, whatever David Irving and the neo-Nazis say. It was the German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion who first practised terror bombing against a civilian centre of population during the Spanish Civil War by bombing the Basque town of Guernica in 1937.  The first city in WW2 to be destroyed by bombing wasn't Dresden, but Warsaw, in 1939. The Luftwaffe went on to ravage many more cities in Europe and the USSR, until the tide of war turned against them. Perhaps we should remember that, instead of listening to the Triple Alliance - and Professor Kehinde Andrews. The road to the destruction of Dresden in 1945 began with the indiscriminate bombing of Warsaw.

28/1/2019: By way of a footnote, I learned this morning, much to my disgust, that the memorial to the murdered police officer, WPC Yvonne Fletcher, was also defaced last week. Attentive readers will have noticed that, even though I wrote of a "Triple Alliance" of fascists, ultra-Leftie pacifists and Jihadis who were likely suspects for the vandalism, I only really mentioned the first two. Other than the spraying of what appears to have been Islamic graffiti on memorials in Central London in 2013, I had no evidence of Jihadi activity. The desecration of WPC Fletcher's memorial, though, might point to their involvement. Neither the fascists or pacifists would have any reason to carry out this attack. Gaddafi was in power when WPC Fletcher was murdered, and he was no friend of the Jihadis. However, the Middle East connection, and the police crackdown on Jihadi terrorism might have provided sufficient reason for the Jihadis to carry out the defacement.

Brexit and the Damage Done - So Far

Anna Soubry

The recent abuse directed at Anna Soubry MP outside the House of Commons highlights what I consider to be one of the most damaging aspects of the whole Brexit debacle: the polarisation of British public opinion. From the outset, the referendum in 2016, and the subsequent farce, has divided families, friendships, workplaces and political parties. In the Labour Party, for example:

"Today, Labour’s MPs, individual members and affiliated trade unions are overwhelmingly pro-EU and hostile to Brexit. All but about ten Labour MPs voted “Remain” in the referendum. A recent poll of party members found 90% would now vote for Britain to remain in the EU. The problem is that the party leader doesn’t always seem to share their enthusiasm."

Piers Morgan, a man who does not command universal respect and admiration,  was surely correct when he said recently that Brexit has brought an unfamiliar element of intolerant anger from both sides of the debate. This has led to "Remainer" Anna Soubry being called a Nazi by far right protesters (!), and "Leave" dilettante, Nigel Farage, being attacked in his car when with his family. In the 1970s, I took part in protests against extreme right figures like John Tyndall and Martin Webster. I thought this justified as these men stood for violence against political opponents and mass deportation (or worse!) of ethnic minorities. I see no justification for violence or intimidation by either side in the Brexit debate - but it has happened, and may prove to be a genie difficult to get back into the bottle.

For the genie of violence has gone beyond  the limits of the 1970s. We all remember the horrific murder of Jo Cox, M.P., by the Leave campaigner, Thomas Mair. We should also bear in mind the death of Duncan Keating in 2016, two days after the referendum. Keating, a "Leave" voter, died after a fight with a Remain-voting neighbour, Graham Dunn. And, of course, let's not forget the rise in hate crime, which has doubled in the past five years, according to the Home Office.

All this is bad enough, but there have been other negative effects. The economy, predicted to suffer post-Brexit, is suffering already. As The Guardian says:

"The UK economy is already 2.5% smaller than it would have been had Remain won the referendum. Public finances have been dented by £26bn a year, more than half of the defence budget. This translates to a penalty of £500m a week, a figure that is growing."

My final area of concern is the growth of Populism and the commensurate rise of the Far Right. Anna Soubry is not a Nazi; anyone with a minimal grasp of political theory knows this to be a ridiculous accusation. The problem is that many people are ignorant of political theory and political history, and do not fully understand the meanings of terms they use as abuse. The protesters who abused and harangued Anna Soubry, however, would react with hostile derision if you pointed this out to them. Subtleties such as facts are of no interest to what was clearly a shower of ex-English Defence League members, acting like Nazis themselves.I believe this to be part of what I can only describe as a celebration of ignorance. My main charge against the referendum and Brexit is this: it has legitimised prejudice, division and unthinking hostility to people of different opinions. This does not, of course, mean that we are engaged in internecine warfare, but at times it feels like it.
By way of an afterthought, there is one more area where Brexit has caused us damage: our international prestige has been seriously weakened by the referendum result, the absurd antics we have seen during the past two years of "negotiations" with the EC and the recent defeats of the government's efforts to provide a solution. All this has made us look insular and incapable of sane governance to people abroad - in other words, a laughing stock. And we haven't even left the EC yet, nor has the Irish border problem been resolved. Social division, political intolerance and violence, the rise of the far right, an economy that already looks shaky and diminished prestige abroad - if there's light at the end of the tunnel, I can't see it.

Soldiers of ignorance: EDL in all their glory