At the end of March I posted about John Craven, a Manchester street preacher who was arrested and held for almost a day without food and water. Eventually he was released, and managed to win £13,000 in compensation for the injustice that he had suffered. Earlier today, I commented on the case of Paul Weston, a candidate in the European elections who was similarly arrested for making a political speech which quoted the words of Sir Winston Churchill!
Reverend Craven was arrested for his supposed anti-homosexualism, Mr Weston for his alleged objections to Muslims, and on the surface the two cases seem very different. However, the link between them is that both men refuse to accept the elite consensus which the great and good hold, and which is regarded as a matter of faith by the liberal middle class who accept that hegemony.
I think the reason for the arrests, to say nothing of the hysterical response to UKIP, is fear on the part of our rulers, who have thus given the green light to their thugs to go into limited intimidatory action. The root of that fear is the knowledge that a sizeable chunk of the British people do not share the values that this consensus embodies, and when rulers are afraid they almost always unleash the boot boys in blue.
Viewed in that light, the issue is not the two men, it is the fact that they articulated what a lot of people think, and the state needs to stamp down on such throughtcrime as quickly as possible, otherwise it might get out of hand. So the arrests were made in the hope that large scale actions which cost a lot of money and worry investors would not have to be made. That is probably why Reverend Craven was held without food or water for so long, so that after his release he would tell all his friends what happened to him and fear would do the rest.
The problem is what happens when people are not afraid, and when the whole carefully constructed hegemonic edifice starts to crumble? That is certainly happening right now, as more and more people decide that the European Union is not for them or their country. The state and its stooges are throwing everything at UKIP that they possibly can, and the party is shrugging it off and striding towards victory in next month's elections. The great and good have even come up with the notion of Euraracism, which seems to be the most terrible thoughtcrime of all.
Leading on from that, what do we mean by country these days? The Scottish nationalists are coming up hard on the rails and could even win the September referendum on independence. That was never supposed to happen, because the devolved Scottish parliament was set up in such a way so that no one party could ever take control in Edinburgh. Until one did, that is. Then a three question referendum was ruled out by Westminster so that Scotland could not have the half way house of maximum devolution, which most people support. The choice was between the status quo and independence, and all the great and good were convinced that Scotland would fallow the lead set by their traditional rulers in the Better Together team. Until they stopped doing that as well.
The debate is not just between Scotland and England, as within England regional forces are now at work to threaten stability. The North East rejected devolution about a decade ago, but now seems be coming around to the idea, and it is highly likely that the other regions who have a similar resentment towards London and its dominance will follow along in the fullness of time.
So, we have an elite consensus which a sizeable body of the population do not accept, so the state resorts to a little local intimidation to try and keep a lid on things. As that does not seem to be working, it can be expected that eventually the state will fully unleash its dogs as it did against the miners in 1984/5. The problem this time is that it will be no more effective than it was against the miners who had to be starved into submission. Not only that, but the miners were just one group within society, and this seems to be parallel movements of wildly disparate groups.
In other words, this seems to be the British people, and they are getting very pissed off.
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