Well, I’m back on the ferry, heading to the UK, wondering if the North Sea undulations are making me feel unhinged or the prospect of being much nearer to our general election. Mexico gets a progressive, PhD-qualified climate crisis expert. Even Narendra Modi’s far-right populism gets dented. We currently have a disaster capitalist hydrocarbon extraction enthusiast wearing the wrong trousers. He will most likely be succeeded by a man whose sentences flee meaning the way vampires dodge tanning salons. Seriously, if our last decade in politics (and all preceding decades) have taught us nothing else, we know that when someone is incapable of using words to describe their ideas, then they either have no ideas, or only ideas too terrible to mention.
Viewed mostly from France, the whole spectacle has seemed relatively harmless – like watching an amateur re-enactment of Gormenghast by people with recent head injuries, who are also on ketamine. And, somehow, also on crack. A dismaying percentage of those involved are clearly high on pure, uncut racism with no plans for ever coming down. And that goes for their bots and trolls and Putin-backed Astroturfers. Voter suppression disguised as a valiant effort to stop “illegals” voting? Way to go! You can be racist all day long with that. And voter fraud is a problem we don’t have – so it’s solved already! Immigration a net financial benefit, source of workers and resilience in communities? Well, those are just facts and we’ve been ignoring them for years!
Rishi “mouse ears” Sunak has tried to appear pathetic during most public engagements, but gaining sympathy votes will be tough. His party’s blend of imbecility and sadism has wounded so many – and his natural base has been conditioned to view both empathy and sympathy as an existential threat. (Otherwise, they’d end up caring about desperate and drowned “illegals” and get upset. What’s next – wanting to save the planet and help the poor?)
Those Conservatives who haven’t quit before we fire them face electoral evaporation, or betting on survival as *checks notes* Labour MPs. Well, that sounds perfectly normal. Whichever Edwardian brigadier fell out of the cryochamber at CCHQ and suggested bringing back national service hasn’t helped. The generation facing the fake threat of fake serving their nation (cost benefit analysis – what’s that?) know their nation has enthusiastically failed to serve them since birth. Removing almost every support and opportunity earlier generations took for granted, gaslighting and weird avocado shaming does not inspire a joyous citizen army. This week, I expect a desperate Rishi will roll out “Birching for Britain” and overfly the D-day beaches suspended beneath a Lancaster bomber and wearing Lady Diana’s shoes. Which also won’t work. But he can console himself with thoughts of fresh American adventures like crashing the dollar, or privatising oxygen in Texas.
Meanwhile, the Labour … Ohdearlord. Well, the part of it that wasn’t the Tory party last week is a) resigning b) finding they’ve been purged c) wondering where all their lefty door-knockers and activists went and d) being parachuted into undelighted constituencies, armed only with unshakeable faith in their own genius and a Ouija board to check in with Margaret Thatcher’s shrieking wraith. Some voters are distinctly queasy about handing Keir Starmer the kind of majority that let Tony Blair champion wizard wheezes like forever wars, black-site torture chambers and corrosive public-private partnerships. One look at Wes Streeting’s glistening enthusiasm for private healthcare and Bill Beveridge would be stamping on his hat – and his report.
A hung parliament may loom. And that may mean government by consensus, maybe even cost-benefit analysis – everything the Westminster edgelord blunderdome abhors as boring and contaminated by expertise. But, like getting checked for lumps, or fitting supporting beams in a school – and a plethora of other important human activities – politics is meant to be boring and require expertise.
This may be the GE when we sidestep our media and political classes’ reverence for two-horse races, intergenerational party loyalty and established networks of political influence. We’re up against FPTP, gerrymandering, campaign finance chicanery, data-harvesting and influence ops, straw-man candidates and voter suppression. But several byelections have already shown UK voters are perfectly able to research and deploy tactical votes. Even if televised leader debates are shrinking the national IQ every time they happen, August 2024 still looks as if it may be Greener and more Independent.
But beyond the blunderdome, even if every MP selected is a paragon, free of influence from foreign powers, we’ll need years to rebuild. Brexit devastation continues and the majority of our politicians will neither lead on it nor mention it. Our pain won’t stop, neither will the wannabe führers weaponising it. The carefully groomed and perma-furious legions eager to “reclaim London” by pissing all over it won’t go away. They will grow angrier and more extreme if the UK starts leaving them behind.
Our thinking, our spirit, has been harmed. We have all been nudged and bullied towards everyday cruelties, worn down by resisting them, desensitised by every day’s tide of new misery. Very many people have remained very decent, but this election is already kicking the Overton window right off the side of our house, with more performative cruelty, more thinking the unthinkable.
There may be a joyful evening ahead as the freshly unseated mumble on livestreams, watching us take their power. Seeing the mighty humbled by local firebrands, eye-rolls, milkshakes and witty bins is fun. But the far right, the dark money and online influence aren’t going anywhere. Racism and bigotry have been used to splinter democracy. If it loses traction, the risk of violence rises. Proxy wars, espionage, gangsterism, chaos profiteering, rogue governments and lost boys roil around us. Capitalism’s dark circus will destroy our world, unless we vote, vote, vote for people who will lead and defend us, then hold them to account.
The fifth of July could be a good day. But from 6 July onwards, stay frosty, stay hopeful, get more engaged. The fight has barely begun.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
