Pride without prejudice: compassionate patriotism
Another England is a refreshing, uplifting and important book by England’s first Green MP (now resigned) Caroline Lucas, as a compassionate and alternative response to the hard-right taking over our country. Read about possible compassionate ideas to the boats crisis.
She writes that when politics becomes too soft on crime, lack of housing and immigration (all linked to our national problems), this gives a vacuum for bigoted politics to rear its ugly head, by those who lazily seek to blame all of society’s problems on others, rather than a lack of vision on the new compassionate society that’s possible, for all.
It’s interesting that Reform UK markets itself as ‘the party of patriotism’. But for what? A beautiful England is one of clean litter-free streets, local independent shops, local economies that protect homeless people, protecting native wildlife.
Yet its policies include zero-hour contracts (which leads to more homelessness, as there are no contracts to support rental or mortgage payments), stopping rewilding (which would lead to extinction of endangered creatures like hedgehogs and dormice – they are also ‘native to England’ – and have been around a lot longer than all of us).
Local independent shops are not deemed as important as sucking up to Trump. And the party accepts million pound donations from funders who don’t live here (nor pay tax to fund the NHS).
Just like Hamza Yassin recently wrote that he wished all children could name five trees (rather than five Kardashians), one wonders how many of the Reform MPs and would-be MPs could name our endangered species, coastal flowers, and have the scientific argument on why they believe climate change is not manmade (it is, ask any climate scientist that is not funded by the oil industry).
The Reform Party’s only interest does appear to be making the country as rich as quickly as possible. Reading the manifesto has made me believe they actually see the environment as an inconvenient obstacle one has to live with, and can profit from. Elizabeth Parry
What we can learn from Mexico’s inclusive culture
You may think of Mexico as the place where your enchiladas and margaritas come from. But in fact, this ancient culture has a lot to teach certain politicians and media pundits in England, about how to get along.
Mexico has one of the world’s best ‘inclusive cultures’. In other words, no matter what the political problems, you’ll never find the kind of the nasty politics of ‘blaming immigrants for lazy governments’ culture that we are now getting here.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a patriot. This is good!
Our political landscape is shifting to somewhere scary. Calling people ‘illegals’ or ‘aliens’ doesn’t help and dehumanising people like this, is not addressing the real issues.
The hooligans who set an asylum hotel on fire in Southport after the tragic murder of three young girls, did not care about those girls – their parents begged them to stop, and let them grieve in peace. They just wanted to make trouble.
Right-wing marchers in London who throw beer cans at police horses don’t care about England. That’s not what England is about.
It is true that governments not addressing the issues, is what has led to people getting fed up, and ending up voting for Reform UK. It’s likely that they don’t actually ‘support Reform UK’, it’s more than they feel nobody is listening to genuine concerns.
You go a long way in England to find a proper true racist, but now we are getting to that kind of culture, and it’s very scary.
In a recent interview, Green leader Zach Polanski said he was ‘as much of a patriot’ as Nigel Farage. Likely more so. After he won the leadership contest, the first thing he did was to visit Clacton-on-Sea (the Reform leader’s consistuency).
Residents were shocked to hear that Reform UK policy is to return to zero hour contracts, which means local people won’t be able to get rental contracts or mortgages, so be prone to ‘slum landlords’ or homelessness. One asked Zach ‘But I thought Nigel was champion of the common man?’
Why London should be proud of its inclusivity
A really worrying state recently is the marches by far-right activists, seeking to blame government failures on people of different races. You go a long way in England to find a proper true racist, but now we are getting to that kind of culture, and it’s very scary.
It’s true that we have issues in England. But these can be solved. Muslims (and Jews) are allowed in their faith to be vegan/vegetarian, so we could ban Halal (and Kosher) meat whilst still respecting faith issues.
The marches in London are said to be a stand against ‘the corrupt media’. In that case, read non-corrupt media like Byline Times, rather than throw beer cans at innocent police horses on London streets. That’s not what England is about.
What are these ‘right-wing marches in London about?
The marches are basically to protest against immigration, centred around the English Defence League, a movement founded in 2009 in Luton (its co-founder was Tommy Robinson, who has since left the organisation).
More a street movement than a political party, Tommy is a huge fan of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is wanting to donate to our right-wing parties, deciding instead of us how we should be governed. He once said that ‘civil war was inevitable’ in Liverpool due to conflicting cultures. He’s obviously never visited Birmingham or Wolverhampton, where rastas and white people have lived side-by-side in harmony for decades.
Recently, Reform convert Richard Jenrick visited Birmingham and lamented that in some places there were ‘no visible white faces’. After comparing one area to a ‘slum’, a local elderly (white) woman said ‘The community’s really good. It sticks up for each other. If anyone’s in danger, the community will come out and help’.
Joseph Mulhall from Hope Not Hate, says he thinks Elon Musk should be called into parliament, not just ‘try to rule the world’ from X. As ‘he’s having a disastrous effect on our streets and in our communities’.
