The armageddon of mass far right protests supposedly due to take place across Britain last night came to… absolutely nothing whatsoever. As Sky News’s long-serving crime reporter Martin Brunt put it:
“There’s no evidence yet that our teams on the ground have seen any far right activity – the counter protests have got no protests to counter.”
As the night wore on, special coverage arranged by the main broadcasters – which sent cameras across the country, dispatching correspondents and TV helicopters far and wide – became increasingly embarrassing. An example from ITV’s Paul Brand summed up the position:
In all honesty there seems to be very little purpose to the gathering here. You hear the odd word about immigration but most people seem to have come out for a look and to see if anything kicks off. A fair bit of drinking and low level aggro but no major unrest.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) August 7, 2024
As news hounds desperately tried to spot the slightest hint of far-right activity, there was less attention on the developments of the past few days, including:
- Keir Starmer inventing what he called a ‘standing army’ of public order cops.
- The Director of Public Prosecutions threatening terrorism charges on rioters.
- The police activating a national public order mobilisation, deploying 6000 officers (no doubt on a significant overtime bill).
- Remarkable calls to shut down X and all social media platforms completely in an outburst of anti-free speech authoritarianism.
- An under pressure Met Commissioner Mark Rowley losing it with a reporter and taking it out on a microphone.
As it turned out, the threat turned out not to be in evidence. Were rioters just taking the night off, or is this much-hyped episode of disorder now over?
Following yesterday’s YouGov MRP poll, which showed a hung parliament is now within the margin off error, fifteen former-Labour politicians, have put their names to an open letter that will run today as an ad in local papers across the north.
The letter, organised by Ian Austin’s Mainstream campaign, accuses the party of “antisemitism and extremism”, whilst being “weak on national security”. It concludes “Jeremy Corbyn: not fit to be Prime Minister.” Just one day to go…
Mainstream, the campaign against extremism, has recruited Maureen Lipman’s “Beattie” one of Britain’s best-loved TV characters, to talk of her fear that Jeremy Corbyn has “an ology” in extremism Beattie, star of the iconic BT adverts of the 1980s and 90s, has released a video where she talks of her concern about Corbyn’s Labour Party – with its antisemitism, bullying and extremism. Lipman has in the past campaigned for the Labour Party…
Guido was at the Mainstream election campaign launch earlier today, former Labour MP John Woodcock joined Ian Austin in calling on voters to back the Conservatives, because Jeremy Corbyn could not be trusted on national security and is unfit to lead the country. When he said his piece to camera Woodcock visibly hesitated before saying the words “vote Conservative”. Guido got the sense that it wasn’t a dramatic pause, it was just genuinely hard for him to say. McDonnell and the rest of the hard left are calling the two of them Tories. Labour activists are convinced peerages are on their way. Perhaps. After Tom Watson quitting it is pretty clear that the moderate wing of the Labour Party is finished for at least a decade or so…
Ian Austin’s Mainstream commissioned polling from YouGov of Labour Party members and found a party that has moved on a long way from being Blair’s “political wing of the British people”. Corbyn’s Marxist Labour Party is very different and so are the members. Of course we knew they would nationalise and tax everything that moves and seek to muzzle the opposition press – there are however a whole raft of sentiments that are shocking.
YouGov’s poll of over 1,100 members shows how out of touch with Labour voters the middle-class lefties really are:
- 79% want to control who runs newspapers
- 69% think it would be legitimate for unions to stage a general strike to bring down a Tory government;
- TWO THIRDS believe the party doesn’t have a problem with anti-Semitism, OVER HALF believe the crisis is the fault of the media or Corbyn’s opponents;
- Members would rather do a post-Brexit trade deal with Russia than Israel!
Astounding difference with popular opinion shows how out of touch with the working classes Labour is nowadays:
- TWO-THIRDS are ashamed of Britain’s history;
- MORE blame the British Government and Army for the Troubles in Northern Ireland than say it was the fault of the IRA;
- MORE THAN HALF would feel bored, embarrassed or angry about singing the National Anthem – only 10% would be happy to sing “God Save the Queen”
- SIX in ten want to abolish the royals for a republic;
Expect the Brexit Party to use the findings to appeal to patriotic former Labour voters who despise terrorists, respect the Queen and love their country…
Download full polling data here.
The papers tomorrow will be covering an absolutely shocking poll from Ian Austin’s new cross party organisaton Mainstream.
Mainstream is a new campaign – led by a group of people from different political backgrounds – designed to encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics, and to banish extremism from British politics once and for all.
Britain has long had a strong democracy where mainstream politics was the norm. Disagreement was always possible, but within the realms of respectful and responsible debate. It felt as if we shared the same mainstream patriotic outlook, even if we disagreed with each other on the best way to achieve a better society and a more prosperous economy.
Sadly, in many cases mainstream ideas have been replaced by views that are wildly out of step with the views of the general public. Extremism is rearing its way back into the public discourse in a way that would have been unfathomable just a few years ago.
