The Tory #Brextremist attack on the Civil Service parallels Trump's attack on the FBI. It comes after the Tory & press attack on judicial oversight of government in the Article 50 case, and in a context dominated by right-wing press disinformation.
#StopBrexit #FBPE #WATON /1
What we appear to be witnessing is a concerted attack to undermine the institutions and practices that underpin democracy. Democracy relies on a basic degree of truthfulness, without it there can be no meaningful debate. The Right is relentlessly attacking truth.
#FBPE /2
The Tory reaction to the Article 50 court case shows that they have no respect for legal checks on government power. Doubtless the same dislike of the Rule of Law over government accounts for their loathing of the ECJ and #ECHR.
#FBPE /3
And now the Brextremists are attacking the integrity of the Civil Service, as ably explained by @GuitarMoog
blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/02…
#FBPE /4
At the same time the Tory Right (and some useful idiots on the Left) have taken up the mantra of the 'Will of the People', a notion which portrays political opponents as enemies, and checks & balances as obstacles to carrying out the democratic will of the people.
#FBPE /5
Added to the 'Will of the People' has been the whipping up of fear, xenophobia and nationalism by the right-wing press producing a politics of emotion and irrationality, effectively immunising millions against fact-based rational argument.
#FBPE /6
The aim, I think, is a politics in which one part of the people is consumed by nationalist irrationalism, another part driven into apathy by the confusion engendered by fake news, and a final more active & critical part marginalised as 'the liberal metropolitan elite' etc. /7
Add to this the Tory Right's dream of hollowing out the state and what we see is a move towards a society that looks democratic, but is effectively controlled by an oligarchy of the super-rich and their merely rich hangers-on.
#FBPE /8
None of this is new. It is what Putin has created in Russia, it is what Trump and the Republican Right are trying to create in the USA. It is a managed democracy in which the media herds the electorate and checks to government (meaning oligarchy) power are largely subverted. /9
Why is his happening now? I think in part it comes from the growing wealth of the super-rich relative to the rest of us, which exposes them to attack by an angry majority, while detaching them & their acolytes from the rest of society.
#FBPE /10
The politics of nationalism, fear, hate and xenophobia has effectively protected the super-rich from popular anger. The hollowing out of the state and the weakening of checks and balances on government power will give more power to the very rich.
#FBPE /11
So what we are witnessing is in effect a slow rolling coup, I'm sure mostly improvised, but piece by piece, step by step hollowing out our democratic institutions & practices and driving us towards something along the lines of Putin's managed democracy.
#FBPE /12

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More from @nickreeves9876

Aug 16, 2018
I am sick & tired of Corbyn supporters whining that Labour can't oppose the government on #Brexit. If Labour can't oppose a bitterly divided minority government pursuing an utterly bankrupt policy then Labour should dissolve itself and let others do the opposing.
#FBPE
And of course these particular Corbynistas are wrong about the facts. Labour has shown that when it is willing and it is joined by Tory defectors it can force the government into desperately close Commons votes on #Brexit.
Some other Corbynistas say that Labour is letting the Tories self-destruct. That is an honest account of what Labour might be doing. However, that tactic runs one big risk.
Read 7 tweets
Aug 15, 2018
1/ It has gone largely unnoticed that #Brexit is closely tied to climate change denial.

55 Tufton Street in Westminister is home to 8 right-of-centre organisations combining support for #Brexit and climate change denial
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
#55TuftonSt #PeoplesVote
2/ Another article on the pro-Brexit and climate change denial organisations based at 55 & 57 Tufton St, including Vote Leave, the TPA & the IEA (linked to Raab) and some familiar names - Matthew Elliot, Owen Paterson, Nigel Lawson, Hintze & Gove.
desmog.co.uk/55-tufton-stre…
3/ A graphic showing some of the links between Brexiters and the transatlantic climate change denial network. Some familiar names - Fox, Davis, Gove Paterson, Farage and Arron Banks.
Read 6 tweets
Aug 13, 2018
1/ One reason for #Brexit:
Within living memory the English ruled the greatest empire the world had ever seen. The English were the master race, to which even the least of Englishmen belonged, making him superior to all others. And then in around 20 years it all vanished.
2/ So a child coming to awareness in the glow of imperial glory, reached young adulthood in a broken, dejected Britain crawling, for want of better, into the embrace of the EEC, a supplicant begging for entry into a club run by powers England had once comprehensively defeated.
3/ For those with no need for tribal affiliations, or whose affiliations were to other tribes this wouldn't have mattered. But for those who felt defined by Britishness, or more specifically, and relevantly, Englishness, this would have left a deep psychological wound.
Read 16 tweets
Jul 30, 2018
1/ They have attacked the Electoral Commission & the Civil Service & from Theresa May downwards they attacked the Article 50 case courts and those taking the case to court - The Tory right has been attacking the institutions which underpin our democracy.
#Brexit #PeoplesVote
2/ By ranting about the "Will of the People" the Tory Brexiters and their press allies have demonised opponents of #Brexit as "enemies of the people" and so as saboteurs, plotters, traitors and subversives, thus undermining the core democratic right to oppose.
3/ The industrial scale mendacity of the Tory Brexiters and their press allies is not merely promoting falsehoods, it is undermining democracy itself by destroying the common ground of agreed truth which is required for political debate and decision-making.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 28, 2018
1/ I'm more worried by the politics of #Brexit than the economics; the democracy-weakening torrent of lies, the rage against the rule of law over A50, the attacks on the civil service & electoral commission, the fascistic invocations of the "Will of the People" etc..
#StopBrexit
2/ As with Trump, the #Brexit right from the PM downwards is attacking the practices, rights and institutions that ground democracy - basic honesty, the right to oppose, legal checks on government, and the impartiality of the civil services & electoral commission.
3/ And one has to ask, is this just disorganised rage within a part of the political elite against anything seen as hindering #Brexit, which would be dangerous enough, or is its prevalence across the Atlantic a sign of a much more coordinated campaign to undermine democracy?
Read 5 tweets
Jul 21, 2018
1/ #Brexit and Trump are instances of a primitive tribalist politics, in which the strength of the tribe is the supreme value, overriding other values such as truthfulness, reason, human rights and lawfulness.
#PeoplesVote #StopBrexit
2/ This tribalist politics has been ruthlessly whipped up by right-wing politicians and media who have exploited the natural human tendency to seek safety in a group when afraid. Their long term campaign of fear-raising has been the real project fear.
3/ A more developed tribalism would include respect for the tribe's rules, laws & institutions. The right-wing have exploited ignorance & disconnection from democratic institutions to foment a crude mob tribalism without laws and institutions, focussed only on power & security.
Read 6 tweets

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