Thread by @nickreeves9876

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