The Real Race for the Democratic Nomination



The need to
replace the Fascist-in-Chief is so desperate that the race for the Democratic
nomination carries a sense of urgency that I cannot recall in any of the
presidential campaigns to which I’ve paid heed, basically back to 1960. There are presently 20 contestants running for
the nomination with the possibility of a few more who could still

I was a no vote, even though I
enthusiastically support Bernie in his campaign for the presidency in 2020. But
I also support Elizabeth Warren (and would have supported Sherrod Brown, had he
run). And & and I would have supported Barbara Lee over any of them had my
former Congressperson decided to run. But I felt that the either/or choice
posed by the DSA election – Bernie yes
or no – was

China has to know by now that it
can seize Taiwan any time it wants and that Trump has so ravaged the US’
ability to mount a coalition in opposition to anything it would be a done deal. The Taiwanese have to know this
also. Remember the second Kennedy-Nixon debate when Nixon accused JFK of being
unwilling to use nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy
& Matsu? Do you think Trump has even heard of

The Flaws of More's Fictional 'Utopia'

The so-called ‘Living Hall’ is the only room of The Frick Collection that has been left entirely unchanged since Henry Clay Frick moved into the mansion at the turn of the 20^th Century. With its engaged columns, broken pediments and Victorian architraves, the room is typical of the Gilded Age mansions built in 19^th century New York. It was Mr Frick himself who supervised the arrangement of the room, so it’s no surprise that, having purchased in 1912 Holbein’s portrait of Thomas More, he set his eyes on another of Holbein’s great works: his depiction of Thomas Cromwell. The portraits hang on either side of the Living Hall’s grand neoclassical fireplace, the two Thomases facing each other in apparent antagonism. Though painted five years apart, the portraits are seen as a pair, representative of the friction between these two royal advisors. Indeed, their roles in Henry VIII’s reign couldn’t have been more conflicting: Cromwell was one of the architects of England’s break with Rome and the Act of Supremacy, whilst More was martyred for his commitment to the Roman Catholic Church. Cromwell, along with Lord Richard Rich, was actually one of the major driving forces behind More’s execution, making the juxtaposition of these two portraits even more evocative.

It is testament to Holbein’s skill as a portraitist that, not only has he brought these figures so fantastically to life, he has also hugely influenced the way we view both More and Cromwell. More, who hosted Holbein on his first visit to England, is presented as affluent, wise, and confident. Cromwell, by contrast, is jowly and clad in black, looking cold and indrawn. More certainly comes out on top in this comparison, a wise and kindly man compared to a grim political fixer. This is how, until very recently, the two men have been regarded. There is, though, a darker side to Thomas More, a side that should not be ignored. Though Hilary Mantel’s depiction of More as a heretic hunting misogynist may be slightly extreme, it is perhaps more apt than Robert Bolt’s description of him as ‘A Man for All Seasons’. He was undoubtedly a great politician and an intelligent Humanist scholar, but that should not obscure completely an appraisal of the more questionable aspects of his character – he did, after all, think it acceptable to burn Protestants. The same can be said for More’s Utopia: though it has long been heralded as a great progressive work, there are features of the fictional world that lead us to ask uncomfortable questions. Hence, Utopia is one of the most hotly-debated works ever written, with critics wondering not only what More actually believed, but also whether Utopia comes anywhere near to the perfect commonwealth. And so, with reference to More’s life and work, I intend to explore the more unsavoury aspects of the Utopian world, present a nuanced view of the commonwealth, and thus unravel the enigma of Utopia.

There certainly are parts of the Utopian vision that were significantly ahead of their time. The abolishment of private property serves as the obvious example – because Utopia is a proto-communist state, (almost) everyone is equal. Nobody ever goes hungry or without a home, and the Utopians have no reason to be proud, greedy, or jealous. It was for this ideal that the Soviet Union honoured More when they placed his name on Moscow’s Stele of Freedom. And yet, even this aspect of Utopia must be questioned – after all, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn argued, communism needs enslavement and forced labour to survive, something ‘...foreseen as far back as Thomas More, the great-grandfather of socialism, in his Utopia’. Hence, in order to ensure that the Utopian regime works, the Utopians have almost no freedom – they are, in effect, slaves. Hythloday explains to More and Giles that in Utopia, ‘wherever you are, you always have to work.’ Even more sinister is what he says next: ‘Everyone has his eye on you, so you’re practically forced to get on with your job…’ Reading this, we can’t help thinking of Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four and, in particular, the omniscient figure of Big Brother controlling the mass-surveillance of Oceania. Like the characters of Orwell’s novel, the people of Utopia are deprived of much of their liberty. Even their sleeping patterns are governed by the state, and it’s hard not to imagine More chuckling to himself when he wrote: ‘They go to bed at 8 p.m., and sleep for eight hours…’ With the naming of Utopia after its founder, Utopos, we are also reminded of the disastrous attempt at a utopia known as ‘Jonestown’, also named after its leader and almost cult-like in its worship.

Along with this deprivation of freedom comes an undeniable lack of fun and excitement in Utopia. People are not allowed to travel without getting a passport, and even then they still have to work their normal hours. There are no ‘wine-taverns, no ale-houses, no brothels, no opportunities for seduction, no secret meeting-places,’ perhaps a good thing, though it still demonstrates how restricted Utopian life is. Moreover, there is complete uniformity amongst people, destroying almost any sense of individuality: everybody wears the same clothes (distinctions only made between sex and marital status), and every house on the island is identical. We cannot help doubting whether Utopia really could be the perfect commonwealth, given its lack of freedom, excitement and individuality. Hythloday himself seems to point out this flaw in Book I: ‘he who cannot reform the lives of citizens in any other way than by depriving them of the good things of life must admit that he does not know how to rule free men’. It would be hard to deny that the Utopians have been deprived of excitement: the game of virtues and vices, for example, sounds almost like More making a little joke.

Another aspect of Utopia that causes concern is the use of slavery. Just as in Plato’s Republic there were those who counted as citizens and those who were slaves, so Utopia can claim equality even whilst it uses slaves to hold its commonwealth together. If these slaves don’t count as citizens, then the Utopian egalitarian model has no responsibility to them. This was one of the premises of Greek utopias, the goal of the commonwealth being the happiness of its citizens, rather than the happiness of all. As Aristotle said, ‘the state is an association of equals… But… this is not for all’. The slaves in Utopia seem to be almost dehumanized: ‘The slaughtering of livestock and cleaning of carcasses are done by slaves. They don’t let ordinary people get used to cutting up animals, because they think it tends to destroy one’s natural feelings of humanity.’ There is a sinister quality to the distinction it makes between slaves and ‘ordinary people’. By dehumanising the slaves of Utopia, it seems acceptable that they should be enslaved and thus not regarded as equal. True, slavery is better than capital punishment, and the slaves of Utopia are treated relatively well – but is it really ethical to enslave someone for committing adultery, for example? Along with the use of slavery, there is an ominous sense of Utopian superiority reminiscent of the Aryan ideal in Nazi Germany. Hence, rather than risking the lives of their own citizens in war, the Utopians use ‘foreign mercenaries – whose lives they risk more willingly than their own.’ These mercenaries are the savage Zapoletans, who the Utopians have absolutely no concern for. Thus, Utopian policy towards these savages is inconsistent with the concept of universal human brotherhood depicted in the New Testament. As H.G. Wells argued, a real utopia requires a world state – every human in the world must work together and be equal for the concept of a utopia to be fulfilled.

Linked to this xenophobic sense of superiority is the questionable practice of Utopian colonisation. The Utopians govern according to their own values, and very often they force their own values on surrounding states, most notably the ideal that all land should be cultivated as much as possible. When natives won’t allow the Utopians to invade, colonise and cultivate their soil, the Utopians go to war, ‘for they consider war perfectly justifiable, when one country denies another its natural right to derive nourishment from any soil which the original owners are not using themselves, but are merely holding on to as a worthless piece of property.’ This argument seems logical, since the additional produce gained from newly cultivated land could improve the lives of Utopian citizens. And yet, this same argument could have been used against the Native Americans who protested the Dakota Access Pipeline. Donald Trump could very well have claimed his ‘natural right to derive nourishment from any soil’, ignoring the fact that, not only does the land belong to the indigenous Native Americans, but also that the land is sacred and thus non-expendable. So, just as with Trump’s approach to the Native Americans, there is clearly a sense that the Utopians know better, and thus they can excuse themselves for invading and exploiting the land of others. As George M. Logan suggests, the same is true of Plato and Aristotle, whose ‘attitude toward foreigners resembles their attitude toward slaves and artisans.’ Though they try to minimise death and destruction during times of war, and though they kindly give one seventh of exports to the poor of other countries, there is still the menacing sense that the Utopians are superior.

So it’s clear then that, just as with every imagined or attempted utopia, the fictional state created by More is undeniably flawed. The question we must now ask ourselves, though, is whether More actually believed Utopia was a perfect commonwealth. Many would like to think so, and thus proclaim him as a great communist thinker. But as Anthony Kenny points out, ‘Wherever we turn in Utopia… we find something which is contradicted in More’s life.’ It’s hard to imagine that a staunch Catholic, who strongly opposed the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, would ever advocate divorce in any form. We question, too, whether a man who spent much of his life as a lawyer and as Chancellor (the most important legal figure in the land), would have created a world without lawyers and attacked the length of legal codes: ‘it’s quite unjust for anyone to be bound by a legal code which is too long for an ordinary person to read right through, or too difficult for him to understand.’

But these are relatively small contradictions: the major inconsistency involves the treatment of religion in Utopia. Hythloday praises the Utopian tolerance of other religions and the fact that ‘no one is held responsible for what he believes’ (unless, of course, they are atheists, who are despised by Utopians). There is also a modesty in Utopian belief in that their prayer involves a confession of human ignorance: they ask God to show them ‘the truest religion,’ admitting that theirs may not be the best. The question is, would Thomas More ever have questioned the truth of the Catholic religion? Would More, who referred to himself as grievous to heretics and who burned six protestants during his reign as Chancellor, really preach religious tolerance? Well, perhaps. What qualifies the Utopian tolerance of religion is that religious trouble-making is not allowed. One man is arrested for disturbance of the peace because he ‘started giving public lectures on the Christian faith, in which he showed rather more zeal than discretion.’ Conversion attempts are permitted, but Utopians are ‘not allowed to make bitter attacks on other religions.’ Perhaps More viewed the likes of Tyndale and Luther as troublemaking heretics rather than simply people with different beliefs, and as they threatened to disband Christendom, he felt he had a duty to fight them: they must be ‘oppressed and overwhelmed in the beginning.’

These are, of course, debates that will never end. It’s most likely, though, that More’s final words on the matter can be used to summarize his point of view: ‘But I freely admit that there are many features of the Utopian Republic which I should like – though I hardly expect – to see adopted in Europe.’ Given that Hythlodeus means ‘dispenser of nonsense’ and that Utopia means ‘no place’, it’s unlikely that More really believed that the Utopian ideal could ever be fulfilled, let alone perfected. Rather, he was simply exploring various different ideas for the construction of a new commonwealth or the improvement of his own, and by speaking through Hythloday, he could be ‘like the ‘all-licens’d fool’ in King Lear’ and ‘tell home-truths with comparative safety’. As Logan argued, ‘Utopia is partly More’s ideal, and partly not.’ So just as we must avoid idealising Thomas More as ‘a man for all seasons’, so we must take Utopia for what it is: a work that includes many progressive ideas (euthanasia and communism, for example), but that also includes many ideas grounded in the mores of the past – hence, colonisation, misogyny, and the keeping of slaves, are seen as acceptable. And we cannot blame More for his strict views on adultery or for his belief in colonisation – these were mainstream views of the time and, after all, More never said he was attempting to create a better world, only ‘the best condition of the commonwealth’. Just as with most things, we need to take a nuanced view of both More and his work. Indeed, this use of nuance has never been so vital given the current political landscape, dominated as it is by partisan arguments and bigoted beliefs. Human beings are flawed, complex, and individual. The inevitable consequence of the human condition is that our policies and views will always be problematic, and the commonwealths we create will never be perfect.

Wealth and Corruption in Charles Dickens’s 'Our Mutual Friend'

Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens’ most complicated novels, made up of a complex of interrelated plots and sub-plots. This multi-layered storyline enables Dickens to give a comprehensive vision of the breadth of London life, from the aristocrats and nouveaux riches to the teachers and paupers. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickensian London becomes most whole, bringing alive what Deborah Wynne described as ‘a disturbing vision of Victorian society’ fissured by ‘class divisions’ and ‘greed’. Because every echelon of society has its representatives in the novel, wealth and class are central to the narrative. As the plot develops, Dickens demonstrates the corrupting power of money and wealth in the context of an ‘unjust, commercialized, and de-naturing society’ (Barbara Hardy). And yet, the novel is far too complex to be branded as a straightforward didactic tale about how ‘money corrupts’. Our Mutual Friend seems to be more of a study of values and principles and how they work in Victorian society, rather than a complete satire on the upper classes. What Dickens seems to be suggesting is that, whilst modern society is both corrupt and corrupting, depravity and corruption can be navigated in certain ways, namely the avoidance of greed and the pursuit of love.

Still, it is important to consider Dickens’s presentation of the rich before we move onto his exploration of counteracting values. The Veneerings are the novel’s most obvious example of the shallow rich, suggested by their name alone. They are first introduced in Chapter 2, which slips into the present tense and mimics the clipped and lazy speech of the privileged: ‘Reflects Veneering; forty, wavy-haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy…’ It is interesting that the Veneerings are described through their presentation in a mirror, again implying that they are incomplete and without depth – they are characterised by superficiality and surface appearances. Hence, they only exist in relation to their ‘bran-new’ home full of ‘bran-new’ objects. Even their ‘friends’ (who are not really friends at all) become objects, with Twemlow becoming ‘an innocent piece of dinner furniture’. And so, our first view of the rich (in this case, the nouveau riche) is one of shallow façades, reminiscent of Gilbert Osmond in Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, for whom life is only ‘a thing of forms, a conscious, calculated attitude.’ The Podsnaps are similarly satirised, with Mr Podsnap’s arrogance being emphasised throughout: he is ‘happily acquainted with his own merit and importance’ and stands ‘very high in Mr Podsnap’s opinion’. This sardonic humour was possibly influenced by the biting satire of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, a novel which likewise mocks the superficiality and arrogance of the rich. We might also recall Browning’s mockery of the bishop in “The Bishop Orders His Tomb”, a poem that shows a Veneering-like obsession with appearances. To some extent then, Dickens depicts an unattractive group of wealthy individuals, perhaps suggesting that money is apt to corrupt, leading to egotism or ostentation. This is also implied in his novel Great Expectations, which tracks Pip’s descent into snobbishness and ungratefulness due to his ‘great expectations’. 

And yet, in Our Mutual Friend, money does not always have this same corrupting effect. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the Boffins, who acquire the wealth of the old, misanthropic John Harmon, but avoid corruption and stick to their values. They are described as ‘unpolished people’, immediately contrasting them with the highly-polished Veneerings. Their surface might not be ‘bran-new’ but they are motivated by kindness and good will, as is seen in their adoption of Bella. Mrs Boffin explains: “Next I think… of the disappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both of her husband and his riches. Don’t you think we might do something for her?” Mr Boffin even offers to help Silas Wegg to set up a new stall, despite all the Machiavellian scheming Wegg has done to blackmail him – Boffin would not like to see Wegg “worse off in life” than when they first met. This shows a genuine generosity so clearly lacking in the Podsnaps and Veneerings of Dickens’s world. But it’s not just the newly-wealthy Boffins that avoid the corrupting effect of wealth. Although Mr Twemlow comes across as relatively spineless throughout most of the novel, he can be read as another example of a comparatively rich man who has not been corrupted by money. At the end of the novel, it is Twemlow who resists the ‘Voice of Society’ and the cruelty of Lady Tippins, who mocks Lizzie Hexam and is outraged by Eugene Wrayburn’s decision to marry her – she describes them as “savages” and questions whether Lizzie was dressed “In rowing costume” at her wedding. But Lightwood and Twemlow both defend them, with Lightwood describing Lizzie as “a brave woman” and Twemlow arguing that wealth and class do not matter in the case of marriage. Wrayburn married her out of “feelings of gratitude, of respect, of admiration, and affection” – the feelings of a gentleman, a rank which “may be attained by any man”. And so, Twemlow and Lightwood show that it is not necessarily money that has led to the corruption of society – wealth does not necessitate Podsnappery, Dickens seems to suggest here – but a lack of ‘gentlemanly values’ and an over-obsession with both wealth and class. Their handshake at the end of the novel can be seen as a silent act of resistance against the more prevalent tones of societal injustice.

It is clear, then, that money in and of itself is not the corrupting force of the novel, though Dickens has shown that it is dangerous. Arnold Kettle is to some extent right when he argues that “The corrupting force in Our Mutual Friend is not money but bourgeois attitudes to it.” And yet, though bourgeois attitudes do play a role in the corruption of society (Lady Tippins and the Podsnaps are examples), the primary force of corruption seems to be greed – the desire for wealth, leading to jealousy and cruelty. Kenneth Muir argues that, in Our Mutual Friend, ‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’. For example, the Lammles marry for money only to discover that they had both been deceiving each other. Coming to terms with their relative poverty, they instigate insidious schemes to boost their wealth, such as their attempts to marry Georgiana Podsnap with Fascination Fledgeby. As Mrs Lammle later admits to Twemlow, Georgiana was to “be sacrificed” in “a partnership affair, a money speculation”. The greed of the Lammles is again reminiscent of James’s Portrait of a Lady, with Gilbert Osmond and Madame Merle planning marriages (Isabel to Osmond, and Pansy to Warburton) simply for monetary gain. This leaves us with what Marx called a ‘cash nexus’ – the reduction of all relationships to financial exchange, also realised in Dickens’s Dombey and Son. The other villains of the novel, Roger Riderhood and Silas Wegg in particular, are similarly driven by greed. Riderhood unjustly blames Hexam for the murder of John Harmon in the hope of a reward, and Silas Wegg tries to blackmail Boffin with a second will, despite all the good that Boffin has already done for him. Dickens’s comment on Wegg’s actions is cogent: ‘Such was the greed of the fellow, that his mind had shot beyond halves, two-thirds, three-fourths, and gone straight to spoliation of the whole.’ Evidently, it is greed that drives these characters to their cruel and criminal acts.

Another study of yearning for wealth is that of Bella Wilfer, who begins the novel (in her own words) “the most mercenary little wretch that ever lived in the world.” It is her desire for money that leads to her cruel and haughty refusal of Rokesmith/Harmon, whom she rejects only on monetary and class terms. She tells him: “It is not generous in you, it is not honourable in you, to conduct yourself towards me as you do,” and asks him “not to pursue me”. Her obsession with money makes her a relatively unattractive character, though we cannot help being drawn in by her coquettish charm. It is only when Mr Boffin adopts the pose of unpleasant miser that she realises the dangers of her mercenary viewpoint. As she tells her father, “Mr Boffin is being spoilt by prosperity, and is changing every day.” When Boffin accuses Rokesmith of “impudent addresses” and states that Bella is motivated only by money, she has her heroic moment in the novel, telling Boffin, “you don’t right me… You wrong me, wrong me!” She calls him a “hard-hearted Miser” and, having seen how an obsession with money can corrupt, abandons her monetary ambitions, choosing Rokesmith’s love over the pursuit of wealth. This is, perhaps, the crux of the novel, since it shows the values that Dickens truly champions: love over pecuniary gain.

All of this demonstrates that Dickens’s novel is not simply an attack on the rich. Dickens shows that money does not always corrupt, though it often can. The novel is, in fact, an attack on a society which is governed largely by an obsession with money and class. Such a society has no time for real human values and promotes the Machiavellian scheming we see from Riderhood and Wegg, amongst others. So the divide in Dickens’s view is not so much based on class or wealth, but rather on principles: there are members of the upper classes whom Dickens’s satirises ruthlessly, whilst there are members of the lower classes to whom the reader is immediately averse, and vice versa. The novel does not present us with a black-and-white view of the problems in Victorian society. Rather, it stresses the importance of certain values and the possibility that there can indeed be hope: money and class will not always get the upper-hand. Hence, Eugene rejects societal conventions and marries Lizzie, and Bella and the Boffins reject monetary gain for kindness and love. As Kettle argues, Dickens has “an almost childlike faith in Low Church goodness” valuing “kindness, patience, the innocence and elation of youth, the power of love…”. This is clear throughout the novel, and the final handshake arguably demonstrates Dickens’s hope that class distinctions will diminish over time and that, one day, people will be judged on their actions and principles rather than on their wealth or status.

On The Importance of Voting

This article was originally published in The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tom-bailey2/eu-referendum-voting_b_10569342.html?) just before the EU Referendum. And yet, I thought it relevant enough to repost now, since it is not only about voting in referenda, but about voting in general.

This Thursday, on the 23^rd of June, millions of people will be going to polling stations throughout the UK in order to cast their vote. The people of the UK will be deciding whether we should remain or leave the European Union, a decision that will have a drastic influence over the future of our country. It will affect every one of our lives, and it will determine the role the United Kingdom plays in the world for decades to come.

The chance to vote is not something we should take lightly, not only because of the power each of us holds in our own hands, but also because the right to vote is something we should all treasure. When we cast our votes on Thursday, we should remember that in 1780, only 3% of the population of England and Wales could vote. That 3% was, of course, made up of wealthy white males who thought they and they alone should decide the future of their country.

We should also remember that there are still many people throughout the world who are denied the right to vote or whose votes simply don’t count. Even though universal suffrage is a key element of our democracy, we are still lucky to have it. In countries like North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, and China, citizens have little or no say in how their countries are run. To many people throughout the world, the idea that a government would hold a referendum seems an idealistic dream for the distant future. We, in the UK, are living that dream of democracy.

But we shouldn’t just feel fortunate that we have this right to democratically choose our governments. We should also feel grateful. Now, I’m not saying we should be thanking politicians or the establishment or the monarchy for granting us this right to vote. After all, the right of universal suffrage was not given to the citizens of the UK out of good will or kindness from benevolent bureaucrats. It was fought for.

We should feel grateful to all those who struggled and persevered so that we could go to the polling stations on Thursday. We should feel grateful to Thomas Paine, whose book The Rights of Man called for an expansion of suffrage beyond wealthy elites. We should feel grateful to the radical speaker Henry Hunt and the 11 people killed at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, attacked by local yeomanry for calling for their right to vote. They were martyred for their fellow men and women.

Then there are the Chartists, the 19^th Century radical campaigners for parliamentary reform. Their six-point programme included demands for universal suffrage and voting by secret ballot – both of which we take for granted. All of these revolutionaries gave us what we have today, and we should commemorate their struggle by casting our votes on Thursday.

But these groups were only the beginning of this battle. When we vote, we must also feel indebted to the suffragettes and to Emily Davison, that great feminist figure who fought for her rights as a woman. Indeed, she gave her life for the cause of female suffrage. At the Epsom Derby of 1913, Emily Davison stepped out in front of King George V’s horse in a symbol of protest. Four days later, she died from her injuries.

Alongside Emily in this battle for woman’s right to vote were Mary Wollstonecraft, Emmeline Pankhurst, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and many, many others. They suffered persecution, alienation and abuse so that women could have equal voting rights to men.

And last but not least, we must remember Martin Luther King Junior and all those men and women who took part in the civil rights movement. If they hadn’t marched on Washington in 1963, and if they hadn’t clung so ferociously to their heartfelt dreams, black men and black women might still not be able to vote in the United States. Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated for fighting for his beliefs – he gave his life so that he and his fellow black Americans could have the right we enjoy today.

That, I suppose, demonstrates the importance of voting. Not just because we are voting in an incredibly important referendum, but because we are so lucky that we can vote at all. It hasn’t always been like this. We haven’t always had this great democratic right. So, when we put our slips in the ballot box on Thursday, whether we are men or women, black or white, Christian or Muslim, working-class or bourgeoisie, we should remember those who gave their lives so that every one of us could have this right.

When Thursday arrives, I urge you to go to the ballot box and vote. If you feel alienated and disenfranchised by the current political climate, I don’t blame you. But you still ought to go to the polling station and vote or, at the very least, spoil your ballot – it may seem pointless, but it shows that you care and ensures you won’t be dismissed as entirely apathetic.

Turning out to vote on Thursday is the least we can do for all those campaigners and martyrs who championed the rights we enjoy today. Whatever your stance on the referendum, let your voice be heard.

A Patriotic Vision For The Left

This blog was originally published on The Radical Tea Towel Company's blog page: http://www.radicalteatowel.com/blog/a-patriotic-vision-for-the-left/ 

For a long time now, the words “nationalistic” and “patriotic” have seemed to me to be largely associated with xenophobia, bigotry and prejudice. Political parties like UKIP and the British Nationalist Party have long been claiming that only they are proud of their country and their people.

UKIP’s 2015 General Election manifesto was emblazoned with the slogan “Believe in Britain” as if no other political party did. The English Defence League adopted St George’s flag (ignorant to the fact that St George was Syrian) as if to suggest that they were the true guardians and lovers of our country, and that no other political party could really care for England.

A quick Google search reinforces this unusual association between bigotry and patriotism. The so-called “patriot movement” consists of various conservative movements in the United States that include organised militia members, tax protesters, conspiracy theorists, and radical Christians who believe in an impending apocalypse. ‘Patriotism’ apparently equates with ‘loony’, too.

And just as these illiberal, conservative groups often pose as patriotic, so the left has forever been accused of the opposite: of having a deep loathing for the United Kingdom and wanting to systematically dismantle all of its traditions and institutions. In his novel A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor describes his early perception of left-wing politicians as men and women determined to see the destruction of everything ‘British’, from country-life and religion to cricket and farming.

This view of the left as anti-patriotic was evident in The Daily Mail’s childish and brutal attack on Ralph Miliband, the socialist writer and late father of Ed Miliband. The tabloid absurdly branded Ralph as “The man who hated Britain” for no other reason than his left-wing political stance, despite the fact that he fought for Britain in the Royal Navy. Of course, The Daily Mail consistently publishes utter nonsense, but its influence and power cannot be ignored – these are views held by a large amount of the electorate.

The persistence of this perception is terrifying: if you type “Corbyn hates” into Google, the first two suggested searches are not (as you might expect) “Corbyn hates inequality” or “Corbyn hates injustice”, but instead, Google suggests the two searches “Corbyn hates England” and “Corbyn hates Britain”. Although Google may not be trustworthy when it comes to politics (I wonder why…), it seems that many in England agree with Cameron when he says Corbyn has a “security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology”.

This branding of the left, and the Labour Party in particular, as anti-British or anti-patriotic, is very damaging indeed. Previous polling has shown that nearly 8 out of 10 British people are proud of their nationality, and so any party hoping to win in 2020 must reflect that pride. And I believe that it can be done.

The rise of the SNP in Scotland and the popularity of Plaid Cymru in Wales show that patriotism and socialism can and should be synonymous. Nationalistic politics does not have to mean regressive politics. Loving your country does not necessitate xenophobic values and inward-looking views. Caring about our country does not mean we must abandon our concern for the rest of the world, nor does it mean we should redirect foreign aid to benefit ourselves alone (one of UKIP’s manifesto pledges).

I also believe that patriotism, while it involves pride, does not mean we must agree with everything our country has and will do. Being patriotic does not mean we must celebrate our terrible imperialist past, nor does it mean applauding war and supporting unnecessary violence.

For too long, we’ve allowed the word ‘patriotism’ to be wrongly defined, and we as radicals must reverse that. We should not be afraid to call of waving the English flag and calling ourselves patriots, because patriotism can mean pride in our National Health Service, in our welfare state, and in our democracy. Patriotism can mean the love of our diversity, our tolerance, and our acceptance of other cultures. Patriotism can mean the love of our artistic history and our support of progressive values (notable in our fight against Nazism). It doesn’t have to mean a passion for the monarchy, a love of tradition, or a constant support of war, as many now see it.

Patriotism certainly can be dangerous – there’s no denying it. That’s possibly why Marx opposed it so much (“The working men have no country”), seeing it as divisive, anti-internationalist, and a direct cause of conflict. But, as I have attempted to demonstrate, it doesn’t have to be. If we love our own country, we do not have to hate the countries of others. Love of one thing does not necessitate the hatred of another.

So patriotism isn’t necessarily a bigoted ideology. Indeed, if argued correctly, a left-wing patriotic ideology could unite the British people like no other, ending the politics of fear (exemplified by the scapegoating of the poor and foreigners) and ensuring pride in and passion for our liberal institutions. That is why the Labour party and the left as a whole must embrace the word patriotism, rather than shying away from it – not just to increase their electability, but to bring people together.

Whilst right-wing politicians brand the people of the UK as scroungers and wasters (just this week, Alan Duncan claimed that achievement equals wealth, suggesting that millions of British people are lazy and unsuccessful), and whilst the Tories take benefits from working people and dismantle the NHS, the Left must stand for compassion and love, protecting our people and its institutions – what could possibly be more patriotic? The left are the true patriots, and we must prove it.