‘Timid Gardener Dogged by Years of Mental Turmoil.’ The Daily Mail’s description of the man accused of Jo Cox’s assassination.
Compare and contrast with their description of the man who, at that time, had yet to be convicted for the murder of Lee Rigby: ‘Blood on His Hands, Hatred in His Eyes.’ With a sub-header that went on to read: ‘2.20pm on a suburban high street, Islamic fanatics wielding cleavers butcher a British soldier, taking their war on the West to a new level of horror.’
The obvious hypocrisy is to be expected. Where the Daily Mail, and indeed all the British tabloid press are concerned, such mendacity is simply the currency of their trade. Where the Daily Mail, in particular, is concerned this is simply business as usual. After all, the paper’s love-in with fascism isn’t confined to the historical recesses of the World War 2 period. As recently as 2012, the paper advised its readers that, “despite her flaws, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is one for Marine Le Pen.” Those unacquainted with Le Pen might be unaware that she heads the French National Front. The Mail, though, knows exactly who she is.
Again, however, no surprises here. The Mail’s virulent racism, bigotry and xenophobia can be discerned from even the most cursory glance at any one of its front pages. Of course it loves fascism. It’s apologia for and soft peddling of an act of neo-Nazi terrorism, then, is as unsurprising as it is sickening.
There is, however, a deeper motivation at work. Paul Dacre and his grubby trolls – and indeed the tabloid press, in general – present themselves as the arbiters and guardians of so-called British values. They include immigrant-bashing, unquestioning obsequiousness toward the Monarchy, a pathological hatred of benefit claimants, Muslims, the EU and a love of hard-right nationalism, all mixed up with a creepy and disturbing obsession with adolescent and pre-adolescent sexuality.
For the Daily Mail, for the British tabloid press, to admit that Cox’s slaying was a political act; was merely the logical culmination of the nation’s direction of political travel, shaped by the very ‘values’ the press upholds and expounds, is to admit culpability in this terrorism. By a Homegrown Terrorist Radicalised by Fleet Street Hate-Preachers, we might say. Were we to adopt the British press’s preferred manner of ‘reporting.’
If there are any such things as British values, which, of course, there aren’t, then it’s patently obvious that there are only class values; theirs and ours. That being so, the ones most deserving of veneration are those held by people like the Chartists, the Levellers, the Suffragettes and the Tollpuddle Martyrs, to name just a few. These people are responsible for the (relative) freedom and liberty we enjoy today. Freedom and liberty – it can’t be emphasised too strongly – that was won in the face of the most brutal and bloody resistance by the British ruling class.
Every single progressive advance enjoyed by the masses today was won and paid for with the blood of heroic men and women who were prepared to die so that others might live free. The ‘values’ to which the British press and the ruling class would hold up as somehow quintessentially ‘British’ are, in fact, bywords for oppression, intolerance, hatred and tyranny.
The British tabloid press have manufactured a climate (as I noted in my recent book Making Plans for Nigel: a Beginner’s Guide to Farage and UKIP) which insists we rail against an entirely non-existent left-wing order; to complain that things have gone too far and that there should now be an immediate return to the days before liberal meddlers and their political correctness ruined society, opened the flood gates and made it so as a decent white man can’t even speak his mind in his own country any more. You know; a return to the gloried age when sooties didn’t have chips on their shoulders and could take a joke. To the days when the Black and White Minstrel Show and Jim Davidson were just wholesome family entertainment and hotels routinely displayed signs proclaiming, No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish.
We live in an age when myths, deliberate lies and non-existent fantasies revolving around Christmas trees banned in the workplace, England football shirts banned from pubs and fast food outlets cowering in the face of Jihadist psychopaths and withdrawing pork from their menus are unquestioningly accepted as fact. This is the national consensus. This is the dominant narrative.
This terrorist atrocity, by a man with proven links to neo-Nazi organisations, was the inevitable, direct and unavoidable culmination of years and years of racist demonising; of hate-mongering by an inhumane establishment and its media messengers, presiding over a decaying, backward, semi-feudal society, blinded by Empire nostalgia, imperialist arrogance and nothing but utter contempt for the Other. What else could Jo Cox’s murder possibly be but the logical, inevitable and horrifying culmination of that?
So this is Britain today. Do you hate Britain? Do I? You’re damn right I do.
Harry Paterson
