The fascist vote

RT Jones III

As each year passes, this country becomes less white. I expect Massie thinks that this is no cause for concern, that even to mention such a thing is 'racist'. What drives this man's opinions? Indoctrination? Self-loathing? Sanctimony? It's hard to say.

Roger Helmer MEP

I am fairly astonished that a justified expression of outrage at the appalling events on our streets can be categorised by the Spectator as "fascism". I have spent my whole political career seeking to promote freedom and democracy -- not least freedom from the anti-democratic EU. But not freedom to riot, smash, loot and burn.

John

Thank you for this rational and calm look at things.

Hart

Look again sir, the rioters weren't all that young on average. In fact they appear to have represented a pretty broad cross section of society in terms of age, race, gender and economic background. The one thing they did have in common was pretty much just criminal activity, and I guess disregard for the rights and safety of anyome else. How is this worthy of pity and sympathy? That your comparing these people, who burnt buildings, stole and killed in the name of the almighty plasma TV, to political dissidents or persecuted minority groups, is sort of laughable.

Archie

As usual, the commentariat - in this case Alan Massie - is a major part of the problem. Ordinary people aren't afraid of the left-wing name calling any more!

tony

Ah, we have the old liberal left technique from Mr Massie.... calling black white… and adding labels. In reality, the imposition and coercion has only been the other way round: The liberal political ideology, which tolerates crime and forces serfs to put up with it and pay for it, has been long forced on those serfs without a say. The politicians have adopted a near-singular political “State” position towards these matters; which is authoritarian but unaccountable. Their ideology caused a riot, which attracted an outpouring of anger because people were tired of being imposed on, both by thugs and (if you like labels) and the ideology of an unaccountable elite. And as for pitying the circumstances of these thugs, as Massie suggests, these conditions were also, by and large, caused by the catalogue of decisions made by the individuals before: Decisions not to do anything positive, or contribute to anyone else, or to wake in the morning and ask how to make something meaningful of the day. Their conditions about which he waves a hand were the gutter of self-pity; encouraged by the State and tolerated by precisely the lazy, uncritical mindset in which Massie writes.

Stephen Moriarty

Chaotic schools; illiteracy; adults in fear of children; everyone in fear of criminals; mass unemployment in the context of mass immigration; grotesque wealth inequalities; inflation; foreign ownership of business; foreign interference in national affairs; politicians failing to care for their own electors; the reckless abandonment of national identity and tradition. What did you expect would happen?

Herbert Thornton

When I read the headline - "Public responses to the riots show a disturbing appetite for authoritarian politics in Britain." combined with Mr Massie's saying that he is 72, it made me ask myself - how can somebody his age not have noticed that Britain has been growing steadily more authoritarian for several decades?

Granted he is a little younger than me, but surely even he can remember that while he was still a teenager, the idea that the police could arrest and prosecute somebody for telling a politically incorrect joke, or for using politically incorrect language, or could direct somebody not to display a politically incorrect object or symbol in a shopwindow - or indeed any window - would have been dismissed as fascism and preposterous. But that is very much what we have now.

But perhaps, in Mr Massie's eyes, Britain, in the 1960s and earlier, was fascist?

If what we had around 1960 and earlier was fascism, then a great many people - and not just those who support the EDL and the BNP - would very much like to go back to it. That does not mean that we are Nazis or fascists and it is offensive to imply that we are.

Hasser

This article is a little disingenious. It seems to propose that the only outlet for extreme bigotry, racism and irrational hatred is a fascist party. I think it is important to note that the German Nazi party referenced were nationalist socialists, not fascists, and that communism and socialism in their extremes have a history of persecution of minorities, religious beliefs and mass murder of those people not acceptable to the party.

It is this type of uninformed commentary that makes the tenets of communism acceptable in modern society, which as any person who appreciates freedom, health, and basic human rights, and knows his or her history will tell you, is not a good thing!

This type of article must draw parallels to both national socialism and communism to be an effective commentary on the history of single party systems and murderous dictatorships.

Shazza

It is people like you that are the problem; it is people like you, with your distorted ideology that have brought this once great nation to it's knees; it is people like you that have restricted basic human rights like freedom of speech; it is people like you that do not have to live in the culturally enriched areas that your liberal ideology has created.

Mike

So what panacea would Mr. Massie propose to turn back this public dis-order and bring sanity back to our streets ?

This isn't just about the riots and looting as though it was a one off case, its all about the deterioration of law and order over the past 20 years due to a spineless previous government and a set of Human Rights laws that the liberal elite distorted and brought into UK legislation. No other EU country that signed up to human rights has interpreted them in the crass way the UK does that gives victims no rights and dirt bag criminals every right.

We desperately needed a knee jerk reaction with tough sentencing to focus the minds of all young criminals as up till now they knew a slap on the wrist was the most punishment they might end up with. As with children growing up, they will always try it on and the sanctions one uses have to be ramped up until they learn not to break the rules of the house. Talking or trying to engage with them is fine and may work for some but for many, only tough punishment will bring them around to see sense.

I fully accept there are still some in the community that will not respond to wet liberals or tough Tories and unfortunately these feral animals should be locked up to save the innocent law abiding citizens. They lost their human rights when they killed innocent people during their looting & rioting and maybe a long spell in prison might help, but letting them out wont and just endangers the rest of us.

As for the EDL & BNP, if things had been not allowed to reach this juncture there would be little 'media' food for them to feed off. Be it lack of law and order long before the riots, mass immigration and reverse discrimination, if Labour had followed sane policies, they would have been starved of food and withered away.

So Mr. Massie, again I ask, what would you do that hasn't been tried before and failed ?

alex

The problem with people like Massie is that he and the political establishment have imposed leftwing fascism upon the vast majority of native British people. Under the guise of "protecting" the "sensebilities" of immigrant communities, and without regard to the sensebilities of the British people, they have trampled on every aspect of our traditions and culture, this leftist fascistic cabal, for over forty years. He talks about fascism as if fascism is a rightwing political creation.....no it comes from the left. Mussolini was originally a leftist.

john cronin

Massie lives in his upper middle class Hampstead bubble. He can't understand the ordinary people don't like having their homes and businesses thrashed by the underclass, that they want the police to actually do some police work, instead of just standing idly by, and that they want criminals punished. This is his definition of "fascism"

Mark LC

A brave and honest article. Some of the critics here need to take a long hard look at themselves. Our grandparents and parents fought against a regime whose views are not that dissimilar to some of the comments made here.

Mossytoddler

I'm still trying to work out whether there is anything about the EDL that justifies the label 'fascist'. Oh, I get it, it's just name-calling.

D Short

The young were definitely the most numerous among the looters and rioters - after all, they have more energy.

But older people were complicit in every case. As a boy, there was no way I could have brought home as much as a new paperback without being questioned about how I got it.

Parents who allow their children to bring home a TV, new trainers, etc, know that they were not obtained by honest means.

chameleon

If you really are 72 Mr. Massie, your lack of knowledge with regard to the nature of human beings is more than astounding.

Julian F

As I understand it, Nazi is an abbreviation for National SOCIALISTS. Tells you all you need to know, really.

Julian F

"The EDL offers to act as stewards for vigilante groups". Very public spirited of them. Is there anything inherently "fascist" about wanting to protect your community? Would you apply the same label to the Asian community in Handsworth that came out in force to protect shops and homes? One man's vigilante is another man's community stalwart...

Simon Fay

Alan Massie is a silly foppish old fool. His sort won't see the decade out.

John Ross

The hysterical and offensive tone of a number of these comments more than adequately prove Allan Massie's point, and scare me.

Arthur Zastruga

Very well put, John Ross. Alan Massie's written a sane article with interesting and relevant historical perspective and in response most of the comments are straight from Private Eye's "Message Boards".

I went through the same string-em-up reaction to the looters myself for a few days, probably because I live very close to areas in Hackney which went up in flames and I was annoyed at myself for feeling too spooked to go out that Monday night - first time I have felt this in 20 years of living in London.

The questions raised by the riots that interest me most are about the influence of rampant consumerism and celebrity culture on a generation of pissed off under-achievers. (Personally I blame Cheryl Cole for the whole thing. Have you noticed she's kept a very low profile lately?)

Simon Fay

Arthur Z -

You blame yourself for the distress you felt whilst the savages made hay? You are truly liberal. Please take a seat on the bonfire.

Julian F

Arthur Z - have you ever stopped to ask yourself why we have a "generation of under-achievers"? Could it be because the State has inculcated a sense of entitlement in the lazy and the resentful? I came from a very humble background and worked incredibly hard to change my circumstances, against all the odds in the Comrpehensive School system. But I was lucky enough to be young at a time when Thatcher inspired young people to achieve. Now, our youth are practically encouraged to make no effort at school or in the work-place, yet expect to be supported by the benefits system indefinitely.

And since when has the existence of a consumer culture been an excuse for rampant criminality? It's hardly a new phenomenon. And most people in this country live very comfortable lives compared to a few generations agao - warm, sheltered, fed and watered, and usually in possession of a flat-screen TV and an expensive Blackberry on which to incite criminality, should they so wish. What is so awful about all this?

We live in a Europe free of borders. Why don't those who find the UK such an unpleasant place to be learn a foreign language and find work abroad? And, before anyone patronisingly asserts that learning a foreign language is beyond certain sectors of our population, similar sectors of the populations of Poland, Estonia and Hungary manage to learn excellent standards of English. Perhaps we should try to motivate our youth, rather than perpetually make excuses for the petulance and criminality exercised by the more objectionable elements of it.

paulo

Typical Massie cherry-picking of the comments in YOUNG Daniel Knowles blog.

the main annoyance with him and his blog is that he is a mere child, trying to tell his elders and better what the 'modern' Conservative Party ought to be about. Arrogant and presumptuous.

BTW - it's not that we WANT to flog, hang and shoot these rioters, but rather that the threat of such a draconian law-enforcement response would make the sanction unnecessary.

But you knew that, didn't you?

Chris London

"So, while there is no fascist party of any significance in Britain, there is a fascist mood in some parts of the country."

In other words, caring more for the victim than the perpetrator of a crime is fascistic? To require that people earn the money to pay for the trainers or televisions they want is fascistic? To think that it's morally grotesque when legal grievance mongers use the Human Rights Act to aid convicted criminals is fascistic?

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength, eh?

Arthur Zastruga

10 point plan from the Spectator internet comments threads to turn this country around after the riots:

1. Sharia law to be introduced for looters. Severed hands to be displayed at gates of towns - if gates no longer extant, service stations may substitute.

2. Liberals to be placed on bonfires and made to recant belief that anything is to be learned from anything.

3. Black youths to be trained to speak like Diane Abbott, David Lammy or at a push Lenny Henry. Their diction then to be assessed via telephone by government-appointed old gay historians.

4. The word "gay" to be restored to its former meaning of "happy" or "chipper", with spot fines issued for improper use.

5. People to pull selves up by boot straps. If none available, boot straps to be issued but cost deducted from benefits.

6. Families of looters to be evicted and made to clean streets in uniformed teams. Teams then to lie down and sleep on cleaned streets forming the word "FERAL" with their bodies when seen from TV news helicopter.

7. People who buckled down and got on with it to be sent into estates to hunt down, remove and destroy plasma screens of undeserving poor.

8. Glass from smashed plasma screens to be ground down and put down back of neck of anyone found wearing hoodie in public.

9. Muslims who have taken to introduction of sharia law a bit too enthusiastically to be confined to Isle of Sheppey.

10. Country to return to being increasingly white through experiments in space designed to mimic that scene in Superman where he flies round and round the Earth really fast to turn back time.

Herbert Thornton

Another reason why nobody is voting fascist is that despite all the efforts to pretend otherwise - there are no fascists to vote for.

The EDL is certainly not fascist, nor is the BNP. Yet the Establishment have brainwashed the population into believing the absurd idea that both the EDL and the BNP are not just fascists, but the most extreme kind of Nazis. Just as frightening, the Establishment, led of course by the BBC, have brainwashed the population into believing that the Christian religion is dangerous and bad, while Islam is inherently harmless.

God help England......