Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

The nature and extent of his mental health issues will come out in the wash. He wasn't sectioned on arrest and his brother claims the only thing he has ever been treated for is OCD but whether that is correct isn't yet clear. Sam Kriss is pretty otm here though:

The victim was an MP noted for her advocacy for Syrian migrants. Her killer was a neo-Nazi, who bought gun-making instructions from an American white supremacist group, reportedly shouted ‘Britain First!’ after the murder, and gave his name in court as ‘death to traitors, freedom for Britain.’ You can call his ideology an epiphenomenon of his madness if you want; plenty have. Since 1945, happy and content people have tended not to be outright Hitlerists. (In fact, they tend to not be interested in any kind of politics whatsoever.) But there is no mental illness known to medical practice that turns its sufferers into violent fascists; fascism as a political ideology is not independently created, swastikas and all, every time something goes clunk in the brain. Go back to your Lacan: the mind is not a self-contained system; nothing in the psyche is ever a pure interiority. This fascism is coming from somewhere, and the fog over Britain is full of it.

find it hard to bridge the yawning chasm between the two truths "happy and content people have tended not to be outright hitlerists" and "there is no mental illness known to medical practice that turns its sufferers into violent fascists"

Mental health issues may make some people more vulnerable to external propaganda. It is fairly straightforward.

I agree with that completely.

Jo Cox’s bereaved husband says mainstream politicians are legitimising extremist anti-immigrant views: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jo-cox-s-bereaved-husband-says-mainstream-politicians-are-legitimising-extremist-anti-immigrant-a7088831.html

pretty sure Fascism is a mental illness tbh

It's just really strange how often it afflicts those who would most benefit from fascist policies...

Mental health issues may make some people more vulnerable to external propaganda. It is fairly straightforward.

― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Saturday, June 18, 2016 5:49 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As does loneliness, of course.

Mail On Sunday is pinning its colours to the mast for Remain tomorrow, possibly on principle and possibly just to annoy Dacre. Follows The Times today and the Financial editor of The Telegraph yesterday. Sunday Times is pushing for Leave.

The Economist is firmly Remain, though that is not surprising:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21700637-vote-leave-european-union-would-diminish-both-britain-and-europe-divided-we-fall

I'm surprised the Murdoch papers were allowed to call their own editorial line on this.

The Times has always had it's independence in making editorial decisions. Murdoch accepts it because its The Times.

Ah right.

Can someone explain to me the MIGRANTS TAKE ALL NOBELS IN BRITAIN headline from that Daily Express collage up thread?

That struck me too. Migrants, coming over here, doing all our award winning science...

I didn't know you could take a Nobel. This changes everything.

By journalist Martin Fletcher

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClOh9iXWMAAmVoZ.jpg

Perfect.

Anders, who had wanted to be part of the power elite, was now one of the soldiers of World of Warcraft..

I can't link to it directly, but under this blogpost there is a comment by Phil (Edwards) that I thought was interesting, wrt "mental illness" and far-right politics and the relationship between the two

http://barthsnotes.com/2016/06/17/some-notes-on-claims-about-thomas-mair/#comments

(it's the third comment down, or ctrl-f "phil")

I was surprised by that Mail on Sunday decision, perhaps it's because Geordie Grieg just wants the British right to become a place where everyone just goes to parties all the time and has to deal with Dacre thundering away next door.

Which way is the Telegraph declaring?

I'm assuming the FT is firmly in the Remain camp.

The Economist is firmly Remain, though that is not surprising:

saw a Leave:EU poster at Vauxhall last night that was quite obviously patterned after The Economist's ads, and grasping for The Economist's gravitas.

Which way is the Telegraph declaring?

Can see them going Remain with concomitant spluttering into G & Ts in golf club bars the length and breadth of the country.

Corbyn v good on Marr - immigrants do not put pressure on services, but govt under-funding. A late corrective on politicians who 'understand people's concerns'. Also good on looking at the issue of exploitative wages imposed on newly arrived migrants.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3648681/THE-MAIL-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Vote-Remain-safer-freer-prosperous-yes-GREATER-Britain.html

Not quite sure how the Mail on Sunday has the cheek to print the words "Those who would have you believe in the plucky Little England of the past are selling a dangerous illusion" in its editorial, but still.

In town today, lots of Remain campaigners, absolutely no Brexiters at all.

xp MoS has a different editor than the DM - they don't get on and often they work against each other. Private Eye have been covering it for ages.
MoS ran a story about Neo Nazis in the Leave camp a few weeks ago.

Best part of that article is the comments - full of outraged DM readers vowing to cancel their subscriptions.

I know, but "plucky England of the past" is hardly a stranger to the pages of the MoS.

That bit seems incongruous, but then the whole thing is given it's the Mail. The whole thing is all across the press. The Sunday Telegraph has come out for Brexit, but the first thing you see when you click on the site is a piece about Osborne comparing Farage's poster Nazi propaganda.

Speaking of the Telegraph, they've run a piece on the British character that contains this:

What struck me from the beginning was a quality that requires rather a lot of adjectives: calm, rational, tolerant, grown up, undaunted, and quietly brave.

I have seen that subtle virtue in play many times over a lifetime here. Under the truly terrifying wave of IRA bombings, when virtually nobody flinched or even altered their daily habits and when, most movingly, the population evinced almost no trace of anti-Irish prejudice. (A fashion for fairly benign Irish jokes was as far as it got.) I saw it again after the 7/7 terror bombings, when the population grieved but did not panic, and again manifested almost no hostility to the British Muslim community. So I now have a very firm idea of what the British are like – and they are not going to be bullied or frightened like silly children.

Live from a living room...

Benign Irish jokes = not actually about the IRA or bombs, etc.

yeah i know some English people i call bullshit

It's Janet Daley, turning her acute "outsider's eye" to British culture.

i accept it's entirely possible Janet Daley has mingled with a different sample group to me

almost no hostility to the British Muslim community

http://static.radicalisationresearch.org/wp-content/uploads//2015/11/UK-tabloid-islamophobia.jpg

i accept it's entirely possible Janet Daley has mingled with a different sample group to me

She lives on a different planet to most of us.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/sadiq-khan-britain-first-london-mayor-threaten-direct-action-a7047991.html

The far-right group Britain First has threatened to target where Sadiq Khan “lives, works and prays” as part of their apparent organised action against British Muslim politicians.

In a press release, the “loyalist” group claim they specialise in direct action which they will use against Mr Khan

can we just call them a terrorist group and be done, or does this set a dangerous precedent

> In town today, lots of Remain campaigners, absolutely no Brexiters at all.

A dozen remainers in w12 that I saw, at least two of which were being earholed by Leavers.

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/06/17/making-our-peace/

very good, even at the points where i disagree

Baroness Warsi out of the Leave campaign now. I'm not a big fan but I appreciate that as the highest profile minority in the Tory party, she probably has to make a call a dozen times a day regarding "What course of action will further my aim/goals while also facilitating the least racism and exposing myself to the least racism?" (while the highest profile minority in the Labour party - probably Sadiq Khan? - would only have to do this two or three times a day). And as such my understanding is that the actual point of saying "no we've crossed a line" can come some time after the line has actually been crossed.

All that taken, there are probably 20 better ways for the Guardian to express this than "although some question her commitment to campaign".

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/20/sayeeda-warsi-quits-leave-campaign-over-hateful-xenophobic-tactics

EXCELLENT shade in "Speaking earlier of the leave campaign, she told the Times: 'I look at that group of people and I think they’re not the kind of people I’d get on a night bus with. Why would I want them to run my country?'" though.

https://twitter.com/econbuttonwood/status/744787791758819329

Yeah I think Gove would relish the chance to restart the troubles

iirc there are sensible arguments against some of the details of the Good Friday Agreement (which was an amazing and impossible-seeming enough achievement that it was probably worth it)...

...but that certainly wasn't one of them

his pea-brained imperialist jingoism was all over the changes to the History syllabus when he was Education sec

What's the polling looking like in Northern Ireland? Is it overwhelmingly Remain or is there a substantial Protestant Leave contingent?

The Belfast Telegraph had an article about poll results this morning: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/eu-referendum/eu-referendum-growing-support-in-northern-ireland-for-brexit-but-balance-of-power-lies-with-the-undecided-34815075.html

which is slightly confusingly laid out, so: Remain still in the lead in NI but Protestants somewhat pro-Leave (iirc the DUP are for leaving and the UUP for remaining), with higher %s undecided than in recent all-UK polls; 37% are still undecided and about the same for Remain