| Author | Message | | gchq | | Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 1:31 am Post subject: |
| Channel 4 News
How Labour members feel about Gordon Brown.
We've asked YouGov to poll Labour activists and it is pretty surprising stuff.
This is normally a group of people who are more loyal to the leadership than Labour MPs. But less than half want Gordon Brown to stay on as PM. More want him to quit either now or before the next election.
His approval rating has plummeted to 53 per cent from over 70 per cent just in February. Alan Johnson gets 75 per cent; David Miliband is on 70 per cent.
The PM is judged a weak leader by 41 per cent of Labour activists, 66 per cent think he's a bad communicator and 40 per cent say he's indecisive.
Crucially 49 per cent say he should quit if 70 MPs sign the email doing the rounds at the moment.
And Alan Johnson is the clear favourite to succeed him, followed by David Miliband.
Today has seen a lull in political activity - no resignations. But is it the calm before the storm of European election results that will deal another terrible blow to the prime minister?
Who knows whether any more big beasts will strike, or whether they have really been tied in by the reshuffle.
Interestingly our poll showed a clear majority of Labour activists think the reshuffle has either made no difference or made the situation worse.
We'll be discussing the findings with Lord Adonis - who has been promoted to transport secretary and becomes one of the seven unelected people in the Cabinet now.
Then we'll be talking to our regular panel of Polly Toynbee from the Guardian, David Hill, who used to run communications for Tony Blair and George Bridges who was David Cameron's political director for a while and worked for John Major.
Brown should go - say Labour members: http://tinyurl.com/o8ov9s
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | |  | | gchq | | Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:35 am Post subject: WAGs’ secret summit to plot next blitz on Brown |
| WAGs’ secret summit to plot next blitz on Brown
The Mail
07 Jun 2009
The Women Against Gordon group of rebel Labour MPs will gather in secret tomorrow to decide the next move in their campaign to destroy the Prime Minister.
The so-called WAGs include Hazel Blears, Caroline Flint and Jacqui Smith, who all quit the Government last week.
Ruth Kelly, who resigned last year as Transport Secretary amid rumours that Mr Brown was planning to sack her, is also expected to attend.
Red and ready: Caroline Flint posing for her newspaper photoshoot. She is
expected to meet with female colleagues to discuss Gordon Brown
The venue is a closely guarded secret after The Mail on Sunday revealed the existence of the WAGs when they were seen arriving at Ms Smith’s sister’s home in South London earlier this year.
They will gather tomorrow evening after Mr Brown addresses Labour MPs in a meeting that could be crucial to his survival chances and after what are expected to be dire European election results.
The WAGs – all arch-supporters of Tony Blair – are expected to plan their next move against Mr Brown.
It will depend on the European election results and how Gordon performs tomorrow,’ said one MP privately. ‘But the WAGs will want to keep up the momentum against him and garner more support to get him out.
‘I suspect they’ll also be assessing how damaged Gordon is by Caroline Flint’s broadside against him last week over treating women Cabinet members as window dressing.’
The timing of tomorrow’s meeting will come as little surprise to fellow Labour MPs given the intense speculation over Mr Brown’s future.
Reliable sources say the group hold dinners every six weeks or so to share their doubts about Mr Brown’s ability to continue the New Labour project and safeguard Mr Blair’s legacy.
Earlier this year, the WAGs played down the purpose of their meetings, insisting they met as friends and did not plot against the Prime Minister.
Ms Blears’s spokesman indicated that the meetings were simply regular social events where ‘talking shop was probably the last thing on their minds’. He suggested that they probably talked instead about ‘clothes and Strictly Come Dancing’.
Conspicuously absent from the gatherings are two of Mr Brown’s closest allies in the Cabinet – Commons Leader Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper, last week promoted to Work and Pensions Secretary.
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:18 pm Post subject: Caroline Flint steps up attacks on Gordon Brown |
| Caroline Flint steps up attacks on Gordon Brown
The Telegraph
07 Jun 2009
Caroline Flint, who quit the Government last week, has stepped up her attacks on Gordon Brown, accusing the Prime Minister of marginalising women in the Labour Party.
Miss Flint said her friendship with other female ministers had counted
against her in Mr Brown's Government Photo: PA
Miss Flint resigned as Europe Minister on Friday accusing Mr Brown of operating a "two-tier" Government in which only his almost entirely male inner circle of allies has any influence.
She used Sunday newspaper appearances to voice fresh criticism of the Prime Minister over the way female ministers are treated. She said that she and other female ministers had been subjected to "negative bullying" from Mr Brown and his aides.
Two of Miss Flint's friends, Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith, left the Government last week. And Margaret Beckett, a veteran Labour minister was sacked as housing minister after asking Mr Brown for a full Cabinet post.
Mr Brown's reshuffle has reduced the number of women with senior jobs in the Government, Miss Flint said.
"You've only got to look and see where women are in cabinet and where they aren't: and they aren't in positions of power, they aren't running spending departments. There's only Yvette [Cooper, the new Work and Pensions Secretary] now who's actually running a spending department."
The new Europe Minister will be Glenis Kinnock. She was the only woman to join the Government's senior ranks in the shuffle.
Miss Flint added: "The Government can and should make better use of the talents of the many women in our party, locally and nationally."
"I believe if we had a more inclusive style - more ministers working with one another and not in isolation; a government of equals - I believe we would look and feel more purposeful. The Prime Minister would look more effective."
Miss Flint's criticisms are privately shared by several female Labour MPs. Some believe Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is being allowed to water down Labour's "family-friendly" policies on maternity leave. And some are angry at the appointment as an adviser of Sir Alan Sugar, who has questioned equal-opportunities laws.
Miss Flint also said that her friendship with other female ministers had counted against her in Mr Brown's Government.
"In my relationship with the Prime Minister I have felt that I had to repeatedly prove my loyalty while being prejudged because of my friends, fed by daft Westminster rumours."
For instance, she cited reports that her resignation and that of Miss Blears were part of a ploy by female ministers trying to bring down Mr Brown. Desputing the report, she said: "The sad thing is that it almost certainly originated from people who see themselves as allies of the Prime Minister."
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:08 am Post subject: |
| Channel 4 News
There's a curious void in the political story today.
Charlie Falconer has called for Gordon Brown to go so Labour can unite around a new leader, but the former Lord Chancellor has said something like this before.
Peter Mandelson has brushed off the emails he wrote 18 months ago to Derek Draper about Brown looking insecure and lacking in confidence.
The prime minister clearly bears no ill-feeling over it, as he's just lavished smiles and jokes on his consigliery at a Labour meeting in east London.
He also heaped praise on Harriet Harman for her work on the Equality Act, lest anyone think he doesn't really like women.
So really we are in the calm before the storm of Euro election results.
The anti-Brown MPs say tomorrow will be the crucial day, when they look at just how badly Labour has done.
If the party comes fourth behind UKIP, or drops below 20 per cent of the national share of the vote, they say the game is up.
But it is clearly getting harder for the rebels to remove Gordon Brown, now more of the new Cabinet have apparently rallied around.
Alan Johnson gave a suitably loyal interview today.
Some are already saying it is best to leave it until the autumn party conference - then it is easier to replace the leader and call an election in May 2010 and hope the economy has started to improve.
If they move now, some argue, they might have to call an early election and that would hand the Tories a landslide with the expenses scandal still fresh.
So there's a bit of an argument going on, between those who'd like to get rid of Gordon Brown, over whether they should strike now or in the autumn.
We have heard these arguments before, however. There is a good chance they won't move against him at all.
Gary Gibbon is on the case tonight, and we've been offered an interview with Chris Bryant, the deputy leader of the house.
Labour activists want Brown to go: http://tinyurl.com/ohhose
WILL SUGAR HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN JOBS?
We're also looking at whether 'Srallun' Sugar, the soon-to-be Baron Amstrad, has miscalculated in accepting his job offer from Gordon Brown.
He insists he'll be politically neutral, and is an adviser not a policy man.
So he thinks, and claims the BBC agrees, that he can carry on presenting the business series The Apprentice on the BBC.
However the Conservative party seem to disagree, saying a Labour peer who accepts a job in the government promoting business, cannot expect to carry on with the high profile BBC show.
We will be interviewing Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
READ GARY GIBBON’S NEW POLITICS BLOG
www.channel4.com/garygibbon
JOIN THE DEBATE ON SNOWBLOG
www.channel4.com/snowblog
WE TWEET, THEREFORE WE AM
9,000 followers can't be wrong: http://twitter.com/channel4news | | | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:16 pm Post subject: Gordon Brown loses minister Jane Kennedy |
| Gordon Brown loses minister Jane Kennedy after elections disaster
The Telegraph
08 Jun 2009
Jane Kennedy has quit the Government after Gordon Brown led Labour to its worst ever election results, deepening the Prime Minister's leadership crisis.
Jane Kennedy said she feared Gordon Brown would lead Labour to its
'bitter end' Photo: BRIAN SMITH
The farming minister is the eighth minister to quit in less than a week. She quit hours before Mr Brown's make-or-break meeting with Labour MPs on Monday night.
She left the Government after deciding she could no longer support Mr Brown as Labour leader.
Mrs Kennedy said that Mr Brown's style of politics had alienated many voters. "The public have turned away from us and are not prepared to listen to us.
"The electorate are rejecting us. This is the point at which we need to turn the corner. We need to listen to the messge that the British people are giving us. We need to give the Labour Party a fighting chance."
She said she and Mr Brown discussed her position in a "frank and honest" conversation. "I had to say what is in my heart about where the Labour Party is and where it is going," she said.
She made clear could have stayed in Government but had chosen to resign. "It was my decision," she said.
The reshuffle of ministers of state is expected to be completed within the next few hours, with other ranks announced before Mr Brown faces a showdown meeting of his beleaguered parliamentarty party at the Commons on Monday night.
Labour MPs are reeling from their worst electoral showing for nearly 100 years after finishing third in vote share behind the Tories and Ukip in elections to the European Parliament.
They were also dismayed that the far-right BNP gained two MEPs, including party leader Nick Griffin.
Mrs Kennedy, the Liverpool Wavertree MP, hit out at "smears" of colleagues by people associated with No 10 and said if Mr Brown stayed on to the bitter end, it would be "to the bitter end of the Labour Party".
Mr Brown's spokesman flatly denied he had asked her, or any other minister, for a loyalty pledge as another day of Whitehall drama unfolded, with Miss Kennedy conceding it was not a direct request from the Premier.
But she said it was made clear that she was expected to give assurances about her loyalty and said: "I wasn't able to give that assurance and so I have not been reappointed. That's the fact of what happened.
"I wasn't able to give that assurance because I have been unhappy for some time about smears against colleagues, about undermining of colleagues and friends by Number 10."
Asked whether that behaviour was from Mr Brown himself or those around him, she said: "I can't distinguish between the two and in my view it's how politics is driven forward by Gordon and the people around him.
"It really gets me very angry when I see that type of behaviour."
When asked if she backed calls for the Prime Minister to go, Mrs Kennedy said: "I think he should make way for an alternative leader."
Mr Brown's spokesman said: "The Prime Minister was aware of Jane Kennedy's intention to stand down... he did not ask for any pledge of loyalty from her or any other minister."
A strong supporter of Alistair Darling, colleagues said Mrs Kennedy had been angered by what she saw as Downing Street attempts to undermine the Chancellor in favour of Ed Balls, the children’s secretary.
Mrs Kennedy’s move presents a new problem for Mr Brown as he attempts to put down a Labour rebellion.
It came as another Labour MP withdrew support from the Prime Minister.
Sally Keeble, backbench MP for Northampton, said Mr Brown had failed to communicate his "vision" or create a stable, united Government.
In a letter to her contituents, she said: "There has to be consistency and credibility, not just a statement of values but an explanation of how they will be put into practice.
"To achieve that we need a leader who can articulate that vision and let our country and the party move on."
Liverpool Wavertree, once a Labour stronghold, is now the No 1 Liberal Democrat target in the North West, with local activists warning Mrs Kennedy could easily lose the next election there.
The Daily Telegraph’s expenses files last month revealed that Mrs Kennedy regularly claimed £400 a month for food, as well as £200 for utilities, £200 for telephone bills and £200 for service and maintenance on her second home, a flat in Lambeth
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject: UKIP searches for new donors |
| UKIP searches for new donors as Nigel Farage declares party 'brassic'
The Times
08 Jun 2009
Nigel Farage celebrates with fellow UKIP MEP Marta Andreasen
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) must start fundraising immediately to replenish its coffers after its leader Nigel Farage warned that it was "completely brassic", having spent all its money campaigning in the European elections.
Last night, UKIP won four more seats in the European elections, leaving the party with 13 in Brussels — the same number as Labour. The party also seized the second largest share of the vote with 16.57 per cent.
At a press conference in Westminster this morning, Mr Farage said: "Of course we are broke — we threw the kitchen sink at these elections, but we have no debts at all. We are going to have to raise money fairly quickly, but when you come second, it's easier to raise money from afresh."
UKIP is believed to have spent £2 million on the European elections. But speaking to The Times today, Stuart Wheeler, a major donor to UKIP, said that he did not know whether he would sign another cheque for the party:
"I just don't know. I certainly haven't been contacted by them recently and I don't think there is anyone else I can introduce them to who would be serious donors."
In March, Mr Wheeler was expelled from the Conservative party when he donated £100,000 to UKIP as a protest against the Tory position on Europe.
Mr Farage said that UKIP's success proved that the party was no flash in the pan.
He added: "Gordon Brown's humiliation was such that I hope and believe UKIP will deliver the coup de grace."
Mr Farage dismissed suggestions that UKIP had been so successful last night only because voters were angry about MPs' expenses.
Mr Farage, a former commodities broker, said that UKIP's success had come despite problems with ballot papers where his party was listed at the bottom of the voting form — and in some cases was hidden because the document was folded. "This is wholly unacceptable. We were avalanched with calls from people who wanted to vote for us but couldn't. We don't know whether we will challenge for a re-election."
David Campbell Bannerman — the deputy leader of UKIP and the great, great, great grandson of the Liberal Prime Minister — told The Times that he was drafting policy on range of domestic issues and considering their tactics for both upcoming by-elections and the General Election. Mr Campbell Bannerman, said: "The whole scandal of MPs expenses has clearly dislocated a lot of tribal loyalties. It has opened a gap — there is an opportunity for us. We saw on the campaign trail how a number of Tory and Labour candidates were savaged — they were very angry."
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Jun 08, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject: Ask not for whom Big Ben tolls |
| Channel 4 News
If the past is anything to go by, at the stroke of seven, as we go to air, Labour backbench MPs will be emerging from the Commons on the heels of a session with Gordon Brown – the first since the catastrophic electoral results from both the local and European elections, results that many claim are beyond catastrophic. They are the worst that Labour has ever known.
My own sense is that they are so bad that they actually strengthen Brown’s position (see my blog). Any other election, if it were held now – and it would have to be if they replaced Brown – could result in something close to extermination.
Tonight we’ll have immediate reaction from the meeting, we’ll have a Cabinet minister on hand, and we’ll have the pollster Peter Kellner with the findings of a YouGov poll that we’ve conducted tonight into why anybody votes for the BNP and what the figures really tell us about the next general election.
Who voted BNP and why?: http://bit.ly/188PTj
Andy Davies will be reporting on this arrival of the BNP with two Euro seats to their name. We’ll be talking live with one of the successful candidates, Andrew Brons. And Gary Gibbon will be in the corridor outside tonight’s meeting and will draw the strands together.
READ GARY GIBBON’S NEW POLITICS BLOG
www.channel4.com/garygibbon
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:17 am Post subject: Gordon Brown's great escape |
| Gordon Brown's great escape
The Guardian
09 Jun 2009
• PM sees off rebels despite poll disaster
• Silence as Clarke says he should resign
Gordon Brown leaves the House of Commons following a meeting of the
parliamentary Labour party. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
A chastened Gordon Brown yesterday promised his backbench critics that he would learn from his mistakes, as he survived Labour's worst national election results since 1918 and some of the most personal attacks ever mounted on his governing style.
At a private inquest staged only hours after the party came third in the European parliamentary elections, with less than 16% of the vote, a rebel attempt to call for a secret ballot on his leadership was seen off by party loyalists.
Speaking to a packed meeting of Labour MPs and peers, Brown adopted a humble tone, saying: "Like everyone else, I have my strengths and weaknesses. I am going to play to my strengths and address my weaknesses.
"No doubt I have much to learn about a collective way of leading the party and the government. I have to learn how to be a full-time prime minister and a full-time leader of the Labour party." He said he wanted to stay leader, not for its own sake, but because he had a mission.
The Labour rebels claim to have 50 to 60 names expressing no confidence in his leadership, but after the meeting they decided not to publish the list, in essence abandoning the revolt for the moment.
But a rebel source said: "The issues which led to the parliamentary party's concerns all remain and the issues will not go away."
The rebels admitted that they had faced opposition to their revolt from MPs who saw no alternative leader coming forward, and fears that a new leader would have to stage an early election, at which Labour would be crushed.
In a long call for unity, dwelling over the party's history since the 1930s, Brown said the party had repeatedly failed when it was divided over policy, and pointed out that in all the ministerial resignation letters of the past week, there had not been a single politician who had cited policy differences inside the party.
He repeatedly promised to learn from his errors, adding "you simply cannot solve these problems through changes at the top". He insisted he was making an argument for unity and not a plea, adding that more work needed to be done to refine the party's policies on expenses, the economy and democracy.
Among more than 20 speakers, three former ministers - Charles Clarke, Fiona Mactaggart and Tom Harris - directly called for Brown to step down.
Clarke's call was listened to in silence, according to the Labour peer Lord Foulkes, but the former cabinet minister did not hold back in his criticisms, telling Brown directly: "You bear responsibility for this state of affairs that could destroy our party." He claimed Brown's "style of politics was based on dishonesty, dividing lines and bullying".
Loyalists were led by the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock who, in a lengthy address, warned: "In politics, division carries the death penalty". The former home secretary David Blunkett said the party "cannot take the bloodletting any longer. It is a case of put up or shut up".
Some leftwing rebels acknowledged that the prime minister had bought himself more time, but said their support was conditional on genuine signs that he would change his style and up his game.
But a critic of the rebels claimed that a call by Barry Sheerman, the children's select committee chairman, for a secret ballot of Labour MPs on the future of Brown's leadership "died on his lips".
A number of speakers called for the abandonment of the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail, but the prime minister made no commitments at the meeting. Government sources said he was going to defer selling a 30% equity stake in the business, but would go ahead with the legislation as early as this summer.
Earlier the environment minister Jane Kennedy quit the government, saying she could not stomach the smears organised by Downing Street against colleagues. She said the "bullying behaviour is anathema to me", and even likened it to the methods of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency.
At a a separate meeting at Westminster, another former cabinet minister, Stephen Byers, last night claimed that Brown's leadership was being questioned "not by one faction or group, but from across the party. Those who claim otherwise are in denial about the scale and extent of the concerns that exist", he said. "We need a leader who regards Labour party members as assets to be valued. A leader who sees Labour MPs as colleagues, to be worked with, and not threats to be briefed against.
"We need someone who can voice the concerns of the British people and identify with their needs. We need a leader who can win for Labour at the next general election and not take us to a humiliating defeat. Gordon Brown is not that leader."
Frank Field, the former welfare minister, also cranked up his anti-Brown rhetoric, saying: "Even I didn't think a Brown administration would be as inept as this one. The Brownites are attempting to terrorise Labour MPs into inaction. If they succeed then we deserve our fate."
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:43 pm Post subject: Gordon Brown refuses to publish report - Shahid Malik |
| Gordon Brown refuses to publish report into finances of Labour MP Shahid Malik
The Telegraph
09 Jun 2009
Gordon Brown is refusing to publish the independent report Photo: REUTERS
Mr Malik stepped down as Justice Minister from the Government last month amid suspicions that his rental arrangements over his designated main home may have breached the ministerial code of conduct.
The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Mr Malik's landord said he was paying well below the market rate for his constituency home in West Yorkshire.
Dewsbury MP Mr Malik announced that Gordon Brown had restored him to the frontbench, in a new role as a junior minister at the Department of Communities and Local Government.
Downing Street said he was reappointed because Sir Philip Mawer, Mr Brown's adviser on ministerial behaviour, had investigated and found nothing wrong with Mr Malik's arrangements.
A spokesman said that Sir Philip had reached his judgment on “on the basis of an independent valuation of the properties".
Asked when the report would be published, spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "It is not our intention to publish the report. It goes into quite a lot of detail about Mr Malik's personal affairs."
Asked whether Downing Street would publish a redacted version of the report, removing personal details, the spokesman said: “No."
But he admitted that Mr Malik had agreed to put his tenancy arrangements on a more formal footing.
Mr Malik had stepped down as justice minister last month while Sir Philip investigated his financial arrangements.
The Prime Minister ordered Sir Philip's inquiry after The Daily Telegraph reported that Mr Malik's landlord had claimed he was benefiting from a secret cut-price rental deal on his constituency home, which he has designated as his “main home”.
He claimed tens of thousands of pounds in parliamentary expenses to cover his designated second home in London while allegedly renting his constituency home for less than £100 a week.
Mr Malik's landlord, local businessman Tahir Zaman, had claimed that Mr Malik was paying well below the market rent for his designated main home in Dewsbury.
Meanwhile, he had claimed more than £66,000 in expenses – the maximum allowable amount – on his designated “second home” in London since he became an MP in 2005.
Mr Malik had to step down after the Prime Minister ordered Sir Philip's inquiry into the rental agreement on the home in Dewsbury, where his landlord claimed he paid well below the market rate.
The ministerial code of conduct states that members of the Government must not accept any “gift or hospitality” which risks putting them under an “obligation”. The arrangement had not been formally declared to officials at the Justice Ministry.
Mr Malik claimed that Sir Philip had found no breach of the ministerial code.
Sir Philip was not required to investigate Mr Malik’s expenses claims.
"I always welcomed Sir Philip's inquiry as an opportunity to clear my name and I am delighted that this has now been achieved," he said.
The MP, who was Britain's first Muslim minister, claimed the inquiry concluded that he was "paying the market rate" after receiving evidence from The Daily Telegraph, the MP and commissioning independent valuations.
He said he would now focus on serving his constituents.
The No 10 spokesman said the Prime Minister "would support whatever Mr Malik believed was the right thing to do" in relation to repaying the expenses money.
Mr Malik was the first Government minister to step down in the wake of The Telegraph’s investigation into MPs’ expenses.
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Tony Blair - War Criminal
http://www.petitiononline.com/BWCF/petition.html | | | | gchq | | Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 3:24 pm Post subject: Free Speech in Europe |
| Free Speech in Europe
Roger Scruton
The American Spectator
It is probably well known to our readers that the British government, on the advice of Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, recently prevented Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament, from visiting Britain, to which country he had been invited in order to show his short film Fitna to a group of peers in the House of Lords. Fitna means “turning away” or “temptation,” and denotes the sin to which young Muslims are exposed in Western societies. The film purports to demonstrate the terroristic nature of the Koran and to give a warning against the Islamization of Europe. It has not been banned in Holland, but it is clearly a no-holds-barred attack on Islam as a creed and a social force.
Prominent among those agitating to keep Mr. Wilders out of Britain was a certain Lord Ahmed, one of those cronies of Tony Blair who were shot into the House of Lords some 12 years ago in order to turn that venerable institution into the yes-machine favored by New Labour. Lord Ahmed, who claims to be a Muslim, announced that he could muster thousands of the faithful in order to make Mr. Wilders’s visit a serious problem for the government. Rather than test this insolent remark as it demanded, the government went along with what it took to be Muslim opinion, and made no effort to defend Mr. Wilders’s right, as a member of one European parliament, to explain his views to another.
A short while later Lord Ahmed was jailed for driving his car on the motorway while drunk and sending text messages—eventually running into the back of a stationary car and killing the driver. Whether his lordship’s reputation as a voice of the faithful will survive this particular episode is anybody’s guess, but no doubt some other self-appointed representative of the Muslim minority will step forward to dictate things the next time the Koran is threatened with a public examination.
I am fairly sure that Mr. Wilders’s exposition of the Koran and its doctrines is biased. Like many non-Muslim readers of the Holy Book, I have been struck by the way in which spurts of vindictive anger punctuate a narrative that is, in itself, a heartfelt invocation of the pious life, and a profoundly serious attempt to reconcile the belief in the one God, all-seeing, all-knowing, with the moral chaos of human communities. I regret the fact that Muslims take this text to be the word of God, rather than a particular person’s attempt to give human words to a revelation that he should have sat on a little bit longer before being sure he had got it right.
Like Mr. Wilders, I find parts of the Koran disturbing in their bloodthirsty and unforgiving anger.
But I find the book of Joshua similarly disturbing from beginning to end. So what? The book of Joshua emerged from a life-and-death struggle, in which God was conscripted to the winning side. The same is true of the Koran, which is as clearly marked by a great emergency as is the book of Joshua. This is normal: only in the Gospels does God appear (to His inestimable credit) on the losing side.
All this can be said and should be said. There is no way forward for Europe if it isn’t said. Whether it is right to say it in the tone of voice of Mr. Wilders is another matter. But free speech is not about permitting only those voices of which you approve. It is about understanding your own beliefs and the beliefs of those who disagree with you. It is about creating the public space in which truth and falsehood can openly contend for their following. Free speech is critical to all the other freedoms that we enjoy, and the impulse to defend it—and in particular to defend the free speech of those with whom you disagree, of whom you disapprove, or who have been targeted by some mob or faction determined to silence them—is proof of the democratic spirit. The capitulation of our government before the hazy threats of one of its own criminal cronies is a disturbing indication of how things have changed in Britain, and how they are changing on our continent. It would not be correct to say, as it was reputedly said by our then Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward Grey) in 1914, that “the lamps are going out all over Europe.” But our governments, who have the responsibility to keep those lamps alight, have no guts for the task.
WHY IS THIS? To answer the question we must see the Wilders episode in its full context: the context of the Netherlands, into which country, unresisted by the guilt-crippled liberal elite, whole communities of Muslims have immigrated from North Africa and the Near East. The Dutch are a tolerant and moderate people who never go to extremes except in showing how tolerant and moderate they are. They have ostentatiously stepped down from the throne of their old convictions and left it vacant. But they never expected what immediately happened, which is that the immigrant communities jumped onto that throne and began to dictate the terms under which they would accept what had been offered, admittedly in bad faith, as hospitality. The Dutch were shocked and, without having any clear idea of what they were up against or how to confront it, changed overnight from a people tolerant of everything to a people tolerant of everything except intolerance.
This is the context that changed the Netherlands from a quiet place where nothing ever happens to the improvised stage on which the drama of Europe is played out. The film Submission, made by Theo van Gogh to a script by Somali immigrant, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, brought death to the director and exile to Hirsi Ali, by then a member of the Dutch parliament. In the meantime Pim Fortuyn, a leftish academic, had led his party to power on the strength of popular revulsion against the dictatorship of righteousness that the Muslim immigrants wished to impose.
Fortuyn was assassinated by an animal rights activist, and his party collapsed in disarray. But nothing by then remained of the old Dutch consensus, in which toleration was the ruling principle.
Everything that happens in Holland is now closely watched by other European leaders, anxious to know where Europe itself is going. And when the opportunity arises to take sides in a Dutch issue—as in the Wilders affair—our governments rush in to show their political correctness. The fact that this involves jettisoning our inherited freedoms and the ground rules of democratic politics is of little significance, compared with the opportunity to show pre- emptive acquiescence in whatever demands the Muslim minority might be prepared to make.
THE MAIN ARGUMENT PRODUCED BY those who censor people like Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not that their views should be silenced, but that their views should not be expressed in an inflammatory way. Even the most fervent democrat will admit that the right of free speech should not be used to stir up social confl ict or destroy the civil peace. It is not just that you don’t shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater. You don’t shout “Sieg heil!” in a crowded synagogue, or “God is dead!” in a crowded mosque. And by extension, you don’t make provocative films like Submission and Fitna that are bound to be taken as insults by those whose faith they criticize.
However, who is to decide what is, and what is not, a threat to the civil peace? It takes two to make a provocation, and while it is right to be provoked by some things, it is wrong to be provoked by others. If I am so constituted that any criticism in my presence of the philosophy of Hegel causes me to boil over with anger and assault the speaker, does this make criticism of Hegel into a threat to the civil peace? Surely not: it is I who am a threat to the civil peace, and a true defender of free speech would have me locked up, rather than the anti-Hegelians who so enrage me.
Of course, criticism of the Koran is not quite the same thing as criticism of Hegel. But if we allow only those who resent such criticism to define how far it can go we are in effect surrendering to intimidation. It is for the community as a whole, and the politicians who represent us, to distinguish legitimate criticism from inflammatory provocation. To allow the issue to be settled, as at present, by the ostentatious outrage of Muslims is to surrender in the face of threat.
Just where all this is leading is anyone’s guess. Nobody (other than al Qaeda) wants to change the resentments of Muslim communities in Europe into a state of open war. We are entering a situation that must be carefully managed if our legal and political inheritance is to survive. But one way of mismanaging the situation is to allow a belligerent minority to dictate terms to the rest of us. Our governments must face up to the fact that Geert Wilders was elected to the Dutch parliament, and enjoys considerable popularity, precisely because he has not been intimidated. You may not like what he says or his way of saying it, but it is people like him, and not the ones who censor them, who are defending the political order of Europe. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
