Matthew Goodwin: Political analysis going wrong

Matthew Goodwin: Political analysis going wrong

Some years ago, a British journalist said that Britain resembled the Weimar Republic and I must say that his analysis was then pretty optimistic. At least the Weimar Republic had two political directions: it could go left or it could go right and, regardless of ideology, the concept of order was there – order of the Left or order of the Right, but order in the end. What Britain faces is complete lack of order, total chaos that will certainly lead to all kinds of violence.

Anders Behring Breivik is merely the tip of the iceberg of something much more serious. When somebody suddenly decides to take up arms and go on the rampage what this shows is that change via Democratic means is no longer possible. Reading some articles regarding what could be the shape of the next British government, the Labour Party is speculating about a possible coalition with the Lib Dems that would be, for all intents and purposes, another political Limbo very much like the present Limbo.

The lack of clear political direction is dangerous in times of plenty. In times of widespread uncertainty can be suicidal. While Matthew Goodwin seems concerned about what he calls the Rise of the Far Right, I am much more concerned about the perception of lack of governance that sooner than later will create violent underground political movements made up of people for whom the ends will justify the means, including political assassinations.

In this state of affairs, European bureaucrats are not interested in Democracy. All they want is to take even more powers away from relatively democratically elected authorities and this will be used by the aforementioned violent underground political movements to get started and given the state of Democracy in Britain I reckon not many people will raise a finger to protect institutions that have been completely devalued.

Ordinary people see political parties, Parliament, the Judiciary, the Police and even the Royal Family as intrinsically corrupt and degraded and this is extremely risky. The 2011 riots are a sample of what can happen when there is a complete breakdown in authority. No sooner the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee ended with expressions of admiration and loyalty, a young member of the Royal Family is depicted naked in what constitutes yet another serious gaff. This wasn’t the usual Prince showing that he cares for those in need and representing the best of British values and many will then say that the real face of the Royal Family is being hidden from the public by means of mass media manipulation.

The attitudes of ordinary citizens fluctuate between admiration and ridicule and ridicule in political terms is the worst that can happen to an institution already shaken by all kinds of scandals, something that follows certain patterns since Henry VIII founded the Church of England. Britain has being in crisis for too long but now all institutions are in trouble at the same time. We still have freedoms that many countries in the world do not have but the said freedoms are at risk if the institutions that should be very much the foundations of the said freedoms cannot be trusted. When respect, admiration and reverence are lost and all we have left is fear and hatred, God Help Britain.

If there is something we should look at very carefully is the concept of Ordnung proposed by certain Muslim leaders – that is very much the Third Reich concept of Ordnung of the NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – used to replace the absence of order created by dying institutions like the Church of England that is more concerned about political correctness than about the mission it was supposed to perform as guardian of fundamental values.

Speaking about his admiration for Islamic fighters, SS Reichführer Heinrich Himmler shared very much the Islamic concept of Ordnung, the single-minded devotion, dedication and blind obedience of Muslim combatants that wore the Wermacht uniform in World War Two. This is not the kind of historical reference that many people would like to be associated with but in present times, when people are so desperate for some kind of certainty, it does not surprise me that many across Europe are embracing ideas that decades before they openly rejected. When you see people attending football matches and openly displaying a Nazi Flag with a Swastika, you know that there is something very wrong.   

In Britain, when people leave the Church of England and join the Catholic Church or even convert to Islam, the message is that they are looking for certainties that no longer exist in British society and that are not being offered by the Church of England or any other Western institution. Family breakdown, financial breakdown and breakdown of fundamental institutions are happening simultaneously and this is indeed extremely dangerous.