Something extraordinary has happened to the English middle class in the last twenty years. It has started to bring out the politics in the streets.
the Manifestation against the Brexit of the weekend was by far the largest political demonstationen in the Uk during my lifetime. People came from all over the country, on the fullsmockade buses and trains. The organizers have claimed that a million people filled the broad avenues from the Marble Arch to Piccadilly Circus; one half of the figure represents an absolute minimum, and some enthusiasts have claimed that twice as many attended. No matter which are images taken from the air hard to take in. No one will remember centuries and very few of the demonstrators listened to even on them. The point was to conclude in a crowd that feels that the England should be.
The Brexitförespråkande the press has almost completely ignored the huge crowd. A reason that is not the Uk had the same sort of problems with ”fake news” that the united states is that our newspapers already publishes or fails to publish, everything that serves their political purposes.
Read more: Hundreds of thousands in demonstration against Brexit
hit the Toryvänliga the Sunday Telegraph demonstration to a combination of inrikesdelen, during the scoop ”of Great concern to british snails are going extinct”, ”Dracula becomes the hero of his own story, ” says the creators behind the new BBC/Netflix-version” and ”Giraffes must be protected from troféjägarnas loopholes”. All of these articles were judged to be more important than the choice that the Uk faces in the next month. The only novelty that was considered to be boring was ”hospital managers are invited to put themselves on the flight and to find more foreign born nurses”.
the Sunday Telegraph is a striking example of the sort of controlled message that led us into this crisis, but not an exceptional thing. We are turning into a country where you more or less only dare to believe in what you see with your own eyes. It is one of the reasons that demonstrations of this size is important. The changes the protesters more than they are changing the world.
Before these medelklassmanifestationer took the british to the riots and, as with football at the time, they were a pleasure for the working class. During the first few years of growth, there were riots against the police in London and Liverpool, in one of them was carved by a policeman to death in a municipal residential area. In 1989, as protests against the municipal tax in central London where the shops were broken up, and contributed to Thatcher’s fall. Then followed twelve years without any significant element of policy on the streets.
It still feels as if the Uk will leave the EU in the same way that a drunk man is led out from a party
beginning with a smaller demonstration which compromised a total of the queen mother, who died the same day and effectively took the cabbage on all opportunities for media coverage. Half a year later there was a much larger demonstration, who were – or at least pulled out from behind the placard – of the trotskister and islamists who later came to form the ”Stop the war coalition”, where one of the former leaders now is Jeremy Corbyns chief of staff. At the demonstration I saw myself people who had on låtsasbombvästar and thought that I was not on their side either.
Just before the war’s outbreak, there was a much larger demonstration, possibly with as many as a million people, which failed to stop the invasion of a single bit. Yet, this failure proved to exert a long-term impact on a whole generation of Labouraktivister that Tony Blair was their enemy. But the manifestation had we might never have Jeremy Corbyn.
Then they marched 300 000 people in defense of the traditional fox hunt that Blair wanted to ban in part to appease the Irakkrigets opponent. In a sentimental country, the aim was to save the british foxes to overshadow the iraqi children’s suffering.
in virtually the whole of the vänstermedier, which was stupid. Afterwards eat it like a förebådan large parts of the Brexitväljarna: wealthy, older, rural, and white. All who attended felt themselves to be a part of a common identity, with a common grievance, and that is what a political movement needs.
the Left’s patriotism did not come to expression in the streets until Donald Trump threatened to come on a state visit. The demonstration of around 100 000 people – included still some traditionally socialist placards, but the dominant mood was humorous and self ironic: ”I came here to drink tea and fight against fascism”, it was in one of them, ”and now I’ve drunk up my tea.” ”Feed the corgisarna with him, your majesty”, was it another in a picture of the queen and her dogs.
In the autumn, at a time when it no longer seemed to be any hope to stop Brexit, gathered around 650 000 people – to our collective surprise, I think – to march the same distance as now at the weekend. It came to create the movement’s very heart.
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even more people, and for the first time, but I saw some explicit political banners from the trotskister or the other. Jeremy Corbyn came on that he had an important case in Lancashire, about as far from London as he could get without swimming, but his deputy party leader, Tom Watson, spoke. It is a further sign of the two parties ‘ resolution.
It still feels as if the Uk will leave the EU in the same way that a drunk man is led out from a party after having basunerat out that he intends to fight against everyone in the room in order to collapse out on the street during the wails that no one loves him. But the memory of Sunday’s demonstration will still linger when we wake up in a couple of years.
