The Obama “Iran-First” policy followers in Congress have been demonstrating a dangerous delusion that Iran, which supports global terrorism, supply arms that kill American soldiers in the Middle East and Afghanistan advancing their own and North Korea’s nuclear agenda, encouraging mobs chanting “death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to Saudi Arabia” are friends, not cunning maniacal enemies of the U.S. The Trump administration’s efforts to curb Iran’s activities would also be helped by finding out how much money did the Obama administration funnel to Iran and its proxies since he took office in 2009.
The latest confirmation of the Obama administration’s support of Iran’s terrorist activities was provided to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on June 8, 2017 by David Asher, who for many years worked with the United States government on counter-terrorist financing-related issues. According to Asher, “[i]n narrow pursuit of the P5+1 agreement, the administration … systematically disbanded any … action … to dismantle Hezb’allah and the Iran ‘Action Network’ … [for fear these would] derail the administration’s policy agenda focused on Iran.”
Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the committee, denounced the Obama administration in April 2016 for allowing Iran “to launder dollars while the administration looked the other way.” The hearing he held last week aimed at finding new ways to curb Iran’s and Hezb’allah’s international crime syndicates that fund its terrorist activities.
One day before the Senate voted on advancing the “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017,” former secretary of state John Kerry argued against “the danger” of new sanctions. “Our bellicosity is pushing them into a corner,” and the imposition of new sanctions after old ones were relaxed with Obama’s deal with Iran could be seen as a “provocation” by Iran, he warned. His former counterpart, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, followed suit, calling the newly proposed sanctions “repugnant.”
Obama is no longer the president, but Democrats in Congress continue his “Iran first” legacy. Last week, 92 senators voted to advance with the Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 to impose new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, enforce arms embargoes, and block assets of individuals engaged in terrorism and human rights violations in Iran. The six senators who voted against, Carper (D-Del.); Durbin (D-Ill.); Feinstein (D-Calif.); Gillibrand (D-N.Y.); Merkley (D-Ore.), and Sanders (I-Vt.), argued in favor of postponing the vote “as a goodwill gesture” to the Iranians after last week’s ISIS attack on the Parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s shrine in Tehran.
Incredibly, Sen. Carper called to “hit the pause button,” suggesting that the sanctions would be akin to “rubbing salt into a wound[.] … [L]et’s wait a few days and consider what to do.” Displaying his lack of minimal understanding of the mullahs’ terrorist regime, he argued, “If we were in their shoes, I think we would appreciate that gesture.” One wonders why Sen. Carper and his colleagues continue to call for “goodwill gestures” toward Iran, which has unfailingly proven its hostility to the U.S. The Obama “Iran first” policy followers in Congress have been demonstrating a dangerous delusion that Iran, which supports global terrorism; advances its own and North Korea’s nuclear agendas; and encourages mobs chanting “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to Saudi Arabia” is a friend, not a cunning, maniacal enemy of the U.S.
Across the West, restless voters and mainstream parties are reinforcing one another in a mutual race to the fringes, hollowing out the political center and threatening the basic canons of our post-war liberal order – the human values, diplomatic alliances and economic relationships that have generally served us well.
The middle-class struggles economically, fears the next terrorist attack and feels abandoned by political and economic elites who decide their futures in stately rooms, often behind closed doors. Frustrated and angry, voters are increasingly disgusted by traditional candidates and tempted by outlandish alternatives.
The parties, meanwhile, are driven to the fringes by their most activist elements who provide the enthusiasm, resources and voluntarism that helps to elevate those outlandish candidates to the role of party standard-bearers.
To push back, we need mainstream leaders with the credibility and courage to educate Western voters about what’s at stake if we loosen our alliances, leave a global vacuum for China, Russia and other authoritarian powers to fill, and wall ourselves off economically. At the same time, we need such leaders to craft policies that help address the legitimate anxieties that many voters express.
The latest dagger to the heart of the liberal order comes via Britain. Though his Labour Party fell short of victory, Jeremy Corbyn’s rise in Britain’s elections inserts anti-Zionism (and tolerance for anti-Semitism), anti-Westernism, far-left collectivism and mindless pacifism more forcefully into the mainstream of a nation that was once led by the likes of Churchill, Thatcher and Disraeli.
Corbyn is morally challenged and ideologically misguided – all of which helps elevate him in the eyes of middle-class voters who want to lash out at traditional politics, and of young voters who lack the historical perspective to fully understand the benefits and fragility of freedom and democracy.
Asked once whether he could envision any circumstance for deploying British military force, Corbyn replied, “I’m sure there are some but I can’t think of them at the moment.” He can’t because, when it comes to the West, he aligns himself much more closely with its enemies than its defenders.
It will take a good deal of courage, but Islamic leaders can get into the fight against extremism in very practical and proactive ways. Inaction can only make life more difficult for moderate Muslims who have embraced Australian values and just want to get on with their lives.
Finally, the two major political parties have been dragged kicking and screaming into the reality of the Islamic terrorism debate. They have spent several years cowering like abused dogs in an animal shelter, unwilling to either stand up or bark with confidence or conviction.
The slowness to act on the Islamic threat by Western democracies, including our own, has come at a great cost. It has undermined public confidence in key government agencies, our political processes, and eroded our sense of personal security and wellbeing. We have had the chief of ASIO misinforming parliament in an apparent strategy to not offend Muslims for fear they will stop acting as responsible Australians and intelligence information will dry up. The primary duty of government is to protect its citizens from those who would do it harm. Cultivating informers is a secondary goal.
Yet while more of Australia becomes aware of the existential threat that radical Islam presents to our way of life, influential Muslim leaders in the Islamic community still appear to be largely in denial. They need to get some skin in the game and do so quickly. The tolerance of long suffering Australians is wearing very thin.
Increasingly, Australians could be forgiven for thinking that many Muslims living here either condone or are sympathetic to the goals of various Islamic terror groups – though they might object to their brutal methods. It can appear that some within the Muslim community are acting as fifth columnists, building a beachhead in which to influence the future direction of Australian politics, our cultural values, and our legal system. The Islamic Council of Victoria has just withdrawn its support for Corrections Victoria’s de-radicalisation program, instead wanting public money to set up safe spaces for angry young Muslims to vent their rage. There appears to be a determined blindness to the Muslim-terror link by Islamic leaders, even to the extent of tacitly acknowledging that young Muslims really do have bona fide reasons for that rage.
What should we call the vile killers of London, Manchester, Fort Hood, Boston, Nice, and Paris? For years, our leading politicians have danced gingerly around that question, preferring to call them simply “terrorists.” No modifiers.
The murderers among us have no such qualms. The last words 23-year-old Daniel O’Neill heard before a stranger plunged a 7-inch knife into his stomach a week ago was “This is for Islam.” Gerard Vowles saw three men stabbing a woman at the south end of London Bridge while yelling, “This is for Allah!”
The mainstream media, most academics, and fashionable intellectuals are deaf to those taunts. They resolutely ignore what the terrorists say repeatedly: They are killing in the name of Islam, as they interpret it, to achieve a religious goal, however depraved we think it is.
The stabbers, shooters, and bombers are the sharp end of a long spear. They are helped by bomb-makers, strategists, tactical planners, financiers, computer experts, and PR specialists who share the same extreme religious views and seek to impose them on everyone else. They say they want to kill infidels and apostates—and then they do. They say they want to impose their version of Sharia law on everyone, including faithful Muslims who do not share their vision. When they can, they do.
Their goal is a caliphate, a state that eliminates the hard-won Western distinction between the political and religious spheres. Their version of Islam suffuses every aspect of life—economic, social, and political—suffocating all that is secular and private. They say so explicitly, repeatedly, and unequivocally.
None of this is a secret, except in polite conversation among elites. They are the self-anointed language police.
Even after the London Bridge attack, England’s third in three months, Prime Minister Theresa May would only speak of “terrorists.” Her tone was tough, but she still would not name the radicalism that motivated all three attacks. She would say only, “There has been far too much tolerance of extremism across society.”
Meanwhile, Her Majesty’s security services are overwhelmed by 500 active investigations, another 3,000 top-tier subjects of interest, and some 20,000 more one step lower on the priority list. These are not just extremists. They are a particular kind of extremist.
PARIS—After knocking at the gates of power only a month ago, Marine Le Pen saw support for her far-right party crumble in Sunday’s first round of parliamentary elections, dashing its hopes of becoming France’s opposition party and an entrenched menace to the Europe Union.
President Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling party, La République en Marche, trounced mainstream parties across the political spectrum but forced the once-buoyant antiestablishment National Front in particular into a reckoning. Ms. Le Pen on Monday faced a final election result that showed the momentum that carried her in to last month’s second-round presidential vote had perished.
National Front candidates garnered only 13.2% of Sunday’s vote, compared with 13.6% in the last parliamentary election five years ago. Pollster Ipsos Sopra-Steria projected the party would end up with only between one and five seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, compared with between 415 and 455 for Mr. Macron’s party and its centrist ally.
What caused the collapse, pollsters and party officials say, is that the National Front’s primarily young, working-class base decided to sit out the parliamentary races. Around 57% of people who voted for Marine Le Pen in the presidential election stayed home for the parliamentary ballot, Ipsos Sopra-Steria said. The abstention rate among Macron voters was 38%.
The numbers stand in contrast to the National Front’s high expectations going into the 2017 races. In recent years, the party had drawn nearly a third of the vote in local, regional and European Parliament elections. CONTINUE AT SITE
In the eyes of many Arabs and Muslims, Trump is no longer the strong leader they feared a few months ago. Rather, he has proven to them that he too is susceptible to blackmail and intimidation. And when Trump caves, US credibility suffers. Had Trump gone ahead and fulfilled his promise to move the embassy, he would have earned the respect of many Arabs and Muslims, who would have looked to him as a proper leader.
A further point ought to be of extreme interest to the US: When the Palestinians and Arabs talk about the possibility that such a move would “harm” US interests in the region and “trigger violence and bloodshed,” they are actually threatening to launch terror attacks against American nationals and interests. That is why Trump’s recent decision not to move the embassy to Jerusalem is being understood in the Arab world as surrender to terrorism.
Consider what happened when Trump recently ordered a missile attack on Syria. Many Arabs and Muslims took to social media to heap praise on Trump for displaying courage. If and when Trump honors his promises, he will earn even more respect in the Arab and Islamic countries.
US President Donald J. Trump’s waiver delaying the relocation of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem accomplishes two things.
First, it disappoints many Israelis for failing to fulfill his pre-election promise. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it has sent precisely the wrong message to the Palestinians. What the Palestinians and other Arabs heard in this message is that the US president folds under pressure and threats.
This message of weakness and retreat harms not only Trump’s credibility, but also that of the US by making it appear a country that caves under threats of violence.
In general, it is Trump’s presentation of power that garners respect among many Palestinians and Arabs. The Arabs admire and respect such figures because they have been ruled for decades by ruthless tyrants and dictators such as Saddam Hussein. But the Arabs also respect leaders who keep their promises, even if they disagree with and oppose those promises.
Trump’s decision to delay the relocation of the US embassy came after repeated threats by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and some Arabs that such a move would “plunge the entire region into violence and bloodshed.” These threats began during Trump’s election campaign and escalated after he entered the White House.
President Donald Trump’s decision to delay the relocation of the US embassy in Israel (pictured) from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem came after repeated threats by the Palestinian Authority that such a move would “plunge the entire region into violence and bloodshed.” (Image source: Krokodyl/Wikimedia Commons)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts in Ramallah spearheaded the campaign of threats and intimidation. They even went as far as threatening to revoke their recognition of Israel’s right to exist if Trump dared to fulfill his promise.
Last January, Abbas was quoted as saying that the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem would prompt the Palestinians to withdraw their recognition of Israel.
“I wrote a letter to President Trump urging him to refrain from such a move. I made it clear to him that such a move would not only deprive the US of playing any legitimate role in solving the conflict, but would also destroy the two-state solution.”
Abbas’s mufti, Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, warned Trump that transferring the embassy to Jerusalem would be seen as an “aggression not only against the Palestinians, but against all Arabs and Muslims as well.” PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat joined the chorus of threats by warning Trump that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would “plunge the Middle East into violence and chaos.”
The Palestinian threats were accompanied by threats from some Arab governments and Islamic clerics. They too warned Trump that the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem would trigger a wave of violence and jeopardize US interests in the Middle East. The former mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Jum’ah, said that moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would “constitute a grave escalation and threaten US interests in the region.” Another leading Egyptian Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ibahim Reda, warned that such a move would “trigger a wave of tensions in the region and constitute an aggression against Arabs and Muslims.”
Such threats on the part of Palestinians are nothing new. In fact, Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues issue similar “warnings” whenever they do not get what they want. This is one of their favored tactics against Israel.
For example, the Palestinians used to warn that Israel’s construction of the security barrier in the West Bank would result in violence and anarchy. In reality, however, the security barrier has led to exactly opposite; it has halted suicide bombings against Israel, and saved the lives not only of Jews, but also Arabs who were killed in the wave of terrorism waged by the Palestinians during the Second Intifada.
“Palestinians warn” is one of the most popular results on Google Search.
More recently, for example, the Palestinians “warned” Israel against introducing a new curriculum for Arab schools in Jerusalem by claiming this would lead to the “Judaization” and “Israelization” of Jerusalem.
Last month, the Palestinians came out with another “warning” — this time, that if Israel does not comply with the demands of Palestinian prisoners who went on hunger strike, there would be a “new intifada.”
After 40 days of the hunger strike, the prisoners backtracked and ended their fast — although most of their demands were not met by Israel.
All this is added to the daily threats Abbas and many Palestinians have been making for the past two years regarding visits by Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Hardly a day passes without another threat being issued by the Palestinians about these visits.
The Palestinians work hard to convince the world that routine and peaceful tours of Jewish groups and individuals to the Temple Mount are part of an Israeli “conspiracy” to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and “defile” Islamic religious sites. They have also been warning that the visits would trigger a “religious war” between Jews and Muslims and lead to a “big explosion” and an “earthquake” in the Middle East.
True, the Palestinian incitement over the Temple Mount visits has resulted in a wave of knife and car ramming attacks against Israelis, but no “religious war” has erupted and the Arab and Islamic countries do not seem overly concerned about Jewish visits to the Temple Mount.
These visits, by the way, have been taking place since 1967. The visits were suspended temporarily during the Second Intifada for security reasons, and were resumed about two years ago. It is also worth noting that Christian tourists also continue to tour the holy site — something that does not seem to bother Abbas and his PA friends.
Israel, for its part, has learned to live with the incessant Palestinian threats and warnings. But the international community continues to take these threats seriously, ignoring the fact that by doing so they are constantly sending the wrong message to the Palestinians. Surrendering to threats of violence only emboldens the extremists and paves the way for more violence and bloodshed.
How moving the US embassy to Jerusalem “destroys” the so-called two-state solution is rather a mystery.
If and when the US embassy is moved from Tel Aviv, it will be set up in the western part of the city and not in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians are demanding as their future capital. Only one thing can be inferred from this — that the Palestinians also see the western part of Jerusalem too as part of their future capital.
The Palestinian and Arab threats of violence and chaos in the region sound laughable given the current state of affairs in many Arab countries, including Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya, where Muslims have been slaughtering each other — and Christians — for the past six years.
The turmoil in the Arab world — including the recent tensions surrounding Qatar — is completely unrelated to US policies in particular, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general. Despite the myopia of Arab leaders and Islamic clerics, blood is already spilled at a rather alarming rate in the Arab countries.
The killings in Syria, Iraq and Libya will continue, regardless of whether Trump moves the US embassy to Jerusalem or not.
A further point ought to be of extreme interest to the US: When the Palestinians and Arabs talk about the possibility that such a move would “harm” US interests in the region and “trigger violence and bloodshed,” they are actually threatening to launch terror attacks against American nationals and interests.
That is why Trump’s recent decision not to move the embassy to Jerusalem is being understood in the Arab world as a surrender to terrorism.
From the Arab world’s point of view, it shows the US as cowing under the threat of violence.
Does anyone seriously believe that the leaders of the Arab and Islamic countries really care whether the embassy is located in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? Don’t these leaders have enough to worry about, such as the Iranian threat to undermine the stability of their regimes and the threat of Islamic terrorism?
As soon as the statue of “Lady Justice,” blindfolded and holding a scale, was erected in the Bangladeshi capital, fundamentalist groups began to protest, on the grounds that the piece of art was “un-Islamic” and constituted idol-worship.
Since 2013, dozens of people have been slaughtered, many with machetes. Although ISIS claimed responsibility for many of the brutal killings, no formal investigation into the murders was ever launched.
Instead, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the opportunity to arrest more than 11,000 people, only 145 of whom were Islamist terrorists. The rest were charged with crimes such as theft and drug-dealing, indicating that it might have been part of Hasina’s crackdown on critics since her election in 2008.
The arrest on May 26 of 140 secular activists in Bangladesh is the latest in a string of incidents indicating a disturbing shift towards Islamic fundamentalism in the East Asian parliamentary democracy.
The activists were rounded up by police during a demonstration against the government’s removal of a statue outside the Supreme Court building in the capital city, Dhaka. They were charged not only with holding an illegal gathering and obstructing justice, but with the attempted murder of the law enforcement agents dispatched to quell the protest.
The statue was a depiction of “Lady Justice” — the Greek goddess Themis (and Roman Justitia), blindfolded and holding a scale — this one wearing a sari. As soon as the iconic, universal symbol of jurisprudence was erected last December in the Bangladeshi capital, fundamentalist groups began to protest, on the grounds that the piece of art was “un-Islamic” and constituted idol-worship.
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh, in Dhaka. (Image source: F2416/Wikimedia Commons)
Although secularism is enshrined in the constitution of Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been accused — with good reason — of accommodating Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamist lobby group comprised of madrassah educators and students, which has called for the enacting of blasphemy laws. The group’s leader, Allama Shafi, is infamous for demanding the death penalty for atheists and anyone defaming Islam. He is also known for referring to women in derogatory terms, while urging parents not to educate their daughters past the fourth or fifth grade.
In a meeting in early April with Shafi and other Islamic scholars and imams, Prime Minister Hasina not only succumbed to the demand that Lady Justice be taken down, but said that she herself had been unhappy about its placement outside the Supreme Court. Within a few weeks, the statue was being taken down — in the middle of the night.
The ensuing protest in the streets and on social media by Bangladeshis bent on maintaining their country’s separation between mosque and state turned out to be effective, however, in spite of the mass detention of demonstrators. On Sunday evening, the statue was returned, albeit a few hundred yards from its original location, in a place less visible to the public.
Shafi’s response was both swift and sharp. “Do not play with our religious beliefs, national spirit and heritage,” he said, aiming his anger at the government. “Do not push the country towards the curse of Allah through such anti-Islamic activities.”
A thorough examination of the track record of the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Fatah (all three headed by Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas is a prerequisite for a realistic assessment of the nature of the proposed Palestinian state and its potential impact upon vital US interests in the Middle East.
North Korea has scrutinized these terror organizations since their inception, in 1959 (Fatah), and has identified the significant, long-term, geo-political synergies between them and Pyongyang. Hence, the systematic and elaborate geo-strategic cooperation, since 1966, between one of the most repressive, terroristic and anti-US regimes in the world and the Palestinian terror organizations, which have been systematically anti-American, role-models of international and intra-Arab terrorism, subversion and treachery. Similarly to North Korea, they forged alliances with the USSR and the ruthless East European communist regimes, collaborated with Iran’s Ayatollahs, fomenting egregious systems of hate-education, incitement and repression.
Furthermore, Pyongyang is aware of the Palestinian trail of anti-Jewish and (mostly) intra-Arab terrorism during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, their collaboration with the Nazis, and their 1951 murder of Jordan’s King Abdullah, while the monarch prayed in Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque. The ruthless totalitarian Kim Jong-un sympathizes with the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas’ twelfth year of (what was to be) his first four-year-term, refusing to hold an election.
North Korea considers its ties with the Palestinians compatible with its paramount strategic goal: the erosion of the US power projection in the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East and throughout the globe. Therefore, Pyongyang has attempted to destabilize pro-US regimes, while forging cooperation with regimes, which are rivals of – or hostile to – the US and its allies, such as Israel.
North Korea has supported terror organizations – which have targeted the US and its allies – providing them with training, military supplies, communications technologies, and expertise on the construction of tunnels and fortifications.
That did not take long….Alan Dershowitz who has been clear on anti-Semitism, the Comey duplicity, and the UN returns to the tired and discredited and ahistorical drivel of the 2 State (dis)solution of Israel. There are two states for two people! One is Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, and the other is Jordan from the River to 92% of Palestine…rsk
Over the years, and to the current day, they continue to want no state for the Jewish people more than they want a state for Palestinian Arabs.
The general idea of a two-state solution – which Abbas has nominally supported – does not specify that one state would be for the Jewish people and the other one for the Arabs.
When the Palestinian leadership and people want their own state more than they want there not to be a state for the Jewish people, the goal of the 1947 U.N. Resolution – two states for two peoples – will be achieved. A good beginning would be for Abbas finally to agree with the U.N. Resolution and say the following words: “I accept the 1947 U.N. Resolution that calls for two states for two peoples.” It’s not too much to ask from a leader seeking to establish a Palestinian Muslim state.
There is a widespread but false belief that Mahmoud Abbas is finally prepared to accept the two-state solution proposed by the U.N. in November 1947 when it divided mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for the Jewish People; the other for the Arab People. The Jews of Palestine accepted the compromise division and declared a nation state for the Jewish people to be called by its historic name: Israel. The Arabs of Palestine, on the other hand, rejected the division and declared that they would never accept a state for the Jewish people and statehood for the Palestinian people. They wanted for there not to be a state for the Jewish people more than for there to be a state for their own people. Accordingly, they joined the surrounding Arab armies in trying to destroy Israel and drive its Jewish residents into the sea. They failed back then, but over the years, and to the current day, they continue to want no state for the Jewish people more than they want a state for Palestinian Arabs. That is why Abbas refuses to say that he would ever accept the U.N. principle of two states for two peoples. I know, because I have personally asked him on several occasions.
In a few months, Israel will be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the historic U.N. compromise, but the leaders of the Palestinian Authority still refuse to accept the principle of that resolution: two states for two peoples.
President Trump, for his part, has expressed an eagerness to make “the ultimate deal” between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has propelled discussions about the dormant peace-process back into the spotlight. Shortly before travelling to the Middle East – where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel and President Abbas in Bethlehem – Trump invited the Palestinian leader to the White House. Abbas was last at the White House in March 2014 shortly before the Obama administration’s shuttle diplomacy efforts –led by Secretary of State John Kerry – fell apart.
There’s Free Cheese in Every Mousetrap
Theresa May is tarred with having been the cause of the Conservative’s near-disastrous election result. Having been voted to lead her party less than a year ago, following a Brexit vote she opposed, everyone now seem to be blaming the debacle on her lack of judgement, wooden personality and absence of charisma.
Some blame her for going to the polls unnecessarily early. Yet it was not so long ago that this seemed a stroke of Machiavellian genius: she faced a Labour Party in open revolt against a leader whose crypto-communism and consorting with terrorists would surely doom his party to a crushing defeat and a decade in the wilderness. The early campaign seemed to confirm these prognostications. Labour fought on a platform that few in the mainstream media could support. The platform was a children’s wish list which included.
Lots of free stuff like electricity price caps, child care and higher education and no extra taxation except on that noxious 5 per cent super rich.
Interest free loans for homeowner property improvements
60 per cent zero carbon/ renewables by 2030 and a ban of fracking for gas.
Higher wages for teachers and child care workers
Nationalisation of water and energy networks; and
A £250 billion infrastructure fund.
During the campaign several of Jeremy Corbyn’s key personnel demonstrated a total lack of awareness of the policy – the hapless shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, was a vacuum of policy ignorance and a treasure trove of asinine quotes (“You can’t defend the indefensible – anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical”). Yet there was a huge swing to Labour and Ms Abbott increased her own majority by 11,000.
Theresa May is criticised for trying to slip in a few policies under which people would need to pay more of their own way (including for respite care). Those reproaching her for this may be correct, but only because they are part of the school which sees as inevitable a limitless ratcheting up of communal versus individual payments.
However, Mrs May also played the tooth fairy, with more spending on education, raising the lower thresholds for income tax, and a cap on energy prices (ironically, the Democratic Unionist Party was alone in not seeing the electricity supply industry as an overflowing tank of revenues with which to buy votes). The Conservatives had some vague notions of a balanced budget some time in the next decade; and they also had tougher immigration policies (they always do — and they always fail to implement them).
So, what does voters’ refusal to endorse Theresa May and their increased support for Labour (and in Northern Ireland the terrorist Sinn Féin party) tell us?
It would be encouraging to fall back on blaming the Conservatives’ poor campaigning and vigorous campaigning by Mr Corbyn. But the more plausible answer is that people voted for those who would provide them more of what they want. One part of this is the amplified government spending and regulatory gifting which has increasingly undermined fiscal policy over the past century. People’s wants, as economists often proclaim, are insatiable, and those wants being met without having to earn them are especially valuable. The mob will flock to politicians who give them things and it will care little about how these gifts came to be afforded – after all, the popular media is full of stories featuring rich people with fancy lifestyles, and there is an assumption that such affluence can be harvested for the gift-receivers without that reaping affecting the size of the magic pudding. In past centuries, revolts of taxpayers against the government acted as a check on its size, but the balance of power has now shifted to the recipients of taxpayers’ wealth.
Another part of the answer may be Mr Corbyn’s softer approach to terror and immigration. From afar this is difficult to comprehend, especially as the London bombings came part way through the campaign. But for many, appeasement is the preferred approach to combatting terror. Like LGBTQIwerty folk for Islam and the US counter-demonstrators who, only this weekend, outnumbered demonstrators against Sharia Law, many feel that if we are less aggressive against Islamic preferences and more understanding of the bombers’ perspective we will see an abatement of the harm they inflict. Supporting this are commentators blaming militant Islamic terror on the West for fighting what are depicted as proxy wars against Islam in Libya, Iraq and Israel. Appeasement is the first step toward capitulation, as painted in the France of Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission.
