RUTHFULLY YOURS

The most striking thing about that speech — the one given by Hilary Benn in the Commons Syria debate on December 2 — was not that it gave dozens of Labour MPs the courage to rebel against the party line laid down by Jeremy Corbyn, nor that it catapulted this hitherto most shadowy of shadow Foreign Secretaries into the role of Labour leader-in-waiting. It was not even the reminder that great oratory still matters in politics — especially when it comes from an unexpected quarter, the orator in this case having been accustomed all his life to belittling comparisons with his father, Tony Benn. No, it was the revelation that words with a strong moral charge (“fascist” and “evil”), when applied to Islamic State, still have the power to shock, just as the appeal to a sense of duty (“time for us to do our bit”) can still inspire.

In his peroration, which was specifically addressed to his own party, seated behind him, Mr Benn used the f-word twice: “And we are here faced by fascists. Not just their calculated brutality, but their belief that they are superior to every single one of us in this chamber tonight, and all of the people that we represent. They hold us in contempt. They hold our values in contempt. They hold our belief in tolerance and decency in contempt. They hold our democracy, the means by which we will make our decision tonight, in contempt. And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated.” He then reminded his colleagues of their forebears’ resistance to Franco, Mussolini and Hitler. (Never mind that from 1931 to 1935 Labour was led by the pacifist George Lansbury and the party voted against conscription as late as April 1939, four months before war broke out.) Mr Benn ended with a straightforward moral choice, cast in a very British idiom: “And my view, Mr Speaker, is that we must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria.”

Churchill himself could not have put it better. It was refreshing to see and hear the electric effect that such old-fashioned language can still have. If we are to defeat the enemies of Western civilisation, we have to find the right words and ideas. When George W. Bush used the terms “Islamofascism” and “Islamic fascists” in 2006, he provoked protests from American Muslim organisations. No Western politician has used them since. But the ideology of jihadist organisations such as Islamic State has a great deal in common with fascism — not least its implacable hostility to the West. Historians have even found direct historical connections between the Nazis and the rise of Islamism. And so when Hilary Benn called the IS butchers “fascists” and their ideology “evil”, he struck a chord.

Among many other things 2015 may well be remembered as the year that “social justice warriors” suffered over-reach. The year saw some truly remarkable breakdowns in their movement.

For instance, who will forget Rachel Dolezal? She was the regional head of a national black people’s organisation in America who, not content with campaigning for black rights (a perfectly good thing to do), pretended to be black (not a good thing to do). She managed this by the careful application of bronzer, a somewhat stereotypical frizzing of her hair and the advantage of living in a society too terrified to say, “But aren’t you white?”

Dolezal was “outed” as white when her parents appeared on television to show that they are not only Caucasians but Caucasians of German-Czech descent. After some months of denial their daughter finally admitted she was indeed born to them, though she still regards herself as black. Not least among the case’s fascination were the divides it caused, and not only among those who fell on the floor laughing when they heard about it versus those who managed to remain in their seat. A divide also occurred among black activists: “Do we celebrate any sister who argues for our cause, or in the 21st century should we disapprove of people blacking up?” was the nub. Most interesting was the response of one black commentator on MSNBC, Michael Eric Dyson, who stood up for Dolezal, saying, “She’s taking on the ideas, the identities, the struggles. She’s identified with them. I bet a lot more black people would support Rachel Dolezal than would support, say, Clarence Thomas.” All of which suggested that the civil rights movement some time ago morphed into a left-wing politics movement where a white girl who is left-wing is more “black” than a black man who is a conservative Supreme Court Justice.

Germany is basking in a warm glow of self-congratulation, after Chancellor Merkel’s decision to accept up to 500,000 Syrian and other refugees per annum for the next few years. As we go to press, Berlin had abruptly closed its borders, in effect suspending the Schengen agreement, to restore order. Assuming her policy endures, at least two million migrants will make their homes in Germany, adding to the five million German Muslims mainly of Turkish heritage. Thus Muslims, as a proportion of the German population, will have doubled in a decade to some 10 per cent. In England, the proportion of Muslims now exceeds 5 per cent, having likewise doubled in a decade. France is already around the 10 per cent mark. The ultimate demographic impact on Europe of the present wave of migration is totally unpredictable, but the newcomers are on average much younger than the host population.

Over the next generation, Muslims in Europe are certain to multiply rapidly, due not only to migration but to higher birthrates. It is true that Muslim fertility is gradually falling in Western countries, but it has so far remained consistently well above that of non-Muslims. Another factor of growing importance is conversion. A Pew report estimates that Muslims will number “more than 10 per cent” of Europe’s population by 2050, but in France, Germany and England the figure is bound to be much higher. The Islamisation of Europe is no longer a far-Right fantasy, but a real possibility. As the migration crisis unfolds, it becomes more likely by the day.