RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/arresting-tommy-again/

In the last few years, my friend Douglas Murray has become internationally famous – as much so, anyway, as a serious writer of non-fiction can be. His splendid books The Strange Death of Europe (2017), The Madness of Crowds (2019), and The War on the West (2021) were deserved bestsellers. And since October 7, Murray – born in 1979, a graduate of Eton and of Magdalen College, Oxford – has been rightly hailed around the world for his heroic reportage from Israel during the current war on Hamas. When he hasn’t been in Israel, he’s been traveling all over much of the Western world, giving endless talks and interviews and participating in debates, in which he inevitably triumphs. His writings, his speeches, and his comments have been focused largely on Islam, a topic on which, unlike many other commentators, he admirably refuses to euphemize. Because he recognizes that the brutal Hamas attack on Israel, and the immigrant crisis currently facing Europe, are based in the founding tenets of Islam – period – he refuses to use such phony terms as “Islamism” or “radical Islam” or “Muslim extremism.” It has been heartening to see him applauded by huge audiences – and winning important awards – on both sides of the Atlantic.

Meanwhile the careers of two other Englishmen have been advancing as well. Nigel Farage is also a British hero. For twenty years, the sixty-year-old former businessman led the ultimately successful movement to separate the United Kingdom from the European Union. His principal argument for separation was that the U.K. needed to take back its right to control immigration into its territory. Yet he consistently avoided the reason why it was important to restrict the massive influx of foreigners into Britain. The problem wasn’t with the Hindus or Buddhists or black Caribbeans or sub-Saharan Africans who’d moved to the U.K. These groups did a terrific job of integrating into British society and tended to earn more money than most native Englishmen. No, the problem was Islam. Douglas Murray has no trouble saying so. Nigel Farage, while projecting an image of utter fearlessness, always dodged the issue. In recent times he seems to have begun to tiptoe into these dangerous waters, but he’s still a long way from spelling things out as clearly as Douglas Murray does.

He’s hardly alone. Pretty much the entire British political establishment refuses to breathe a critical word about Islam. And even though the main reason for Brexit was that Brits wanted to retake control of their borders, both main parties, Labour and the Tories, have done little to prevent the large-scale influx of immigrants, mostly illegal, mostly adult men, and mostly Muslim. The Westminster establishment’s attitude toward this issue is perfectly in line with the views of privileged North London – Britain’s equivalent of Northwest Washington, the Upper West Side of New York, and the tonier parts of San Francisco and L.A. – but it’s totally at odds with the wishes of the British (or at least the English) public at large. On July 4, Britain will hold a general election in which the now-reigning Tories, who rode to victory on big promises of tighter border security, are expected to go down to ignominious – and well-deserved – defeat. Labour is expected to do well, although it hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory either. Then there’s the third major party, the Liberal Democrats. But the wild card is Farage’s party, Reform UK, founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, whose strident calls for immigration reform and tax cuts have gained it a significant following. How significant? We’ll see on July 4.

Douglas Murray. Nigel Farage. And then there’s a third name. Tommy Robinson.