Return of the Progressive Conservatives

On CTV's Question Period yesterday ousted Nova Scotia Conservative MP Bill Casey called himself an Independent "Progressive" Conservative, "emphasis on the progressive", he said.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams also declares himself a "Progressive" Conservative in opposition to the Harpocrites and is carrying out a Anybody But Conservative federal election campaign.

Add to that this weekends rejection of the Conservative Governments equalization bait and switch by the "Progressive" Conservative Premier of Nova Scotia and we see the beginnings of a new movement to recognize the political reality of truly "Progressive" Conservatives.

The party that former Nova Scotia PC leader Peter Mackay opportunistically scuttled, after agreeing in writing not to, in order to try to be leader of the political Frankenstein known as the Reform/Alliance/PC/Conservatives.

Bill Casey is breathing a sigh of relief after Premier Rodney MacDonald called on Nova Scotia members of Parliament yesterday to vote against the federal budget.

"Premier MacDonald called me today and told me," the Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley MP said in a phone interview from his Amherst home yesterday.

"I was just really surprised," he said.

Casey won support from many Nova Scotians last week after voting against the federal budget.

He was immediately tossed out of the party after the vote.

Casey now considers himself an Independent Progressive Conservative.

Also glad is Progressive Conservative Association of Nova Scotia president Scott Armstrong.

"It makes things very easy for people in northern Nova Scotia if the premier and our MP Bill Casey are singing from the same song sheet," Armstrong said.

"Bill Casey's really done Nova Scotia a favour."

With the Liberals abandoning Nova Central, MacKays riding, to Elizabeth May and the Greens, her brand of "Progressive" conservatism will likely appeal to Conservative voters disgusted with the Harpocrites and Howdy Doody MacKay.

In Nova Scotia, satisfaction with Ottawa declined from 50 per cent in February to 37 per cent in May, while dissatisfaction rose from 41 per cent to 56 per cent.

A Red tide could sweep the Maritimes next federal election, not just Liberals but Red Tories; the "Progressive" conservatives, Casey, May etc.

Nova Scotians have long memories – and the Conservative government knows it. There are people down here who are still bitter over the fact that Stanfield, the late Progressive Conservative leader, never became prime minister. To this day Stanfield is commonly referred to in these parts as "the best prime minister Canada never had."

The Tories' expulsion of Casey, who was first elected in 1988, has upset Nova Scotians.

People say they elected him to represent their interests, not play the part of a trained seal in Ottawa.

In Truro and elsewhere in the riding, Casey is being cast as the quiet-spoken constituency man who stood up to the bullies in Ottawa.

"It seems to have struck a nerve because I'm getting emails from all over Canada. ... I am truly overwhelmed because all I am doing is asking the government of Canada to honour a signed agreement," Casey told the Star yesterday.

Meanwhile, angry callers to talk radio shows want to know why fellow Nova Scotia Tory MPs Peter MacKay, who is foreign affairs minister, and Gerald Keddy (South Shore-St. Margaret's) didn't have the guts to stick up for their home province.

See:

Tory Cuts For All

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Red Tories Are Progressives

Conservatives New Nanny State

No Room for Red Tories

Canada's New Progressive Right

Elizabeth May and Red Tories

Liberals The New PC's

PC=Liberals

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Socialist Alberta

As I posted here earlier one wag complaining about the idea of increasing oil royalties in Alberta, called the province socialist. Another referred to us as becoming like Venezuela, which is far more democratic, and one clever fellow called us Albertastan.

How right they were. But not for the reasons they think. In a series of articles this week in the Edmonton Journal they exposed the number of card carrying PC appartachiks who dominate government appointments to public boards.

This of course is a well known fact of the nudge, nudge, wink, wink variety.

The Conservatives have drawn criticism in the past over blatant patronage appointments, but The Journal probe, which analyzed the composition of 100 government agencies, boards and commissions, reveals just how far the party's influence reaches into the everyday lives of Albertans.

It shows that the province's most influential boards are loaded with Tories -- constituency executives, former candidates or key members of the party's powerful provincial executive.

Keith Brownsey, who teaches political science at Calgary's Mount Royal College, is not impressed.

"The party has become the province, and it's a real slap in the face of democracy. It demonstrates that if people want to be appointed to these boards they have to become a card-carrying Conservative," he says

The party has become the state and the state is the province. Hmm, I have heard that before, oh yeah Trotsky said something like that when he was a Menshivik criticizing the Bolsheviks. The party substitutes itself for the people and the leader substitutes himself for the party.

The most prescient critique of Lenin's style and methods was contained in Trotsky's 1904 pamphlet, "Our Political Tasks":

"Lenin's methods lead to this: the party organisation at first substitutes itself for the party as a whole; then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the organisation; and finally a single 'dictator' substitutes himself for the Central Committee."

Which is what of course happened in Alberta with the cult of the great leader. As I have said before the difference between Stalin and Klein was the mustache metaphorically speaking.

His current stand in Farmer Ed is attempting to pull a Gorbachev by claiming to create a more open state, perestroika Alberta style. Of course its all for show.

Of course Alberta isn't a police state, the state doesn't spy on its citizens who democratically protest its policies for being in bed with big oil interests.Nope that would never happen here.

And once having allowed democratic elections for health boards the state would not overturn those elections because the folks elected weren't Tories. Nope and they wouldn't then fire those elected officials to replace them with party hacks.

And of course unlike other one party states Alberta would never come up with a five year plan, even if it knew it was a failure. Nope no comparison with that and the provinces insistence on P3's.

And the party hacks and political commissars would never engage in historical revisionism claiming that the conservative party and its ideology was the natural ruling ideology of all the people in the province, anyone else who thinks or votes differently of course is not a real Albertan.

Nope none of those nasty aspects of the one party state happen here. Because of course this is a conservative one party state. Wait a minute there have been plenty of them too. Of course the right wing always calls them socialist too.

Here is a list of the the party apparatchiks in government. The Tories are the Government, and the government is the Party. Just like back in the good old USSR.

SOME PROMINENT TORIES WITH MULTIPLE APPOINTMENTS

- Audrey Luft, organizer of 2007 Alberta PC annual convention: Alberta Foundation for the Arts (chair), NAIT, Alberta Economic Development Authority

- Doug Goss, Edmonton co-chair of Tories' next election campaign: Capital Health, Alberta Economic Development Authority

- Wayne Jacques, former Conservative MLA: Peace Country Health Region, Transportation Safety Board, Law Enforcement Review Board

- Alf Savage, former PC president: Auto Insurance Rate Board (chair), Municipal Government Board

- Wendy Kinsella, losing Edmonton PC candidate in 2001: NorQuest College (chair), Capital Health (vice-chair)

- Marvin Moore, former PC campaign manager and cabinet minister: Peace Country Health (chair), Agriculture Marketing Products Council Appeal Tribunal

- Dale Johnson, president of Whitecourt-Ste. Anne PC association: Aspen Health, Credit Counselling Services of Alberta

- Robert Seidel, lawyer to former treasurer Stockwell Day: Grant MacEwan College, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research

- Skip McDonald, former president of Klein's PC constituency association: Calgary Health, ATB Financial

Some appointments provide an honorarium while others pay expenses. For health authorities, it's between $134 and $350 per day for members, based on hours worked, and up to $492 daily for chairs. On the Peace Country Health board, Moore earned $42,000 in 2005-06, while most others members earned around $15,000, including additional allowances and benefits. At Capital Health, chair Neil Wilkinson -- an admitted fan of former premier Ralph Klein, under whom he was first selected -- earned $79,000 for 2005-06, the last year for which figures are available.

SOURCE: Alberta Government

- - -

A TORY TOP 40

The Journal has examined 100 Alberta agencies, boards and commissions and compared the names of the people appointed to serve on the boards to a recent membership list of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Association.

Here are the top 40 boards with the highest percentages of card-carrying Conservatives serving on them.

Health boards and regions

- Peace Country Health Region:

13 Tories / 13-member board

- East Central Health:

9 Tories / 12-member board

- Capital Health:

8 Tories / 14-member board

- Calgary Health:

7 Tories / 13-member board

- Aspen Health Region:

11 Tories / 14-member board

- David Thompson Health:

11 Tories / 15-member board

- Chinook Health:

7 Tories / 12-member board

- Northern Lights Health:

7 Tories / 12-member board

- Palliser Health Region:

7 Tories / 13-member board

- Alberta Cancer Board:

5 Tories / 10-member board

- Health Quality Council:

4 Tories / 8-member board

- Public Health Appeal Board:

2 Tories / 4-member board

- Health Facilities Review Board:

8 Tories / 12-member board

Post-secondary Institutions

- Northern Alberta Institute of Technology:

8 Tories / 12-member board

- Portage College:

5 Tories / 7-member board

- Lethbridge College:

4 Tories / 7-member board

- Athabasca University:

6 Tories / 11-member board

- Red Deer College:

3 Tories / 6-member board

- Mount Royal College:

5 Tories / 10-member board

financial

- ATB Financial:

9 Tories / 13-member board

- Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corp.:

4 Tories / 8-member board

addictions and disabilities

- Premier's Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities:

5 Tories / 8-member board

- Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission:

7 Tories / 10-member board

- Crystal Meth Task Force:

7 Tories / 12-member board

- Northwest Alberta Persons with Developmental Disabilities:

6 Tories / 7-member board

Agriculture

- Alberta Grain Commission:

8 Tories / 11-member board

- Agriculture Products Marketing Council:

7 Tories / 11-member board

- Alberta Agriculture Research Institute:

4 Tories / 7-member board

Other

- Seniors Advisory Council:

8 Tories / 10-member board

- Northern Alberta Development Council:

9 Tories / 10-member board

- Worker's Compensation Board:

3 Tories / 4-member board

- Alberta Foundation of the Arts:

6 Tories / 10-member board

- Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission:

6 Tories / 7-member board

- Alberta Economic Development Authority:

29 Tories / 60-member board

- Alberta Order of Excellence Council:

6 Tories / 6-member board

- Social Care Facilities Review Commission:

7 Tories / 11-member board

- Alberta Science and Research Authority:

9 Tories / 19-member board

- Northeast PDD Board:

5 Tories / 7-member board

- Alberta Fatality Review Board:

3 Tories / 3-member board

- Rural Alberta's Development Fund:

6 Tories / 12-member board

For more on who runs Alberta

SEE:

Alberta Business Back PC Candidates

Vencap

Alberta State Capitalism

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UK
Rishi Sunak facing red wall wipeout at general election, shock poll shows

Archie Mitchell
Tue, 22 August 2023

Rishi Sunak faces losing all 42 red wall seats won by his predecessor Boris Johnson, polling seen by The Independent shows (Getty/AP)

The Tories are facing electoral oblivion in the red wall as a shock poll reveals they will lose every single seat.

Polling from Electoral Calculus, shared with The Independent, reveals all 42 red wall seats held by the Conservatives are set to return to Labour at the next general election.

The scale of the rebellion against the government appears to in part be driven by the spiralling cost of living, with a separate analysis seen by The Independent showing the crisis is having a devastating impact on Tory-held seats in the red wall.

The data, compiled by analytics firm Outra, show 15 Conservative-held red wall seats, which were won at the last election but have historically supported the Labour Party, are among the 50 constituencies with the highest number of financially distressed voters in the country.

Such as Great Grimsby, Blackpool South and Walsall North are among those with the highest portion of voters deemed financially vulnerable.

In total, 15 of the top 50 seats in which voters are at risk of falling behind on their bills were won by the Conservatives in 2019.

It follows research by investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown that shows the northeast has been hit hard by the cost of living crisis – with the joint lowest level of savings in the country, and just a third of households reporting they have enough cash left at the end of the month.

The figures will set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street, with experts warning that voters facing financial distress will make their voices heard in the ballot box.

Pollster and political analyst Robert Hayward pointed to a defining phrase from Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run to unseat George HW Bush as US president: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

He told The Independent that the economy is “always the most important issue” on polling day across all age groups, social groups and genders.

Lord Hayward said it was especially important for the Conservatives, having historically been considered better managers of the economy than Labour.

“The government has to restore that credibility,” he warned.

Pollsters predict a landslide Labour victory at the next election,

 with the Tories losing all of their red wall seats (PA)

Lord Hayward added that Mr Sunak’s party may be doing so “slowly”, with inflation finally falling, but without further progress before an expected general election in October 2024, the Conservatives will lose.

Almost two-thirds of voters believe the economy to be one of the top three issues facing the country, putting it significantly ahead of health and immigration, YouGov polling shows.

The risk of a red wall wipeout will also raise fears in Conservative HQ, with Lord Hayward warning it will leave Mr Sunak facing “serious difficulty” securing an overall majority.

Addressing the collapse in support facing Tories in the red wall, Lord Hayward said that while the party has achieved majorities without the voting bloc in the past, “it delivered the size of that majority last time around”.

He added that the failure to win those seats next year “would leave the Conservatives in serious difficulty trying to find an overall majority”.

Electoral Calculus chief executive Martin Baxter pointed to former PM Mr Johnson’s acknowledgement that red wall voters had “lent him” their support in 2019.

“And it looks like they are taking it back,” he said. “The Conservative tide went up that beach in 2019, and it looks like the tide is going out again.”

The pollster is forecasting that the Tories will lose all 42 of their red wall seats.

And Mr Baxter said that while the economic figures “underline” the struggle in voters in those areas for the Conservatives, the prospect of the party holding on to power in the general election is already “not likely”.

Nationally, Electoral Calculus predicts a landslide Labour victory, winning around 460 seats, with the Conservatives reduced to just 90 seats.

Many red wall seats were turned blue in 2019 as voters repulsed by the Labour leader at the time, Jeremy Corbyn, backed Boris Johnson to “Get Brexit Done” and “level up” neglected towns and cities.

But Outra’s figures show that in many of those seats, voters are now feeling the pinch of the cost of living squeeze.

In Great Grimsby, which Mr Johnson loyalist Lia Nici won from Labour’s Melanie Onn in 2019, more than a quarter of constituents are at risk of financial distress.

Ms Onn, who is Labour’s candidate hoping to win back Great Grimsby next year, told The Independent the figures “laid bare the reality of life under the Conservatives”.

“Areas like ours that placed trust in the Tories have been hit the hardest,” she added.

Ms Onn said: “Their economic mismanagement has caused incomes to nosedive, revealing a disregard for ordinary working people.”

In Blackpool South, held by suspended Tory MP Scott Benton, just under a quarter risk not being able to meet payments. And in Walsall North, represented by Eddie Hughes, 23.1 per cent of voters are at risk of financial distress.

Other Tory MPs believed to be vulnerable to losing their seats include Jonathan Gullis, Johnny Mercer and Jack Brereton.

Canada's New Progressive Right

With this announcement it is clear that Liberals have taken Gerry Nicoll's advise and moved to the progressive right. May and Dion the new Red Green Tories. A match made in Antigonish.


Globe and MailGreen leader to get free ride from Liberals
Globe and Mail, Canada - 2 hours ago
At the time of Ms. May's announcement it was rumoured that she already had a deal with the Liberals -- the party wouldn't run a candidate against her and ...
Liberals staying out of May vs. MacKay ChronicleHerald.ca
Liberals agree not to run candidate against Green leader CBC Nova Scotia
Green leader gets helping hand from the LiberalsThe Daily News


See:

Elizabeth May and Red Tories

May Day For MacKay

Shameless

Corporatism

Elizabeth May Catholic Grrl

PC=Liberals

No Room for Red Tories

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Happy Canada Day/Jour heureux du Canada

Green Party

Elizabeth May

Peter MacKay

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Red Tories Are Progressives

Should Progressives embrace Red Tories, I would say yes and this is why;

The party adopted the "Progressive Conservative" party name in 1942 when Manitoba Premier John Bracken, a long-time leader of that province's Progressive Party, agreed to become leader of the Conservatives on condition that the party add Progressive to its name. Despite the name change, most former Progressive supporters continued to support the Liberal Party or the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and Bracken's leadership of the Conservative Party came to an end in 1948.

And because of this,

Joe Clark going log fishing in Ghana lake

VANCOUVER - Former prime minister Joe Clark is leading a company that has secured the rights to log vast quantities of lucrative African hardwoods from beneath the world's largest manmade lake. In a project that could save lives and inject some cash into an impoverished region, Clark and several partners have leveraged high-level political connections to open Ghana's waters to a project they see as an exemplar of socially responsible development.

Through Clark Sustainable Resource Developments Ltd., he and B.C. businessman Wayne Dunn are hoping to harvest thousands of hectares of tropical lumber submerged by the Lake Volta hydro reservoir.

Moreover, the trees, some of which form part of anold-growth tropical forest, were valuable. The wood could be worth from $400million to $2-billion, depending on the value and quantity of lumber CSRD is able to harvest.

But rather than rushing to develop the technology to raise the timber, Mr. Dunn and Mr. Clark set out to gain the rights to log the reservoir, which, as the world’s biggest, stood to attract the interest of other companies.

Mr. Dunn’s wife, Gifty SerbehDunn, comes from a well-known Ghanaian business family, while Mr. Clark has attained a significant profile in Africa thanks to his work monitoring and establishing elections in countries like Cameroonan d the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They met several times with Ghanaian President John Kufuor and soon obtained exclusive access to the entire lake beginning this September. They also negotiated exclusive access to 350,000 hectares — or 40% of the lake — for the next 15 years, with a 10year renewal option.

A Hidden Harvest

A few years ago, Wayne Dunn approached Joe Clark about buried treasure in Ghana: hardwood trees, worth millions, submerged in Lake Volta. "I promised Joe my plan wouldn't involve he and I in snorkels and flippers, carrying chainsaws into the water," laughs Dunn, a B.C.-based businessman.

At the time, the former prime minister was still in the House of Commons. But after trying in vain to resuscitate the Progressive Conservative party and watching it merge with the Canadian Alliance over his objections, he was ready to leave politics for good in 2004. After stepping down, he became heavily involved in election observation work in Africa and then, in October 2005, at age 66, he founded Clark Sustainable Resource Developments, with Dunn as president and CEO.

By last spring, after five visits with local officials, Clark had hammered out a deal with Ghana's government and the Volta River Authority, which controls the man-made lake that spans 8,515 sq. km. And now, having secured some start-up cash from Goldman Sachs and several other large investors last week, Clark and Co. plan to start cutting and dragging trees to shore later this year. The Mill Bay, B.C.-based company is having equipment from the oil and gas industry adapted to harvest the 80 tree species in Lake Volta's underwater forest -- including mahogany, odum and ebony -- some as tall as 100 feet and 10 feet in circumference, rooted 170 feet below the surface. After 40 years underwater, all that hardwood has been preserved from the deteriorating effects of air and insects.

Aside from the potentially massive cash windfall, the African government also wants the trees removed for safety since Lake Volta is a high-traffic transport route and dozens die every year when their boats hit trees just below the surface. (If CSRD is successful in Ghana, similar opportunities await in South America, Asia and other parts of Africa.)

And because of this; which some Progressive Bloggers agree with:

Harper government comes under fire from former PM Joe Clark

“The Harper government has embraced a pre-Nixonian policy towards China, deliberately distancing Canada from the emerging mega-power, thereby limiting our ability to affect China’s performance on human rights or on other issues,” Clark said.

“With the Harper government, there is a new, more deliberate insularity [in foreign policy] with the singular exception of our military engagement in Afghanistan,” Clark said. “I believe that Mr Harper and his colleagues are moving deliberately away from central elements of the foreign policy that has been a key strength for Canada under both Progressive Conservative and Liberal administrations.

“Mr Harper’s party, [formerly] known as the Reform Party, began self-consciously as a protest movement and it has no inherited tradition in international affairs … moreover, their method is wedge politics, so there is scant domestic experience with brokering and embracing contesting points of view,” Clark added. “These significant departures from Canada’s traditional foreign policy should not be considered as rookie mistakes, but as deliberate policy.”

See

PC=Liberals

No Room for Red Tories

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Happy Canada Day/Jour heureux du Canada

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Danny Williams A B C's

Ouch this is gonna hurt.

" Progressive " Conservative Danny Williams unveils a new alphabet in the battle against political illiteracy...

Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador is now actively campaigning against his federal party brethren, urging people not only in his home province but in the rest of Canada to “vote ABC” — anybody but Conservative.

Williams, himself a Tory, upped the ante Thursday in his ongoing verbal skirmish with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over equalization payments. In recent weeks he has hoped aloud for the defeat of the Conservative minority government in Ottawa and taken to calling Harper “Steve” as a sign of his disdain.

On Thursday, he took his message to the Economic Club of Toronto where he refrained from the name-calling but didn’t hesitate to describe the prime minister as “untrustworthy” and “stubborn.”

“I’m telling voters in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Canada to vote ABC — anybody but Conservative. I’m hoping for just that,” Williams said. “My hope though is that the ABC campaign will basically stop them from forming a government.”

See:

Tory Cuts For All

You Tell 'em Danny Boy

Red Tories Are Progressives

Conservatives New Nanny State

No Room for Red Tories

Canada's New Progressive Right

Elizabeth May and Red Tories

Liberals The New PC's

PC=Liberals

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Elizabeth May and Red Tories

Nice to see confirmation of my post about Elizabeth May choosing to run against MacKay.

“As a former Progressive Conservative, I am delighted that Elizabeth will be running in Central Nova, against the person who destroyed the party of Confederation.”

And as I said; Red Tories can be progressives too.


See:

Green Party

Elizabeth May

Peter MacKay


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Not Before Alberta Votes

Hey, hold off those plans to bring down the Harpocrites.

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe vowed Thursday — in the wake of the deaths of three Quebec-based soldiers this week — to bring down the Conservative government if it does not commit to a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2009.

He said if Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not soon notify NATO and participating countries of Canada's withdrawal plans, the Bloc will vote against the expected autumn throne speech with the hopes of bringing the government down.

Ignoring Kyoto law could bring down Conservatives, opposition warns

Federal opposition parties say a Conservative decision to ignore a law requiring them to find ways to meet Kyoto targets is a provocation that could spell the end of the minority government.

"It is an explicit and important example of how the government is not respecting the wishes of the majority of elected parliamentarians," NDP Leader Jack Layton said. "They can't expect our party to take that kind of disrespect lying down."

Not until we have a provincial election in Alberta, folks.

Why? Because with our unelected Premier and his gang of Tired Old Tories messing things up, business as usual in the One Party State, the PC's are in for a trouncing at the polls when an election is finally called.

A loss of seats and popular support in Alberta for Stelmach and the PC's will mean the conservative voting base will also be weakened. It is this same voting base that the Harpocrites take for granted in all Blue Federal Alberta. With a seismic voting shift provincially there will be a resulting Tsunami away from the Harpocrites.

With the influx of 'Eastern bums and creeps' from the ROC, the political landscape in Alberta has changed. And not in the Tories favour. Instead the mass of these are like other Albertans, middle of the road Red Tories, Lougheed liberals by any other name, wondering where to go.

Across the province, the percentage of undecided voters doubled, from 18% in January to 36% in August.

Dem's da folks dat don't know much about the opposition parties, dey just know dey don't like da folks in power.

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UK

The Tories Are on a Mission to Destroy Black Lives Matter

They're going all out.

by Kimi Chaddah
26 July 2021

https://novaramedia.com/

THIS APPLIES TO ALL TORIES/CONSERVATIVES EVERYWHERE, LIKE IN CANADA & USA

Henry Nicholls/Reuters



In the current culture wars, the Tories have made delegitimising the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement one of their top priorities.

The movement gained traction in the UK back in 2016, when protesters blocked the motorway leading to Heathrow the day after the anniversary of Mark Duggan’s murder by police. Its presence grew as it began exposing the endemic nature of institutional racism within the UK. This culminated in the explosion of protests last summer in response to George Floyd’s murder, with protesters not only condemning America’s racism but their own country’s too, exemplified in the rallying cry “the UK is not innocent”.

This antiracist spirit was revived once again this summer, when the England men’s football took the knee during the Euros. With the decision receiving widespread support – even from rightwingers like Piers Morgan – it’s clear the Tories understand the power the movement holds and its potential to upend their agenda.

As a result, the Conservatives have launched an attack on the movement. From health secretary Sajid Javid claiming it is “not a force for good”, to home secretary Priti Patel describing BLM protests as “dreadful“ and full of “hooliganism“, government ministers have made every effort to further the impression of a subversive, divisive and dangerous organisation.

With a global aim of “eradicat[ing] white supremacy and build[ing] local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes”, there is no mention of Marxism in Black Lives Matter’s mission statement. This, however, hasn’t stopped the Tories from deliberately conflating the movement with Marxism, and other ‘extreme’ leftwing ideologies.

This came to a head last year during the George Floyd protests. Once again, Javid was on the attack, describing the rallies’ organisers as “neo-Marxist”. Meanwhile, foreign secretary Dominic Raab claimed that the widely used action of ‘taking the knee’ was a “symbol of subjugation”.

And the rightwing press is in on it too, with newspapers like the Telegraph frequently describing BLM as a “radical neo-Marxist organisation“.

Another red scare.

Of course, this isn’t anything new. Historically, such redbaiting tactics are frequently deployed to discredit antiracist movements. Most notably, the US government aggressively targeted the civil rights movement during the 1950s-70s in an attempt to root out those with Communist leanings. This onslaught led Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the FBI’s prime – and totally unsubstantiated – suspects, to declare, “There are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida.

“The government is in the midst of a sustained ideological attack on the anti-racist movement,” says a spokesperson for BLM UK. “The pejorative use of ‘Marxist’ [acts] as a red scare-style tactic intended to whip up a moral panic around the anti-racist movement.” However, they are also quick to stress that “BLM is not a ‘Marxist organisation”, explaining that “while some of the members of BLM UK are Marxists, not all members are. We are, however, anti-capitalists, and are committed to dismantling class as well as gender and racial domination”.

Beyond verbal attacks on the movement and its organisers, the Tories are also indirectly waging a war on BLM through their policies – particularly in terms of their attempt to pass the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which will effectively criminalise protest. The bill itself appears in part to be a response to the BLM and Extinction Rebellion protests of last year with Patel describing them as acts of “thuggery“.

It’s no secret that the bill will disproportionately target people of colour. With excessive use of force, racial discrimination and failures in duty of care already all prevalent at last year’s BLM protests, the stifling of dissent will enable – and legitimise – even more discriminatory policing. 55% of people in the UK already claim that last summer’s protests increased racial tensions – likely due to the unfavourable way in which demonstrators were portrayed by factions of the mainstream press. If protesting is criminalised, it is extremely likely that this figure will only go up.

Indeed, the Tories have consistently relied on this lack of education around antiracist politics and movements to stoke up fears and anxieties in the British public. In schools, the government has gone as far as to actively suppress knowledge dissemination on the subject for that very reason.

We saw this most clearly in October, when equalities minister Kemi Badenoch declared that any school teaching elements of critical race theory would be breaking the law, arguing that supporters of critical race theory wish to create a “segregated society“. Meanwhile, the Department for Education told schools in England that they were prohibited from using materials produced by anti-capitalist groups, or to teach “victim narratives that are harmful to British society” – the implication being that critical race theory implies whiteness is oppression and Blackness is victimhood.

“Political education has historically served as a tool for liberation, and the right knows this just as well as we do,” says a spokesperson for BLM UK. “Guidelines that restrict the teaching of Black Lives Matter materials, of critical race theory, and of so-called victim narratives are a direct response to the dissent we saw last summer. In an attempt to quash future resistance, the government is depriving young people of the tools to understand and dismantle structural racism”.
Resisting racism.

But where there is repression there is also resistance. In response to the Tories’ attempts to silence antiracist political thought, there has been a welcome and noticeable growth in small-scale activism. All Black Lives UK, Tribe named Athari and United For Black Lives all emerged out of the 2020 protests and are working to resist the government’s racist rhetoric and policies.

And outside of England, resistance is happening at an establishment level too, with the Welsh government working with charities like Show Racism the Red Card in order to dismantle racism in the education system and create a more racially and culturally representative curriculum. Consequently, the Welsh government recently announced that colonialism and Black history will be mandatory parts of the new school curriculum, set to be introduced in 2022.

“It’s important we develop a generation of anti-racist ambassadors that will go on to challenge the historic injustice of racism throughout society wherever they might find themselves as they grow; in their future workplaces, universities, communities and institutions,” explains a spokesperson for Show Racism the Red Card. “Racism is largely perpetuated through ignorance. Education is our greatest weapon to break down that [ignorance]”.

The government is working hard to create an atmosphere of denial around racism’s existence. This is seen perhaps most clearly in its recent report, which found racism in the UK to no longer be an issue.

On the surface, the country might look like it’s making progress. Sure, we have the most racially diverse government cabinet in history, but that doesn’t matter when the people of colour in positions of power – people like Patel and Javid – wield it to promote racist agendas.

BLM is a vital organisation and movement. The Tories’ campaign to destroy it only confirms why it must exist. It is absolutely vital that we challenge damaging racist discourses and the politicians that uphold them. Black lives matter. We must not allow the Tories to get away with pretending they don’t.

Kimi Chaddah is a freelance journalist whose work covers government policy, education and inequality.