The Union Jackal
The British people are starting to understand something vitally important, albeit at glacial speed: the current Labour government is not incompetent, it is malevolent. Nigel Farage, widely tipped as the next British Prime Minister, put it rather well in an open letter to the British people the day after the budget (of which more later). “The British people are waking up this morning to the idea that their government is working against them.” I’ve only been saying this for five years or so, so it is nice to see someone who has caught the national attention catching up and watching the same game I’m watching.
The current political class, freakish in their thinking, determined in their hatred of whites, and quasi-autistic in their nature, are combing the British Constitution (such as it is) in search of anything they can despoil or destroy, and they are never short of new ideas to render inoperative what remains of the country’s political infrastructure. This is technocratic vandalism, but it is not enough that the British have lost freedom of speech and habeas corpus, now Labour are going for gold.
David “Mastermind” Lammy, Britain’s black Justice Secretary and the most powerful DEI hire in Britain, has come up with a new constitutional abuse primarily aimed at the white British he so despises: the abolition of trial by jury. Lammy—who describes himself as “Caribbean”—claims that this will only affect trials with complex evidence, such as corporate fraud and other trials involving finance, and that more serious trials such as those for murder or rape will be unaffected. But this is the standard governmental tactic of inaccurate denial, and the danger with Labour is that they will do what they did with the Online Safety Act (OSA) of 2024. This was a collaborative effort between both wings of the uniparty, Conservative and Labour, brought in ostensibly to protect children from the darker areas of the internet, (I covered it here, originally for Counter Currents )but it didn’t take long for the arrest of adults to begin over social media posts (the UK government likes to use children as virtual human shields). Around 12,000 people a year, roughly 33 per day, are currently being arrested in Britain for social media “offences.” So, it is quite possible that the removal of trial by jury will be extended so that, effectively, defendants will be tried and imprisoned by the state. More literally, by a state-appointed activist judge (the type which Americans are used to) rather than by “a jury of their peers.”
It is often claimed that the famous Magna Carta protects and enshrines trial by jury, but this founding constitutional document has been chipped away at and rendered toothless over the 810 years since King John signed it to appease the barons giving him so much trouble. It wasn’t enacted to help the people, but to make a monarch’s life easier. King John effectively invented the Civil Service for the same reason. The Magna Carta enshrined trial by jury into law, but the key statutory item was the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, under which jury trial replaced trial by ordeal. So, for over eight centuries, the right of a British person to be tried before a jury of their peers has been an unassailable one. Until now.
It is difficult to overstate how important jury trial is, and legal experts over centuries have confirmed this. These were white men, not the type of sub-species represented by the decidedly simian Lammy. Legal and Constitutional expert Lord Devlin began his Hamlyn Lectures of 1956 with what appears to be a rather dispiriting admission. “Trial by jury is a subject on which it is not possible to say anything very novel or very profound.” What Lord Devlin meant by this was that trial by jury is so strongly present in the British legal system that it can be taken for granted, and it functions so well there is not much to say about it. Sir William Blackstone, the 18th century lawyer famous for his Commentaries on the Laws of England, voiced what has become the consensual view of jury trial: “Trial by jury is the sacred bulwark of the nation, securing our liberty.” Lord Camden called it “the foundation of our free constitution”, and Lord Eldon termed it, “the greatest blessing that the British Constitution had secured to the subject.” A highly respected judge (whose name actually was Lord Judge) spoke of jury trial as “a safeguard against oppression and dictatorship.” In fact, it is not easy to find a bad word said against this principle by those who know what they are talking about, which is what makes Lammy’s suggestion so dangerous, and is what has attracted him (or the people who work his strings) to the idea of doing away with it. It may be, however, that he is not ultimately responsible, and instead we must blame Napoleon.
The French don’t have jury trial. It is just not in the Code Napoléon because the diminutive dictator did not want it there. (France is not alone: other countries with no right to jury trial include Germany, Italy, and India). What this means, now that France is in the EU, is that the principle of jury trial is not protected by the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), and this gives Lammy a loophole he and his handlers will doubtless employ if they wish to do away with the last of the locks and guards protecting the common man—specifically the common white man—from incarceration by the state. With all that said, however, one’s view of the sanctity of jury trial can change should one ever be a juror.
I served on a jury in 1994 at London’s magnificent Old Bailey and it convinced me that, were I to be tried for a serious crime, I I would want a jury trial if I was guilty, and a judicial trial if I was innocent. I sat on two rape cases, both involving black male defendants with black women as the supposed victims. I voted to acquit on both cases (a unanimous acquittal 12-0 and a hung jury at 6-6), but some of the other jurors were really quite stupid people, failing to understand, for example, the principle of “beyond reasonable doubt.” This was three decades ago, and of course educational standards have dropped somewhat since then. It didn’t help matters that two women on the hung jury treated the whole affair as their own personal TV drama. This wasn’t 12 Angry Men, it was two liberal women.
Another internal fault line threatening the integrity of trial by jury is racial bias, but not by whites. From The Guardian in 2007:
The first study to look at how race affects verdicts in this country has found that black and minority ethnic (BME) jurors are ‘significantly less likely’ to convict a black defendant than a white defendant on a non-race-related charge. And they are much more likely to convict white defendants than white jurors.
Again, that is unlikely to have improved in 18 years. It is worth noting, this being The Guardian, that the reason for this bias is, of course, not racism, which it is not possible for BMEs to exercise:
This apparent bias – described by the report’s researchers as ‘same race leniency’ – is thought to reflect a belief among black and Asian jurors that the court system treats ethnic minority defendants more harshly than their white counterparts. Jurors attempt to compensate for this perceived bias to create a ‘level playing field’, the report notes.
So, this blatant ethnic bias is all for the cause of racial justice, always and everywhere a Good Thing. Trial by jury, then, is not without its faults.
The very next day, Lammy appeared to be back-tracking on the most radical alteration to the British legal constitution in a millennium, and there are two reasons for this which work in tandem. Firstly, it is government practice to “test the water” with proposed legislation, leaking it first in order to check the response of the MSM (not the people it will affect), and then making adjustments accordingly to water it down if necessary before bolstering it at a later date. Secondly, the news cycle is of vital important to the political class. It is axiomatic that, should they find themselves in a crisis, they just need to cling on in post for one or two news cycles until the storm blows over. One way to achieve this is to produce a big distraction in order to shift focus away from the critical issue and onto something else to eat up valuable time in the news cycle. And Lammy’s apparent consideration of back-tracking was doubtless intended to shift the media’s attention from last week’s calamitous budget, to which we will now turn…
It’s the Economy, Stupid…
Rachel Reeves is the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to the American Treasury Secretary), and made much of the fact that she is the first woman in the post. There is some doubt as to whether she was entirely honest in her account of her previous career, but there is nothing wrong in and of itself with a woman being in charge of the nation’s purse-strings. After all, the word “economics” comes from the Ancient Greek, oikonomos, which is best translated as “balancing the household books”, and would have been the province of the lady of the house. Reeves’ version of what is known as “the budget” exemplified everything wrong with the most toxic government in my lifetime. It did not go down well, with even the MSM balking at some of the proposals set out. Essentially, Labour have now broken every one of their pre-election manifesto pledges concerning tax. Personal tax and employer NI contributions were frozen, which is a stealth tax as inflation is set to worsen and wages to remain stagnant. It is also a budget which implements pure wealth distribution, punishing those who work and contribute, and rewarding those who don’t feel work to be necessary or desirable.
Pensions once again came under attack, and there has long been a concern that the state will come after pension pots one way or another. In a few weeks, on my 65th birthday, I should have started receiving my state pension. However, my band was altered a few years ago, and I will not now be eligible until I am 67. The state pension is like the horizon seen from a ship: you can see it, and you seem to be sailing towards it, but you can never reach it. The basic rate of income tax is up two percent, which Labour said on numerous occasions that it definitely would not do. In another nice swipe at whites, the “two-child benefit cap” was removed. This means that families with more than two children will start to receive benefits for any number of offspring. Given that 14% of white British families have more than two children, as opposed to 38% of Bangladeshis and 41% of Pakistanis, it is clear who will benefit from this loosening of the cap. A so-called “mansion tax” will be imposed on properties worth over £2million, which seems a lot until you factor in that British house prices have quadrupled over the last 20 years. The limit had been £1.5million, and the alteration rather conveniently takes David Lammy and Keir Starmer out of the band in which they have to pay this tax on their own properties.
The press, particularly on the right, were apoplectic, calling it the worst budget in history. Given that Reeves and Starmer have polled as the worst Chancellor and Prime Minister since polling began 50 years ago, this seems perfectly feasible. Then Reeves found herself in even hotter water. A letter from the comically named OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) laid bare a deception Labour have been using since they took office: the so-called “£22billion black hole.”
Since winning the election in 2024, Labour have claimed that the outgoing Tory government left them with this deficit, mentioning it on every possible occasion. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped talking about it. The letter from the head of the OBR suggests why that might be. It turns out that the “black hole” was in fact a “buffer” Labour deemed it expedient to have against the “poor productivity” of the Tory era. In other words, the £22billion was not a legacy from the Conservatives, but a piggy-bank to raid should they need to, and a justification for the tax hikes Labour swore they would not implement. The budget has pushed Reeves even closer to being ditched than she was even the day before she set out the budget and, if Reeves goes, Starmer must inevitably follow. Should that happen, a General Election before 2029 remains possible though unlikely. Where would this leave the other contenders for 10 Downing Street?
Green in Judgment
Zak Polanski is the new leader of Britain’s Green Party, and the current darling of the liberal media. It’s not his real name and, if you were to choose a new name, it is a little odd that you would choose that of a pederast, dwarfish film-director. Polanski is as good an example of a political grifter you will find, even in British politics, having left his old line of work to enter politics. I wish I had the imagination to invent his previous job. Polanski had persuaded some women that he could enhance their breast size using hypnosis. I don’t know the wag who nick-named him the “boob whisperer”, but I salute him. I also, generally, dislike ad hominem attacks, But Polanski actually looks retarded. Muslims sense this, and his party is being taken for a ride by Islamists in the UK. Once they have piggy-backed the Greens, they will leave and form their own parties, and there are already Islamic councilors elected on the Green ticket. One of them shouted “Allahu akbar!” during his acceptance speech, and dedicated his victory to Gaza.
But, as absurd a figure as Polanski is, his party have come out of nowhere to produce this type of polling on voting intentions in the next General Election:
Reform UK: 31%
Conservative Party: 17%
Green Party: 16%
Labour Party: 15%
Just how much the Greens will be a Trojan horse for more Muslim councilors and, eventually, MPs remains to be seen, but they could still end up as kingmakers, not least due to a factor I have not seen mentioned anywhere in the media.
A million Muslims a year are pouring into the UK, and Labour have been doing just as the Biden administration did, trying to grant them voting rights even if they remain illegal. The next General Election is scheduled for 2029, which means four million additional Mohameddans may well be in residence, and they will not be voting for front-runner Farage and his party. But they may not vote for Labour either, despite governmental determination to ship in a ready-made voting bloc. With the Greens showing their childlike naivety by allowing Muslims to stand on their ticket, they may be about to find out all about tribal loyalties. But it also affects Reform. Current projections for a 2029 result give Reform as many as 399 seats in a 650-seat Parliament, with Labour as low as 17, and with every member of the current Cabinet (including Starmer) losing their seats. Four million new Muslim votes may make quite a dent in that figure. How will Farage respond?
Nigel Farage has faced criticism from the “far centrists” on the political right for being too chummy with the Muslim lobby, but one has to see it from his point of view. He has said in interviews that to alienate Islam would be electoral suicide, so what looks like standard appeasement is actually sound political strategy. As I have noted, Farage’s political destiny is inextricably linked to how far he can succeed in not being sucked into the machinery of the deep state, on how much chooses to fit into the political class. If he does decide he likes it, his coming to power may be reminiscent of the last line of Orwell’s Animal Farm.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Farage’s biggest problem should he become PM is that he will be receiving one of the most poisoned chalices in British political history. Starmer—or whichever Labour midwit succeeds him—will spend the next four years destroying the British Constitution, tanking the economy, and making sure there are enough incoming Muslims to bolster the micro-caliphates which already exist. His priority will be to leave a ruin for Farage to inherit. The only positive thing that can be said about the current political landscape in the UK is that it is, for once, actually interesting. But it has not been a good opening quarter-century for the British people.
First Quarter Accounts
Next year sees two anniversaries, one which represents a pinnacle of white Western culture, the other showing just how far that culture has fallen. The centenary of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time will doubtless be covered here, but it will also be a quarter of a century since 9/11. That marks a credible starting-point in the accelerated decline of the UK, which was still under the spell of Tony Blair when the planes hit the towers. Like the JFK assassination for those old enough at the time, everyone remembers where they were on September 11. I was on my lunch-hour, and standing in Tate Modern art gallery looking at a favorite statue of mine with a grimly appropriate name for such a dark day: Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Two planes hitting the Twin Towers could be described as such. But the UK has been in managed decline ever since, and perhaps its over-reliance on the authority and presumed benevolence of government will prove to be its hubris.
A commenter here recently made the excellent point that Britain, and particularly England, is perhaps the country most attached to the tradition of having a nanny. The poet Hilaire Belloc sums the national consciousness on this point to a nicety:
Always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.
Indeed, it was the English who came up with the phrase “nanny state” to describe an authoritarian and intrusive government. I’ve used this gag before, but the British people are entitled to be concerned when Mary Poppins turns into Scary Poppins. Like a trusting child shocked and tearfully confused that a previously friendly home-help has suddenly struck it hard across the face, the white British are finally recognizing that its multicultural, neo-Marxist government no longer loves them, and will no longer care for or protect them.
When Labour won the 2024 General Election with 33.7% of what was at base an anti-Tory vote, who were the first two political/economic representatives to be invited through the door of 10 Downing Street? Nurses? Miners? Union bosses? All of these used to be the natural ward of the Labour Party. No. It was Bill Gates and the boss of BlackRock. That says it all, really.
See you next year, given that there is a next year.