Something is stirring in Great Britain that we in the United States would do well to note.
There's an uprising of the working class in England. It's not against "capitalist bosses" or "the rich." What's happening is a class struggle, but it's not based on the workers being oppressed or any other left-wing idea of what the workers should be going to war against.
This war is waged by ordinary Brits against the elites' "luxury beliefs" that they see as the antithesis of what it is to be "British."
They are "luxury beliefs" because only in the fabulously wealthy (by comparison with the Third World) nations of the West can elites support concepts like "open borders," "men becoming women," and "any criticism of Islam is Islamaphobia." Other nations simply can't afford to tolerate such nonsense. They're having a hard enough time surviving to worry about how other nations perceive them.
The Spectator's Brendan O'Neill, former chief political writer at the right-leaning online publication "Spiked," writes of the uprising, "Tell me this isn’t the 'left behind' finally standing up to the turbo-smug posh left that loves to lord it over them."
Indeed, the confrontations outside of "migrant hotels" all over the country are instructive. Ordinary Brits (mostly moms) hold signs protesting the arrival of thousands of unvetted migrants from intolerant societies who were plopped down in their mostly small towns and rural communities with not so much as a "by your leave."
On the other side, counterprotesters "sporting the rictus sneer of people who know better," as O'Neill describes it, were waving the Palestine flag. They wore keffiyehs, trying to identify with the "oppressed" while being blissfully unaware of what concepts like "The Intifada" really mean.
The other side had on normal clothes—nothing culturally appropriated from Arabs. And their only banner was the St George’s or the Union flag. They expressed pride in their nation, whereas their mockers on the other side of the police line seemed consumed by pride in the self.
A grassroots longing for national restoration versus the hobby activism of the virtuous bourgeoisie: These are the battle lines today. For me, the migrant-hotel rebellion is the most thrilling showdown we’ve seen in years between ordinary people and the overeducated possessors of “luxury beliefs.” This is a revolt of “the plebs” not only against the lunacy of giving four-star bed and board to the hundreds of illegal migrants who rock up on our shores every day, but also against the entire luxuriant moralism of an activist class blissfully blind to the struggles of everyday Brits.
The idea of "class" is far more prevalent in Great Britain than in America. That's one of the reasons ideologies like "communism" and "socialism" have gotten very little traction in the U.S. until recently. A stratified society like Great Britain invites the grievance mongers to organize and play off one class against another. It's been the way to power for socialists for more than 100 years, but it's only been successful in achieving power when class warfare can be exploited.
But this pushback by the British working class against the threatened loss of national identity goes beyond the usual class issues that roil British politics. It is about keeping Britain's national character intact, as witnessed by many of the protesters wrapping themselves in the St. George's Cross flag or the Union Jack. These ordinary Brits fear that the elites have unleashed forces that are not only threatening the Great Britain they grew up in but also their safety and peace of mind.
Are we living through the twilight of luxury beliefs? The thin ideologies of the professional-managerial classes seem to be dropping like flies. Their neo-religion of open borders is under savage pressure from that army of mums saying the thing you’re not meant to say, the thing that was madly branded “far right” for years: that borders are important. That the very first principle of sovereignty is you must know who or what is crossing into your territory. Centuries of common sense marshaled against the new and nuts idea that nationhood is outdated.
Before that, their post-truth ideology of trans took one hell of a beating. The UK Supreme Court’s ruling that a woman is a woman—duh—brought scientific reason to bear on that craziest of luxury beliefs: that you can have a penis and be a lady.
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Anyone who doesn't see the recent crackdown on free speech in Great Britain as anything other than an attempt to keep the lid on this nascent rebellion isn't paying attention.
The protests aren't likely to spiral into a civil war. But throwing a scare into the smug, self-righteous elites is definitely on the table.
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