OPINION:
Bestselling author Lisa Hilton recently revealed that the British Broadcasting Corp. grotesquely violated the human rights and dignity of Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, during one of his recent appearances on the BBC. According to Ms. Hilton, makeup artists from the network smeared Mr. Farage’s face with “human saliva and other bodily fluids” because of his right-wing ideology and conservative politics.
Unfortunately, the BBC’s gross abuse of Mr. Farage and its open vendetta against the conservative wing of the political spectrum is not an isolated incident or even an uncommon one in Britain. All right-wing politics and values have become fair game for open attack and oppression as a result of the hyper-left-wing ideology that currently dominates British society.
Throughout the modern era, left-wing pundits and political actors throughout Britain have imitated their American counterparts and consistently deployed “populism” and “populist” as catchall terms for all conservatives and conservative ideology. Unfortunately, the left-wing political edifices that have dominated Britain over the past decade have also labored tirelessly to transform “populism” into a euphemism for neo-Nazis and tyrants, as well as all species of bigot, in a vain attempt to isolate every conservative under the false veneer of fascism.
For example, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has publicly labeled populism a “snake-oil charm” and declared that populists and right-wing political actors “use the English flag as cover for violence and to instill fear.”
News media organizations throughout Britain have regurgitated the lie that populist political actors and conservative “politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism.” The BBC has claimed that the modern popularity of right-wing ideology and populism is “a threat to Europe’s economies.”
In contrast, the left-wing political edifices and news organizations that preside over British society have misconstrued left-wing ideology as the driver of all sociopolitical progress since the Enlightenment and invariably associated a left-wing ethos with the democratic ideal. As a result, in Britain, the left has successfully engineered a political spectrum wherein a person becomes increasingly bad and antithetical to democracy as their political ideology becomes progressively conservative or “populist.”
Conversely, a person becomes good and virtuous as their political beliefs trend toward the left and the “liberal.”
More important, for nearly a decade, Britain has been relentlessly subsumed within a political ecosystem wherein every right-wing ideology is not merely a competing ethos but rather inherently evil and undemocratic. Therefore, it is seen as an enemy to be eradicated, along with all its adherents.
For conservatives in Britain, political discourse has collapsed and open persecution has become a reality of daily life. About 30 people are arrested every day for “petty offenses such as retweets and cartoons,” and conservatives are routinely denied fundamental human rights such as “freedom of religion,” “free speech” and “political assembly.” In 2023 alone, the British government leveraged warped interpretations of vague laws that criminalize “annoyance, inconvenience, [and] anxiety” to wrongfully arrest more than 12,000 innocent people.
Even the U.S. State Department recently condemned Britain. It explicitly confirmed that America is “still monitoring many ‘buffer zone’ cases in the U.K.” and that the “U.K.’s persecution of silent prayer represents … an egregious violation of the fundamental right to free speech and religious liberty.”
Yet a revolutionary spirit has started to cascade throughout Britain. During the recent “Unite the Kingdom” rally, at least 150,000 courageous patriots surged throughout the streets of London in an effort to protest the brutal suppression of free speech and conservative values.
Although Mr. Starmer and his government have attempted to ignore the revolutionary overtones, national pride and hope that now enervate Britain, it’s clear that Britons will soon seize change if they are not granted freedom.
• William Barclay is an award-winning political theorist and policy expert, as well as one of Canada’s foremost young conservative voices. Follow him on Twitter/X @WillBarclayPCBG.
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