WORLD WORLDWIDE UK News Journal Update - (en) UK, AFED: organise magazine - THE UNITED KINGDOM OF MASS MURDER THEORY & ANALYSIS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 It has now been 13 years since the Tories came to power, 13 years of economic

misery, rising bigotry and autocratic overreach. The past year has felt like the
culmination of the Tory political project, as all of these disgraceful movements
have accelerated beyond what we're capable of keeping up with. ---- On the
surface, it's looked like the Tory party has been in a never-ending clusterfuck.
It seems like every time one disaster broke out, there were three or four more
brewing in the background. Since the publication of our last issue, we have been
through three prime ministers, and the two ousted PMs have already declared their
intentions to return to power. But this was little more than a distraction.
For all their widely-publicised internal bickering, the Tories have been
fundamentally united on the same three principles that have bound them together
for years: classism, racism and authoritarianism. These principles have driven
them to wage an undeclared war against us all.

"Kill The Poor"
It was a cold, bleak winter to get through this year. The boiler and the
radiator, usually our two most reliable lifelines for warmth through the winter,
were no longer in reach. Our energy companies, clustered together in a cartel,
took on the role of a protection racket - extracting more and more of our
hard-earned money for the pleasure of allowing us to live in minimal dignity.
Monthly bills doubled, tripled and quadrupled, skyrocketing into the hundreds and
even thousands of pounds. Many more didn't have bills to pay, as their houses
were broken into and forcibly fitted with pre-payment meters. Within the space of
months, over 7 million households - a third of the British public - found
themselves in fuel poverty.

The response to this systemic robbery has been tragic. Millions of people,
fearing the cold winter, went into debt to their own energy supplier. Communities
banded together to provide "warm banks" to people without heating of their own.
Some television programs, in an accidental repeat of an old satire of a
post-apocalyptic Britain, held contests to win the treasured prize of fuel.
Attempts to kick off a non-payment campaign were neutered relatively easily by
the government's energy price cap. Our only potential for a mass mobilisation
against the cold war ended before it even began.

But for many in the UK, even paying for heating has become a luxury, as we are
forced to choose between a warm home or a full stomach. Food poverty is the new
normal for millions of British people - 10 million adults and 4 million children
- who often go for days without eating. It doesn't even matter whether one works
multiple jobs, or if you live in a household with others that also work
themselves to the bone, as every month the prices on shelves increase by 5-15%.
The "golden age of cheap food", we're told, is now over.

When the pandemic started, thousands of mutual aid groups were established
throughout the country in order to ensure that we all got fed. But even now as
the pandemic subsides, these mutual aid groups haven't gone anywhere. One crisis
has simply led into another. Food banks, community pantries and social kitchens
have now become a necessary fact of life. But the diligent work of these groups
just hasn't been enough and they're starting to buckle under the pressure of ever
increasing mass hunger. Reports keep coming in that people that rely on food
banks are beginning to reject potatoes and root vegetables, and increasingly
request items that can be eaten cold, as the cost of cooking them is just too
high to bare. Even people that once volunteered or donated their spare income to
these food banks are now finding themselves on the other side of the line.

The most damaging effect that the rising cost of food is having is on our
children. Kids that suffer through poverty have become reliant on free school
meals, meals which are unavailable to them for months at a time. As these kids
are not eating regularly, and when they are they're eating cheap unhealthy food,
doctors and nurses are now reporting a sickening rise in cases of childhood
malnutrition. Children as young as two-years-old are arriving to nurseries and
schools already starving. And this is while their parents are actively skipping
meals in order to keep them fed.

All of this would have been too much to bare even with a functioning health
service, but a decade of austere cuts to the NHS mean there can be no recovering
from this torture. Waiting times get longer and longer, with millions in line for
treatment that is usually months away. In the worst cases, some people are
waiting years for treatment, years that they may not have. Even emergency
treatment is more difficult than ever to receive. Hundreds of people die each
year while waiting for ambulances that never arrive or packed into overcrowded
waiting rooms that overworked doctors and nurses can't possibly keep up with.

It's often said that every society is only nine missed meals away from
revolution. But given how many meals we have all missed and how far away any
revolution seems, this old proverb seems inaccurate. How do we make a revolution
when we're too cold, hungry and sick to revolt?

"Invaders Must Die"
As with any time of crisis, the ruling class have sought out a scapegoat to blame
for the problems they caused, a way to keep us divided against each other rather
than uniting against them. This time, the monstrous regime of bigotry has
selected targets from the most vulnerable people in our society: refugees.

Time and time again it has been made clear that there is no safe and legal route
to asylum in the United Kingdom. Over the course of the past year, over 45,000
asylum seekers were forced to cross the English channel in small boats, in a
dangerous route that has already claimed a number of lives. The Home Secretary
Suella Braverman, building on the foundations left by her predecessors Priti
Patel and Theresa May, is hard at work turning Britain's hostile environment into
a deadly one.

Almost immediately after taking up the role, Braverman described refugees fleeing
war-zones and economic collapse as "invaders", in a shockingly fascistic speech
that a Holocaust survivor likened to the rhetoric used by the Nazis. Rhetoric
aside, the Tory government has already established concentration camps, proposed
the mass deportation of refugees and overseen the disappearance and kidnapping of
children. They have even more shockingly sided themselves with the worst scum in
society - slavers - with their declaration that they will withhold protection
from victims of modern slavery.

The government's anti-refugee rhetoric and policies have emboldened a rise in
street-level fascism. In October, a fascist carried out a terrorist attack
against a refugee camp in Dover. Thankfully he was unsuccessful, but his
genocidal call to action was taken up by fascists throughout the UK. Attacks on
asylum centres have only increased since then, with one particularly shocking
case of a fascist mob attempting to storm a hotel housing refugees in Merseyside.
Were it not for the brave defence put up by local anti-fascists, a massacre may
well have occurred. At every step of the way, the government has failed to
condemn these attacks. In fact, their rhetoric has only grown sharper. Although
they are not part of the same organisation, it would be naive to suggest they
don't form two parts of the same whole. The Tory Party, for all intents and
purposes, is transforming itself into the political wing of British fascism.

"Death to Dissent"
While we have been kept busy trying to keep food on their plates, the Tories are
content that everybody is too distracted to pay attention to their moves towards
creating a dictatorship.

The Tories were already moving to create an unaccountable executive government,
outside and above the scrutiny of parliament and the courts. Since the Supreme
Court rolled back Johnson's prorogation of parliament and blocked the deportation
of refugees, the Tories have had their scopes set on the "lefty lawyers" that
scuppered their autocratic ambitions. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has already
given the government the power to circumvent the courts and now wants to entirely
block the possibility of judicial challenges to the government's actions.

Their desire for unaccountability has driven and been driven by attacks against
their enemies. Not against His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, of course, but
against the real opposition to the Tory project: political dissidents and the
organised working class.

First and foremost on the government's enemies list was protestors. The rise in
direct action campaigns against racism and environmental destruction has put the
fear of the people into the hearts of the Tories. In response, they have moved to
restrict protest - even the most peaceful - against their rule. Last year's
infamous anti-protest act didn't go far enough for the Tories, who now intend to
criminalise any form of disruptive demonstration. Long prison sentences await
those that want to act against injustice, even those that wouldn't hurt a fly.

The government is also targetting workers, who dared to negotiate for better
wages at a time when food and shelter are more unaffordable than ever before. At
best, they offer paltry concessions that barely cover the cost of inflation.
Meanwhile, they work together with the bosses to repress striking workers and
their unions, pushing for new laws that would allow employers to fire and sue
anyone that interfered with their profits.

The Tories have even set their sights on destroying their own greatest legacy by
withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Inspired by the
dictatorships of Lukashenko and Putin, where dissidents are imprisoned, tortured
and murdered as a matter of routine, the new Tory Party has declared that it no
longer wants to be constrained by these pesky human rights. Without this bloody
convention holding us back, they could finally Make Britain Great Again.

Before long, many of the rights and freedoms that we have taken for granted may
no longer exist.

What Is To Be Done?
Having gone through all of this, it should be some relief to know that the Tories
will likely be trounced at the next election. But unfortunately, we live in a
society where the other faction of our ruling class is barely any better. Under
Keir Starmer, the Labour Party is beginning to lose any real distinction from the
Tories, in a sharp move to the right that makes even Tony Blair look like an
ultra-left communist. The so-called party of the workers is now turning its back
on workers. They have aligned with the Tories on attacking devolution, trans
rights and the NHS. Even arch-nationalist Nigel Farage has endorsed Starmer's
Labour, which he considers even further right than the Tories on immigration. At
this point, Labour is little more than a more competent Tory party.

But even if we did elect the most benevolent and progressive Labour government in
history, they wouldn't be able to undo a fraction of the damage that the Tories
have done. Even if they dedicated their entire legislative power towards
repealing the authoritarian acts passed by the Tories, it's inevitable that
they'd miss some. The Tories have successfully Gish galloped their policies into
the long-term. Tory policy is integral to the British state. The British state is
a Tory project.

If the Tories are ousted, they will do what they have always done: regroup, bide
their time and build their strength until they can take back the power they see
as theirs by right. And when they return, they could be even worse than they are now.

The solution to this creeping tyranny in our country requires nothing less than
the elimination of the Conservative and Unionist Party, all its organs and all
that which enables its rise to power. If it's a war they want to wage against us,
we must be prepared to fight back.

Written by Guillem Gallès
Audio Reading by Ed

https://organisemagazine.org.uk/the-united-kingdom-of-mass-murder-opinion/
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