I predicted that Badenoch would become the target of abuse and controversy after her election as leader of the Conservatives in a piece I put up with Open Britain’s comments on her election and what it meant for the Conservative party. In this case, it was that the Tories were moving even further to the right, with all the threats to democracy that implied, and that a significant number would like to see a merger between them and Farage’s Reform. But I also thought that Badenoch would also get abuse and criticism from both left and right because of her colour. For people like the Internet Non-Historian, she’s not really British but Nigerian. For the left, and specifically Dawn Butler and Black activist Kehinde Andrews, her anti-immigration, anti-affirmative action views means she’s somehow not really Black. So, while Keir Starmer congratulated her on being the first Black leader of a major political party, Femi Oluwole put up a video declaring that she had ‘a racist get-out-of-jail free card’. Dawn Butler, the Black supremacist Labour MP for Brent Central and Lambeth, called her ‘White supremacy in Blackface’, and Kehinde Andrews declared that she showed that the ‘psychopathy of Whiteness’ affected other races. The Spectator has put up a piece declaring that despite the sneers and insults from the Butler, who had retweeted a comment by a London-based Nigerian, Black people aren’t a homogenous block who should all share the same views about race and support the Labour party. And Starmer has been facing calls to remove the whip from Butler.
But the Tories also couldn’t resist having a few sneers of their own. James ‘not-so’ Cleverly, couldn’t resist having a poke at the Labour party for having a White male as leader. They were ‘pale, male and stale’ as the saying goes. Well, the two major parties, regardless of the race and sex of their leaders, are very stale because they still hold fast to all the tenets of Thatcherism, a doctrine that is so long past its sale-by date that it deserves to be taken out and incinerated as a bio-hazard.
I’ve got mixed feelings about Femi Oluwole. He appears regularly on debates about race and slavery on GB News and Talk TV, where he strongly gives the impression that he believes Britain is a terribly racist place and owes Blacks reparations because of historical slavery. On one of these occasions he was opposing one of the female Tory MPs, who wanted a monument put up to the British sailors who died battling slavery and the slave trade in the 19th century. He, on the other hand, still felt Britain was deeply stained with guilt, because we shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place. Instead he wanted statues put up to the slaves and their descendants.
I’m afraid I agree with his Tory opponent. It’s true that we shouldn’t have been slaving, but the Tory is right in that we were among the first to ban the slave trade and slavery. The first country to ban it was Denmark. We were the second. And although it’s obvious to us now that slavery is a massive crime against humanity, it was by no means so obvious before it was outlawed in the 19th century. There had been voices raised against it throughout history, but these were mostly just a minority and slavery was widely accepted by cultures across the globe. Those attacking Britain for its role in historic slavery don’t realise that it wasn’t as blindingly obvious then as it is now, and ignore the participation of other cultures. For example, it was African cultures that sold slaves to Europeans, and an examination of the voluminous records of the Dutch overseas trading company, the VOC, shows that in almost all cases it was Black African merchants and slavers who approached the Europeans.
And abolition of the slave trade was certainly not welcomed by the African slaving nations themselves. We went to war with Dahomey over their slaving, as well as against the slaving tribes in what is now Malawi and Zimbabwe. In 1828 West African slavers attacked a British trading post hoping to force us to take up slaving again, and Britain paid compensation and subsidies to some nations in order to prevent them for continuing the trade. This is forgotten, and I’ve never seen it mentioned in the debates over historic slavery. Also, the British naval patrols in west Africa were assisted by indigenous African auxiliaries, such as the Egba. They were eligible for the same compensation for injuries received on the battlefield as British matelots. One of the documents I read at the former Empire and Commonwealth Museum was an inquiry from one naval commander to the admiralty about this question. An Egba seaman serving with us had had a finger shot off. The commander asked whether he could get compensation. The admiralty replied in the affirmative, as this would encourage other indigenous Africans to assist us in extirpating the trade.
And also, if you’re going to put monuments up to the victims of the slave trade, this would have to include the slaves we liberated from other slaving nations, including the Islamic states, as well as the White slaves of the Barbary pirates. And I could imagine this leading to a massive row about racism and islamophobia.
This issue aside, some of the material Femi produces is very good indeed. The Eurosceptic, Reform-leaning right hate him ’cause, apart from the race issue, he’s a critic of Brexit and argues that we should rejoin. Well, even a certain internet non-historian has put out a video now arguing that the EU had nothing to do with mass immigration. This contradicts the claims of the right-wing Brexiteers, like Bojob and Farage. But Mike over on Vox Political and other left-wing critics were pointing out that the EU wasn’t responsible for it at the time, simply by citing the relevant international treaties. The legislation allowing immigrants and asylum seekers to move from one European country to another was the Schengen Agreement, which was separate from the EU treaties and which we weren’t party to. And globally, asylum seekers were covered by the International Treaty on the Refugee, signed in the 1950s, and which the anti-immigrant right are now grumbling about and would like to see Britain leave. Going back to Femi, all the arguments I’ve seen put up by him against Brexit are simply about how its damaged our economy with attacks on the racism of those from the right who argued for it. As it really has seriously damaged Britain’s industry and agriculture, the replies I’ve seen tend to be rants calling him stupid. Which he isn’t.
In this video, Femi tackles the knotty question of Labour’s support for Proportional Representation. The grassroots membership want it, it’s been included in one of the party’s policy documents, but leading Labour MPs don’t want it at all. The video begins with Femi saying he’s been banned from the conference. He runs alongside Wes Streeting trying to tackle him on it. Streeting tells him ‘it’s not a priority’. He gets the same response from Liz Kendall and Lucy Powell. He tries telling them that under the present system the majority of votes cast in this country don’t count, but they ignore him. They’re happy how the First Past the Post System works because it’s thrown up a Labour government with them in it.
Femi ends the video by stating that this attitude is selfish. Most of the votes cast in elections are for left-wing parties, but under the First Past the Post System the winning party is most frequently the Conservatives. They’ve won the majority of elections over the past eighty years with the occasional Labour government. Labour is happy with the system because it has resulted in a Labour government this time, and politicians like Streeting, Kendall and Powell are personally happy because they’re now in government. But it ignores the wishes of the mass of voters and condemns future generation to more Tory governments.
It’s an important video, because Open Britain has been campaigning for reforms to the electoral system to make it more democratic, including introducing Proportional Representation. They’ve set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group for this. But this shows that the ruling Blairite faction definitely don’t want it.
Possibly because they know full well that Labour was only elected with its massive majority with only a narrow percentage of the vote, 30 per cent or so. Which means that from their point of view, introducing PR would, in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby of fond memory, be
This weekend marks the Labour party’s first conference in power in fifteen years. Members of the Open Britain team and many of our colleagues in the democracy sector will be there to fight for a fairer and more functional politics.
After his rocky start with the public and in the media this summer, Keir Starmer will define his government with his keynote speech on Tuesday. He’s expected to frame Labour as a “reckoning for populism,” with a resounding message about lasting change from the chaos of the previous government – and the violent rhetoric of other populists like Nigel Farage.
The question is will the Prime Minister put his money where his mouth is? Will he address lobbying and dark money, pervasive disinformation campaigns, or the dysfunction of First-Past-The-Post? Lip-service is one thing, taking bold action is another – and time is running out for him to act. We’ll be paying close attention.
In addition to the PM’s speech and many potentially thorny membership motions on party policy, there’s a number of important events to look out for.
Here’s three events in particular to keep an eye out for:
Labour for a New Democracy’s Sunday PR Discussion
Labour for a New Democracy (L4ND) is hosting a panel on the dire need for proportional representation, with an eye on how it could benefit the party by making Starmer’s “change” stick. Under FPTP, there’s a good chance all Labour’s work simply gets overturned if the political pendulum swings back to the right in 2029.
Chaired by Anna Dixon MP, with speakers: Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, L4ND’s Caroline Osborne, and Professor Rob Ford.
Sunday, 22 September at 17:00, Hall 2D, ACC Liverpool
2. Politics Social’s Fringe Event on the Future EU-UK Relationship
A crucial and engaging discussion about the elephant in the room – Brexit – and the future of the UK relationship with our European neighbours.
Speakers include the European Movement’s Mike Galsworthy, Politics Social’s Graham Hughes, National Rejoin March founder Peter Corr, and political activist Femi Oluwole.
Monday, 23 September, 19:30 at the at the Ship & Mitre
3. Institute for Government Panels on Trust in Politics and PPE Procurement
The Institute for Government, alongside anti-corruption campaigners at Transparency International, will be running two panels, one about procurement and corruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, and another about restoring trust in politics (featuring Commons leader Lucy Powell).
Procurement: Monday, 23 September, 10:30-11:30AM, ACC Liverpool
Trust in Politics / Standards in Public Life: Monday, 23 September, 17:30-18:30, ACC Liverpool
There’s no doubt that this will be an interesting Labour Conference. For us at Open Britain, this weekend presents a golden opportunity to push Labour towards the real “tough decisions” it needs to make: Rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work of protecting our democracy before it’s too late.
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