It can be quite striking how different perceptions of political events are. Most commentators viewed Rishi Sunak’s election announcement by standing outside No 10 in a drenching downpour as insulting. At best, it’s a symbol of his poor judgment. At worst, it is a harbinger of the coming apocalypse.
But the real people I spoke to talk about the one thing they found most notable about that scene: the infuriating, ugly blast of amplified music described in the broadcast media as a “protest” outside the gates of Downing Street.
This “protest” was not a mass demonstration of organized discontent against the Government. It was a childish display of Steve Bray, the bellowing clown who memorably disrupted much of College Green’s coverage of the Brexit debate with his relentless shouting. He was accompanied in Downing Street by a handful of friends and a boombox blaring the New Labor anthem “Things Can Only Get Better”.
In fact, those watching on television had forgotten the lyrics of the song: All they heard was a meaningless rhythmic roar that could not drown out the Prime Minister’s speech. What it did was create an offensive sense of disrespect not only towards Mr Sunak and his party, but also towards the institutions of government and the population being addressed.
What horrified most ordinary viewers was that any prime minister who announced an election, the most important democratic moment in the life of a free society, could be subjected to this ridiculous, humiliating charade without any apparent obstruction by the police or security services. Many of my interlocutors asked: In what other country would this be allowed to happen?
In fact, police took action after the speech and its accompanying “protest” ended, and Bray was allegedly banned from entering the Westminster area. But the mystery of why this didn’t happen immediately remains, as there are now laws preventing demonstrations that lead to noisy interference.
As it was, the impression of lawlessness and anarchic chaos remained, which might well reflect on the Government. Have the Conservatives, with their record-breaking levels of unpopularity, lost control of the apparatus of authority to such an extent that even their most important official statements to the public are treated with open disdain?
But no, actually this analysis is not valid. Even Boris Johnson, having just won the election with huge popular support, was met with a shrill cacophony from the pavement outside Number 10 when he tried to speak to the country from the stairs. What is happening here should be offensive to anyone of any political persuasion who believes in the democratic process.
It’s important to see this for what it is: not just a few obnoxious clowns making a nuisance of themselves, but part of a much larger pattern in which very small groups of people can take over public space and bully much larger groups of people. silence. It is certainly worth remembering that the vociferous Left-wing activists who manage to rally audiences for the BBC’s Question Time or organize social media rampages against public figures (including elected Parliamentarians) who dare to voice biological truths are a minority. By definition – because all political activism is a quest for a minority.
The confusion they exploit is the idea that it is in itself a sacred freedom for elected governments to block efforts to communicate with their people. The flawed logic here should be obvious. The right to protest is of course essential in a free society, but it cannot be in the form of preventing those with whom you disagree from being heard. If people whose views you dislike do not have the right to freedom of expression, neither do you.
Elected governments traditionally have the right to outlaw certain types of expression. Until recently, this was limited to quite extreme examples: death or blackmail threats, incitement to violence, criminal libel. More recently, it has been wildly expanded to include statements that offend small groups of experts in secret ways. But we have now reached a stage where even disagreements about what can be said cannot be discussed.
Activist minorities actually make it impossible to discuss not only their own views but also the idea that such views could be debatable. There should be no debate about what is acceptable to argue about. Therefore, the claim that until recently was considered an ugly claim, for example, that men who call themselves women are actually women, should not be considered open to discussion. If you oppose this edict and insist that this is a controversial issue open to discussion, you may be silenced by intimidating mobs who can take away your right to express your opinion with apparent impunity (since they are exercising their right to protest). .
It is not just the respect for politicians of a particular party or generation that is denigrated; It is the entire initiative of responsible government. How much legitimate authority can a prime minister have when such an important announcement is drowned out by a handful of ushers with a noise machine? And why should extremely small groups of lobbyists be able to set the boundaries of public discourse?
The secret of their disproportionate influence is a formula well known on the Left for more than a century: organization, commitment, discipline. As in the Downing Street case, very small numbers can create a completely disproportionate amount of oppressive noise. Ordinary people, even those who consider themselves politically active and intelligent, cannot compete with this tireless interventionism that can rise up at any time, in any environment that offers an opportunity to exert influence.
For reasons that future historians will explain, official authority made a conscious decision to grant this license to allow minority lobbies to dominate the public scene.