Before a number of Britons took to the streets protesting against asylum hotels, raising the flag, painting the red cross at roundabouts, online agitators in the UK looked to the US for a lead, longing for a similar Trumpian regime change.
There were calls for our American cousins to colonise us, free us, or at least support us in the battle royal between the Labour government and the people it was elected to represent.
The historic ‘special relationship’ took on a new form, one that is less an official solidarity between the nations and more a natural allegiance between the natives. Currently, a large contingent of Britons are continuing to take to the streets to bring about not so much a ‘revolution’ but what David Starkey recently referred to as a ‘restoration’. To paraphrase Alexander Pope: Hope springs internal. Of course if Britons have to fight this war alone they will, but assistance from America is welcome. Particularly if it comes sooner rather than later.
At the beginning of the year high profile figures close to the Trump administration expressed support via social media. Elon Musk used X to highlight his anger over the grooming gang scandal, and the Labour apparatchiks who purposely kept the serial rape of young white girls by Pakistani Muslim men under wraps. Musk called out the government’s authoritarian attempts to censor free speech, and the lengthy sentences introduced to silence those that speak out. His inability to pause for thought before posting his comments led to extreme attacks on deserving targets, culminating in the rallying of the establishment’s mob. Referring to fairweather feminist Jess Phillips as a 'rape genocide apologist’ following her refusal to support a national inquiry into the gangs, gave her the opportunity to return to the familiar role of slighted victim. A stance that often results in Phillips comparing herself to Jo Cox, and a make-over in a broadsheet supplement.
It’s months later, and Musk has upped the ante by putting his weight behind those protesting about asylum hotels, those attaching the national flag or the Union Jack to anything they can. He has also boosted the capitals and the exclamation marks in his posts to boldly underline his rage: ‘A government that puts foreigners above their own people is, by definition, TREASONOUS and ILLEGITIMATE!’ In one wordless post he simply included the flag of St George, which raked in millions of views. ‘The UK is gone over to the dark side’, wrote General Mike Flynn, the retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as national security advisor to President Trump, while proudly reposting a Tommy Robinson story. Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA has regularly returned to the sadness he feels at watching a country with Britain’s culture, history and standing in the world destroy itself. It was odd, but heartwarming, seeing him put Skegness on the map from his Arizona HQ, when responding to the march through the seaside town on the Lincolnshire coast: ‘Rise up, England!!!’
Previously these figures expressed fear and sorrow while witnessing from afar the impact that mass immigration has had on this country and the assault on free speech. Notably Lucy Connolly serving ten months in prison, charged under the Public Order Act for a social media post that she removed after three and half hours. Further legislation, in the form of the Online Safety Act, is having an impact on American companies with skin in the game. Lawyers are rallying stateside, major tech corporations are tooling up, with the Labour government in their sights.
If Americans needed futher proof of the war on free speech on these shores it came during the hearing in US Congress this week, at which the UK’s Online Safety Act was addressed. In his evidence to the House Judiciary Committee Nigel Farage brought those present, those watching, smack, bang up to date by citing the Lucy Connolly case, and the arrest at Heathrow Airport of comedy writer Graham Linehan the previous day, for gender critical social media comments posted months before. The fact that Linehan has relocated to America because of the attacks on his freedom drove the point home, and Farage comparing Britain to North Korea parked it.
While Linehan has absconded to America, others would be happy if the current American president came here. Recently, a protestor outside an asylum hotel addressed the camera, begging President Trump to send in his team and take us over. While Trump has not appeared to be up to speed on the free speech issue in Britain, his Vice President J.D. Vance has regularly commented since his address to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February. He shared with a silent, shell shocked audience his fears that free speech was in ‘retreat’ across Europe, calling out the United Kingdom where ‘consience rights’ and ‘basic liberties’ were under threat. While the President was alerted to this trend during a press call in July when hosting Keir Starmer at Trump’s Turnberry golf course, in Scotland. GB news put the questions that the BBC and the mainstream media failed to address: What could Starmer learn from Trump on dealing with illegal immigration? Is he aware of the Labour government’s attack on free speech? Playing Harpo to Trump’s Groucho, Starmer squealed: ‘We have had free speech for a very long time so, errrr, we're very proud about that’. But no one listens to Starmer, and many have stopped laughing at him. The joke isn’t funny anymore.
In the wake of the protests on the streets of Britain, the raise the flag campaign, the comments of those concerned Americans have shifted from sadness and frustration in the response to a cri de coeur to a clarion call. Without the internet and social media platforms, without X, the organisation and activism of this embryonic movement would not be possible. Which is why the government is eager in its urgency to bring about censorship and double down on sentencing. ‘Most of Britain is still sleepwalking through this nightmare,’ wrote the US podcaster and journalist Ian Miles Cheong recently. ‘But more people are finally waking up and it’s thanks to X.’
The ailing mainstream media continues to cling to an alternate narrative. Andrew Marr, former BBC stalwart, informed his LBC listeners that social media is ‘selling ringside seats for a carnival of hatred, designed to tear us all apart’. Is Marr being disingenuous? Is he alarmingly deluded? It’s a statement that contradicts a similar gormless comment he made on Question Time last year, within what seemed like minutes of Labour winning the election. ‘For the first time in many of our lives’, he told the BBC audience, ‘Britain looks like a little haven of peace and stability.’
With the Home Office using the courts to overule councils opting to close down asylum hotels, and Yvette Cooper announcing further immigration, this time from Gaza, it’s unlikely the anger of the people on the streets is on the wane. More women appear to be turning up at these marches and making themselves known, which further diminshes the charge of ‘far-right thugs’ that has become as tired as the placards held aloft by the dwindling number - leaving the real dregs - of demonstrators challenging them.
America is therefore welcome as an ally, but it won’t be needed to colonise or invade in order to bring about change. Hope springs internal.
The British may relish the support of their American cousins, but Britons have taken the initiative and are themselves taking the battle to the British government, and its accomplices in the media and the courts. The grooming gang scandal, the scale of immigration in recent decades, the fixation on identity politics which has led politicians away form the core issues that concern the majority of voters, has not brought diversity but division. Of course this is now an old thought, wrapped in a familiar phrase, one that’s been self-evident to many of us for sometime. But the divide is now between two tribes. A battle has begun, and if it continues, everyone will be forced to choose a side. A choice that brings to mind the rallying Situationist slogan from the 1960s: ‘One day you will wake up and decide which side of the bed you are lying on’.