Cameron During Resignation as Full of Shit as Always

by aga

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During his resignation speech Cameron played the perfect Tory and the perfect politician. I took note of some of the most preposterous things that came out his mouth. If listening to him doesn’t make you throw up, you can watch the full speech in the video below or read the transcript in the Telegraph.

 

Calling out the Prime Minister

CW: mention of gaslighting (only in the first paragraph)

It seems like in his speech, Cameron is gaslighting the whole world, as he is recreating our present reality by reshaping our memories of the past and denying his own violence. Gaslighting is a serious form of abuse, where the abuser tries to convince the victim of a version of reality that suits the abuser by manipulating the victim through denying reality and convincing them of a different version of the past. The purpose is to make the victim fond of the abuser so as to still be able to benefit from the uneven power relationship.

Blaming the people for Brexit

Throughout the speech Cameron makes sure to allocate the blame to the people for the horror that’s to come (If you want to know why we are devastated by Brexit read yesterday’s post). The first four sentences he utters all stress the people’s role in this decision.

By throwing a big number at us (33,000, 000 people) and making sure to mention every single one of the many countries that had a vote (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar) he makes sure to make it sound like everybody and their mom decided for this to happen. After all, as he says, they ‘all had their say’. He conveniently leaves out that the population of 16 and 17 year-olds was not allowed to vote, as the costs would have been too high, apparently. Two people I know  who aren’t in the UK at the moment registered a proxy to vote for them but neither of them ever got a polling cart. Obviously this is not some sort of conspiracy, it’s just a testament to bureaucratic democracy failing the people.

Taking credit for people’s achievements

cw: mention of suicide in the following paragraph.

‘I believe we’ve made great steps, with more people in work than ever before in our history, with reforms to welfare and education, increasing people’s life chances, building a bigger and stronger society, keeping our promises to the poorest people in the world and enabling those who love each other to get married whatever their sexuality, but above all restoring Britain’s economic strength’ – this is probably the part that angered me the most. More people are working, and what he doesn’t tell us is that most of them are working more hours for less money finding it increasingly hard to survive. Budget cuts to the NHS, which he is responsible for, are affecting already marginalised people to such an extent that suicide rates are rising so he is decreasing people’s life chances across the board.

Then the dirty Tory dares to take credit for ‘enabling those who love each other to get married, whatever their sexuality’, shitting all over the hard work the people put into this great achievement over decades (plus it is still hard for trans people to even get recognised by institutions, not to mention actually getting married).

Denying his own role

Cameron makes sure to distinguish the decision of the people very clearly from his own campaign for a Britain that’s better off in the EU. He tries to make us forget the horrendous Tory propaganda he has been responsible for, for at least the past six years. He makes us forget that it was him and his government that riled up everyone, from working class people to rich-as-fuck ‘liberals’, against immigration, against muslims, against Eastern Europeans and against the EU.

He tries to make us forget that it was his racist, ableist, classist and misogynist politics that sent the population into despair and made many feel powerless and hopeless. It is his politics that made people like Farage acceptable and even popular. And it is Cameron who is to blame for Brexit.

Playing the martyr

Cameron said: ‘The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected’ and ‘The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered’ – all of a sudden he is playing the civil servant. A fine civil servant who is blaming the people for his resignation as their decision is so different from his ideology which is why ‘the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction’. Nice one, first he messes everything up and then he leaves it to even more conservative and right wing politicians to take it from here. And he is trying to sell this screw up as in the best interest for the people?

Some casual nationalism

‘Britain is a special country’ and ‘I love this country’ reproduce the imperialist narratives of Britain’s greatness and ability to conquer all no matter how hard times are. It feeds right into the ‘we can do it on our own if we stick together as a nation’ storyline that has recently been made popular again through romantic adaptations of the ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ War time slogan, versions of which are decorating everything from pillows, to mugs and pet food bowls.

Cameron knows however, that the world has changed and Britain has changed so he scrupulously appropriates British diversity to advance a sense of nationalism by pretending that he too, like most of the British people, thinks the melting pot culture to be a good thing: ‘And while we are not perfect I do believe we can be a model for the multi-racial, multi-faith democracy’, he says, trying to make us forget that it was his government who put islamophobic and xenophobic anti-immigration laws into place and that under his government police brutality against people of colour has risen.

 

4 Reasons To Be Devastated about Brexit

~ by aga

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Solidarity with everyone affected by this horrific result

Britain voted to leave the EU in a people’s referendum yesterday.

We, at the Anti-Speciesist Collective, are devastated and spent half the day in disbelief over this result. None of us can imagine the consequences this political decision will have but we know that none of them will be beneficial to the people in or outside the UK, the animals and the planet.

First, let me say, I am not an EU-sympathiser. Under ordinary circumstances I always criticise the neoliberal imperialist politics and classist austerity measures that are results of EU politics. And I will, of course, continue to do so. However, I am devastated at Britain’s decision to leave, as the -by far- lesser evil would have been to stay.

We, as a collective, want to express our solidarity with everyone who will feel immediate (or indirect) repercussions of this dramatic shift in global politics.

In the rage, despair and anxiety I experienced receiving the bad news, it was hard to actually picture some of the consequences that are awaiting us now. In this blog post I tried to articulate 4 of my fears.

1 – The Rise of the far right

This referendum decision is a victory for nationalism and far right leaders (and followers) across Europe and beyond. The leave-campaign rhetoric was fuelled by nationalist, xenophobic and islamophobic propaganda from start to finish. There was no access to critical information engaging with horrific EU policies affecting women and non-binary people, people of colour and the working class in Britain or elsewhere and most information was based on polarising polemic fear mongering. So any supposed comrade who tells you they voted ‘leave’ out of some sort of leftist solidarity and in protest of EU austerity measures in Greece or elsewhere unfortunately sold their vote to Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Vladimir Putin etc. who will all gain even more momentum now. Even Donald Trump is already touring the UK in his quest for fascist unity on this side of the Atlantic. The ultra conservatives are celebrating and Nigel Farage went as far as to claim today as ‘Independence Day’. Centuries of colonial violence perpetrated by Britain and gruesome struggles for actual independence by the colonised are disrespectfully stomped upon, invalidated and forgotten about in one day. I don’t want to imagine where else this will lead.

2 – Geopolitics is a human concept of division that animals suffer from

I do denounce the concepts of borders, nation states and private property as violent for the economic and physical conflicts and devastation they cause. There are ideas about diminishing and even abolishing the sovereignty and power that nation states have so as to establish one unified, global government (this is worked on in theories about Cosmopolitanism, for example). The EU is precisely such an experiment on a continental level.

I like to imagine state and border abolition, along more anarchist lines. The former merely moves the power holder from one institution to another, where potentially differences would be erased and many parts of our lives could be assimilated to whoever will be in power (in a eurocentric capitalist world, implementing such a government would most likely not better the experience of most people in this world). An anarchist imagination on the other hand, removes the idea of a government, a patronising centralised institution that exerts its power over a variety of people and could never possibly accommodate their differences. Instead we think about localised, destratified and bottom-up decision making.

We need to remember that borders are a human construct. They were put into place to determine private property, to separate and protect possessions so as to ensure sustenance and even abundance for one party at the expense of another. In a world dominated by white cis human men, it is clear who is on the losing end of this deal.

Ideas such as private property, economics and geopolitics are alien to animals, yet they are affected by human divisions of the world just as much as we are. The help animals in certain countries get depends on the economic and geopolitical status of that state. Rumanian street dogs for example are at the mercy of Rumanian domestic and foreign politics just as much as Swedish law decides which animals can be shot for sport when and where in the country. With a reduced international influence upon the UK, it is questionable whether the welfare of cows on British farms, foxes and badgers in British forests, and dogs, rats and monkeys in testing laboratories will improve. Britain has a long history of opposition to vivisection and animal activists have celebrated many successes. The EU has also played a big part in influencing vivisection practices across the globe. Now it brings chills down my spine to even think about these poor souls imprisoned in British universities, breeding facilities and animal testing companies.

So Britain’s decision to leave the EU will have horrendous consequences upon animals inside and outside the monarchy. Additionally, international influence and restrictions upon environmental hazards (fracking, GMO, pesticide use) will be reduced, affecting the climate and all life far beyond the island.

3 -Austerity in Britain

cw: mention of suicide

Britain is already suffering from budget cuts to much needed services whilst at the same time private companies are sweeping them up. Recipients of disability benefits were already seeing drastic cuts to their finances and a experienced a reduction in their well being when Britain was still part of the EU.

Women’s shelters are being shut, doctors are overworked and underpaid like all staff in the care sector is, and Brexit has reduced Britain’s chances of outside support of these already suffering services.

Tuition fees skyrocketed during EU membership and universities are being privatised like nowhere else in Europe. Now that the education system will be even less influenced by Europe, British universities are likely to be more deregulated and education will become even less accessible.

Those who will suffer the most are of course young people of colour, the MOGAI/ LGBTQAI+ youth and girls as well as disabled kids and those growing up in a working class home.

Suicide rates amongst these marginalised identity groups are on the rise in the UK as it is.

4 – The EU brings social unity not just political and economic (in)depence

The press speaks of economic and political consequences but nobody ever mentions the social impacts Brexit has. Simply put, Brexit sends one very clear signal to Europeans living on the island: ‘We don’t need you. You’re not welcome here’.

The anti-immigration propaganda is very dominant in England. Islamophobia and xenophobia especially towards the many Eastern Europeans in the UK has been highly dangerous in recent years.

In his resigning speech, David Cameron made very clear that the referendum’s result will not have any initial effect upon the Europeans living inside the UK, nor on British citizens. In reality he knows, as do we, that families and friendships will suffer from Brexit making travel and migration in and out of the country harder than it already is. Access to services for non-citizens will be reduced (as it is already being reduced for citizens) and possibilities to form private connections to people through travel (without economic or political purposes) will become increasingly harder. This is not just due to upcoming policies but more so due to the interpersonal climate of fear and hate created by Brexit propaganda.