“The ear of jealousy heareth all things:
That ghosts eat guts and pigs have wings
Truth and reality fade into blurs.
The colour of jealousy is said to be green
But that’s nature’s colour, everywhere seen.
Its conclusions, conjectures are half-cooked, raw
Jealousy is red in tooth and claw…”
From Substandard Fantasies,by Bachchoo
Our world is more than a cruel place — yes, ‘twas ever thus — but the contemporary catalogue of hatreds gives rise to new, shameful antagonisms.
Anne Widdicombe, a politician who used to be a Tory minister in past governments and subsequently defected from the Conservative Party to become a spokesperson for what is avowedly the neo-fascist movement called Reform, was murdered in her village home. Aged 78, her body was discovered 24 hours after she had been bludgeoned to death.
A 28-year-old white man has been arrested by the counter-terror squads of the British police. They seem to have conclusive evidence that this suspect is the murderer. The leader of Reform, Nigel Farage, has, before the police provide evidence in a court, publicly concluded that this murder was a “terror” motivated crime. He didn’t say which “terror”.
He obviously believes that the murderer was opposed to the policies of Reform, for which Anne Widdicombe was an official spokeswoman. As, gentle reader, you already know, the central policy of Reform, and probably the only one which garners votes and membership, is its virulent opposition to immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and of course to membership of the European Union, which would allow “Johnny Continental” free access to this country.
We can’t and shouldn’t know till the trial of the, as yet unnamed, accused takes place, what his motivation, if he is guilty, was. Opposition to neo-fascist, classic-fascist, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, imperio-nostalgic nationalism….?
That’s one possibility. The other may be that he was a member of, or sympathiser with, the stance of Restore, the party that broke away from Reform on the grounds that it was not far-right enough. Restore was initiated by Atilla the Hun (are you sure about this? –Ed. No, sorry, got led away –fd) — apologies, gentle reader, the fellow is called Rupert Lowe. Quite possibly, the murderer of Widdicombe belongs to this faction, attempting to silence one of Reform’s more persuasive propagandists.
The method of murder, bludgeoning someone and leaving them dead in a pool of blood, seems to me more likely the work of some ultra-right maniac, rather than a left-winger opposed to Reform’s stance on immigrants and asylum-seekers. Of course, one awaits the trial or further information from the anti-terror squad in charge of the case.
Other politicians, of differing sides of the divide, have suffered the same fate in the UK in recent times. The UK is far from the leading country for political assassination.
Yes, India has seen some — from the shooting of the Mahatma to that of Indira Gandhi and then Rajiv. But surely the record, from the shooting of Abraham Lincoln through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr and recently the right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk, sets the United States in the legendary lead?
Do most of these political killings in the UK and the US have some connection to race or religion? The Nazi mentality and persuasion certainly had some roots in anti-semitism. Does neo-Nazism share this hatred and even extend it to other religious groups?
The murder of left-wing the Labour MP, Jo Cox, in 2016, by Thomas Mair, a declared neo-Nazi Brit, suggests precisely that. In her inaugural speech in the House, she said that immigration, from Catholic Ireland and then from Muslim countries, had enhanced the economy and culture of Britain.
The opposite motivation animated Ali Harbi Ali, a sympathiser of the Islamic State (ISIS), who in 2021 stabbed to death Conservative MP Sir David Amess. Ali was arrested at the spot and later given a life sentence. He told the police in interviews that the assassination was motivated by the fact that Amess was a supporter of Israel and an enemy of the Islamic State.
The brutal murder of Ann Widdicombe has led the Reform leader Nigel Farage, and its deputy Richard Tice, to call for further security measures to safeguard the lives and even property of MPs and their families. Their call has been, at least verbally, supported by the departing PM, Sir Keir Starmer, and by the incoming PM, Andy Burnham.
The House of Commons has 650 members. To protect all of them and their families and include, within the security scheme, some outspoken right and left-wing members of the House of Lords and perhaps some mayors of Britain’s cities, would be a huge demand on the State’s police or other security forces or deployments. There would have to be some discretion and judgement of risk.
Undoubtedly, the Reform and Restore MPs face threats from each other and from jihadists who might see their policies as violently Islamophobic.
There already exists a register of possible terrorists called Prevent. The 28-year-old arrested for Ann Widdicombe’s murder was not on this register — which to me makes it more likely that he was a maniac from the “further” right, almost certainly a Restore supporter.
It also indicates that left-wing MPs could be targets for as yet undetected neo-Nazis, not on the “Prevent” books.
“Dread inna Babylon!2” — (as we Jamaicans say?)!
