Thursday, October 08, 2020

The Brexit revolution continues to devour its children - now it's Steve Baker


Steve Baker didn't just want Brexit: he wants the European Union to be "wholly torn down".

But that is no longer enough for the revolutionaries who have taken over the Conservative Party.

Hence this denunciation on The Conservative Woman blog:

Baker blames his critics for misunderstanding him, but is sounding more like a Labour frontbencher than the sensible Tory backbencher we thought him to be.

It is indeed odd that he positions himself as the champion of the white working classes yet at the same time lambasts them for being ‘racists’ and not realising how very ‘privileged’ they are. Baker epitomises disjointed thinking by championing causes which help these dispossessed Britons yet simultaneously insults them with spurious denunciations of racism.

He is tearing up all of his good work. He can’t position himself as a ‘moderate’ yet partake in race-baiting. Baker may think he is a unifying force but he is being divisive. Thanks to the government’s fear campaign and economic damage Britons are worried and scared. They don’t deserve to be harangued like this by Baker or anyone else.

Prioritising feelings about racism above evidence, as Baker has done, feeds the fragile, childish identity politics zealots, for whom emotion rules all and reaching the highest echelons of victimhood is a legitimate, and lucrative, goal. Is this why Baker now resembles the contemporary Tory, a post-liberal Puritan masquerading as a conservative, seeking publicity while insulting his core voters? Or is his recent woke awakening a way to distract from the fact that he capitulates and then grovels at the first opportunity when confronted by the government?

With its championing of the working class and its opposition to any curtailment of liberty, even because of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Conservative Woman has more in common with Class War than it does with the traditions of the Conservative Party.

3 comments:

david walsh said...

The writer of this piece is the somewhat unfortunately named Karen Harradine. I went o look at the full Monty on Conservative Women, and got another take on her piece altogether - most of it is, in fact, bundled up with Baker's inability, in her eyes, to stand up to the sinister forces promoting lock down; "on Tuesday (Baker) found himself unable to join the diminishing band of rebels he once led to vote against cancelling the absurd ‘rule of six’. Despite Baker’s protestations, neither the ‘concessions’ agreed in place of the Brady amendment, nor the remedy these so-called Tory rebels purported it to be, made any difference. The renewal of the Covid Emergency Powers Act swept through, with Hancock’s ominous warning that the government will ‘act with speed when required’, hinting that further draconian rules will be imposed without respecting this amendment, ringing in the public’s ears." I suspect, were I bothered to do any more digging, I'd find comments about 'normies' and 'sheepies', fulminations about masks and probably a full on defence of David Icke - but, frankly, I've better things to do.

Jonathan Calder said...

We need effective measures against Covid-19 and we need those measures to be debated and voted on by parliament.

My experience of this sort of right-wing blog is that if parliament did all that then the blog would find a new reason for not supporting the measures.

Anonymous said...

The irony of someone who calls himself a liberal, castigating another for "opposition to any curtailment of liberty".

As for Baker, whatever his position on Brexit does not give him a free pass on supporting the anti-white racism that says white working-class people somehow are privileged.