Democracy, Like it or Lump It...

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So, according to Sunak, the democratic base and ideals of our society are under threat by extremists. Really. An unelected Prime Minister with no democratic mandate to speak of, let alone the talent or motivation to do the job properly, has decided to play the default Tory card of the extremist 'other': in this case George Galloway in particular, for having the temerity to actually win a democratically decided byelection. Shock horror! People not voting for his party! So of course this is obviously a case of extremist shenanagens and collusion by the forces of evil against the establishment. Whatever you think of Galloway, and in my opinion he's an attention-seeking plonker most of the time, he is at least on the side of the angels on this one issue: Gaza. The fact is that the political establishment - both sides of the fence - has shown a collective, partisan timidity over this admittedly treacherous and sensitive situation, and in so doing has simply lost sight of the actuality of what's happening in Gaza; so afrit of being branded anti-semitic by the press and the wider commentariat as they are.

The fact that this situation has absolutely nothing to do with race or religion, but everything to do with the abuse of human rights and the dismantling of the nationhood of Palestine at the behest of a hawkish, secular politician, Benjamin Netanyahu; the plain fact of which seems to continue to elude their panic-stricken, electorally-fixated minds. It is everything to do with the atrocity of a monumentally disproportionate and unfocussed response against the mostly blameless citizens of Palestine, to a relatively isolated act of terror by Hamas on Israeli citizens. And it is everything to do with the collective punishment of the defenceless innocent for political and territorial gain. In plain terms, it is simply morally and humanely wrong. Galloway, whatever his ultimate motives, at least has had the courage to maintain his stance. Whether his election was anything other than a protest vote against the Tories in the absence of a Labour candidate remains to be seen, and what good he'll be in the job only he can show us as he enters parliament. Whatever, I just hope that this stands as a lesson: timidity, apathy and fence-sitting will get neither us nor the Palestinian people anywhere. As for the prime minister? Head up his arse as usual...

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