Tyrell is a commentator whose output covers government corruption, Islamic extremism and the defence of Western civilisation. Today he writes about “Trevor the electrician” and other working citizens of Britain who feel unheard in their own country. All they are asking for is citizenship, democracy and pride in the country which made a better world. - Daniel Clarke-Serret (editor)
There is a strange creature living in modern Britain. It works for a living, pays tax, owns a slightly elderly diesel car, likes its local pub, thinks men are men and women are women, believes criminals should probably be arrested and has the astonishingly controversial opinion that a country ought to know who is coming through its borders. For most of British history this creature was known as a normal person. Today, apparently, it is a threat to democracy.
Somewhere between Tony Blair discovering focus groups and Whitehall discovering pronouns, the British establishment seems to have concluded that the ordinary people who built the country are rather inconvenient. They are fine when a boiler needs fixing, a motorway needs resurfacing or somebody has to climb onto a roof in horizontal rain in February. But when it comes to discussing how Britain should actually be run, suddenly Trevor the electrician is expected to shut up because someone called Poppy, who has three degrees and has never changed a fuse, has completed a stakeholder consultation. This, apparently, is progress.
The modern British establishment has performed one of the most remarkable tricks in political history. It has spent decades telling us that it represents ordinary working people while becoming increasingly baffled by them. It talks endlessly about communities while apparently disapproving of any community that has existed for more than twenty minutes. It celebrates identity, except British identity, which must be approached like an unexploded Second World War bomb. It celebrates diversity, provided everybody holds precisely the same opinions. It celebrates free speech, provided nobody says anything unexpected. And it absolutely adores democracy right up until the electorate votes for the wrong thing, at which point democracy apparently needs counselling.
The working classes have watched all this with the expression of a man whose Labrador has just driven away in his Volvo. They were told to work hard, so they did. They were told to buy their homes, so they tried. They were told to save for retirement, so they did. They were told to obey the law, pay their taxes and take responsibility for themselves. And their reward? Their children cannot afford houses, energy costs a fortune, the local pub is closing, the roads have developed geological features and getting a doctor’s appointment increasingly resembles attempting to secure an audience with the Pope.
But don’t worry. The government has produced a strategy. There will almost certainly be a website. Possibly even a logo. And somewhere in Whitehall, eighteen people on £80,000 a year will hold a meeting about community resilience pathways while Mrs Miggins in Stoke waits six months to have her hip looked at. You really could not make it up. Actually, you could, but the BBC would commission it as a six-part drama and somehow make the villain a plumber from Essex.
Then there is the endless lecturing. The ordinary British citizen is now lectured about virtually everything. His car is wrong. His boiler is wrong. His food is wrong. His opinions are wrong. His fireplace is wrong. His holiday is wrong. His lawnmower is probably wrong. And if he has the temerity to drive to work in a van containing actual tools, some minister who travels around in a chauffeured electric limousine will explain why he needs to make sacrifices for the planet. You can almost hear Dave from Doncaster saying, “That’s marvellous, minister. Shall I carry the cement mixer onto the bus?”
This is where the progressive establishment has completely lost the plot, because the people issuing these instructions generally don’t experience the consequences of them. If electricity becomes expensive, they can afford it. If houses become expensive, they already have one. If an area deteriorates, they move. If the local school declines, they find another. If transport becomes difficult, somebody sends them a car. If government bureaucracy becomes impossible, they know somebody called Sebastian who works in policy.
For millions of ordinary people, however, there is no Sebastian. There is Tuesday. And Tuesday involves getting up at six, scraping ice off the windscreen, driving twenty miles to work and wondering why the people making national policy seem to inhabit a completely different country. Because increasingly they do.
There are now effectively two Britains. There is Britain One, where people discuss net zero transition frameworks, inclusive stakeholder ecosystems and sustainable behavioural change over oat-milk cappuccinos. Then there is Britain Two, where somebody has just received a £900 garage bill and is wondering whether they can afford Christmas. Britain One writes the rules. Britain Two pays for them. And Britain Two is getting thoroughly fed up.
The greatest insult, however, is not economic. It is cultural. Ordinary people have watched their country change at extraordinary speed and discovered that asking questions about this process can itself be treated as suspicious. They might say they want controlled immigration and be called far right. They might say they want integration and be accused of using a dog whistle. They might say British history should be taught with some pride and be told that this is problematic. They might suggest that perhaps not absolutely everything about Britain before 2010 was evil and discover that they have somehow wandered into colonialism.
At this rate someone will discover that Winston Churchill once ate marmalade and the government will issue guidance advising us to spread apricot instead.
There is nothing inherently extremist about wanting your children to inherit something recognisable from you. Every civilisation on Earth understands this. The Japanese understand it. The Indians understand it. The Italians certainly understand it because they will fight you with kitchen implements if you put pineapple on the wrong pizza. Yet when British people express attachment to their own customs, history or national identity, certain sections of the establishment immediately begin examining them as though they have discovered mould behind the fridge.
Why?
The working-class Briton has generally been astonishingly tolerant. He has welcomed newcomers, worked alongside people of every race and background, eaten Indian food, watched American television, driven German cars, drunk Australian wine and gone on holiday to Spain. This is not exactly the behaviour of a population trembling behind the curtains because Ahmed has opened a shop.
But tolerance is not the same thing as surrendering the right to have a country, and kindness does not require stupidity.
The great failure of progressive politics is that somewhere along the way it began confusing compassion with the complete abandonment of judgement. Everything must be accepted. Everything must be accommodated. Everything must be understood. Except, oddly enough, the concerns of the people who already live here. Those must be corrected.
So when millions of people say, “Hang on, I’m not comfortable with this,” the modern establishment does not ask why. It produces a label. Populist. Reactionary. Gammon. Bigot. Extremist. Far right. Apparently anything will do except the obvious one: voter.
This is an extraordinarily stupid way to run a country. You cannot spend twenty years telling millions of people that their instincts are backward, their history is embarrassing, their culture is negotiable and their opinions are suspicious, then express astonishment when they stop trusting you. That is not populism. That is cause and effect.
And yet the establishment continues. It behaves like a man standing in a burning kitchen insisting that the real problem is the smoke alarm.
Britain does not need another seminar. It does not need another national conversation hosted by six people who already agree with one another. It does not need another glossy report containing the words inclusive, sustainable, stakeholder and journey. It needs competent government, affordable energy, homes young people can buy, borders that actually function, schools that teach children rather than conduct social experiments upon them, police who police, courts that command respect, infrastructure that works and public institutions capable of serving people without simultaneously informing them that their entire civilisation requires an apology.
This really isn’t radical. It is the political equivalent of asking that the restaurant bring the food you ordered rather than delivering a twelve-page mission statement about potatoes.
Above all, Britain needs to rediscover something its establishment seems to have forgotten. The country does not belong to Westminster. It does not belong to Whitehall. It does not belong to universities, broadcasters, think tanks, NGOs or whichever committee has recently appointed itself custodian of acceptable opinion. It belongs to the people who live here.
It belongs to the nurse finishing a night shift, the mechanic opening the garage, the farmer checking livestock at dawn, the shopkeeper putting up the shutters, the builder drinking tea from a mug containing enough tannin to strip paint, and the pensioner who worked for forty years and simply wants to walk down a familiar high street in a country that still feels like home.
These people are not an embarrassing obstacle to Britain’s future. They are Britain.
And perhaps the clever people running the country might eventually notice something rather important. You can ignore them, lecture them, sneer at them and invent increasingly exotic names for them. But sooner or later, even the most patient bloke in Britain eventually puts down his tea, looks at the absurd machine he has been paying to maintain and says:
“No. That’s enough of that.”
SUBSCRIBE TO GUERRE & SHALOM: The home of true democratic conversation.
Wake up or wither away
This is a timely and important by Tyrell Bowman that is well-written and well-argued! Great Britain is an amazing country! A nation with great people, great food, much fascinating history, unbelievable landscapes, magnificent palaces, diverse cultures, and rich traditions that go back centuries. But right now it is in the worst shape it’s been in since the 1970s and is going through the toughest period in its history since World War II. The political establishment in Britain has lost touch with its people. They’ve become so isolated in London in their own little bubble they’ve forgotten why they were sent there in the first place, to govern. They take for granted the folks who elected them. They care more about scoring political points and beating the other team than serving the British people as evidence by their continued support for mass immigration and covering up of the Grooming Gang Scandal. What can be done at this point to save Britain?! Is it even possible?! It is, but it will take rapid change and fast action to make it happen! The next five to ten years I predict will be crucial to deciding the future direction of the UK!
First off, Andy Burnham and the Labour Party must go. Kemi Badenoch and the Tories must ascend to power. Second, a comprehensive immigration reform bill must be passed through parliament and mass deportations of illegal immigrants and migrants carried out. Britain’s borders must be secured. The Royal Navy must detain and turn around migrant boats. Assimilation and patriotism must stressed to newcomers. The social safety net must be more efficiently managed. Government spending needs to be cut. The cost of university and childcare needs to be cut way down. More affordable housing needs to be built especially in the big cities like London. Britain needs to scrap its unworkable and unscientific Climate Change policy, start using fossil fuels again and drill baby drill! Britain must also adopt nuclear energy and start building as many nuclear plants as possible. British Rail must be revived. The death penalty will be allowed for the most serious crimes and grooming gang members found guilty will be automatically eligible for it. More police will be put on the street. Stop and Search will be brought back. The big cities like London will be cleaned up. The Royal Marines will be sent in to protect Jewish communities and institutions. Britain will crackdown on antisemitism. Universities who refuse to protect British students will be defunded. Britain will withdraw its recognition of a Palestinian state. Britain will sign a defense pact with Israel. Britain will officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there. Britain will legally recognize the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights as legal.
Britain and Northern Ireland will negotiate to bring down the trade barriers between each other and the Unionists will rejoin the Good Friday Agreement as quickly as possible. Britain will take the public position that although it’s up to the people of Northern Ireland, they would prefer Northern Ireland stays part of the UK. Britain will stop trying to cater to Ireland and have only limited relations with the Irish Republic. British politicians from both Labour and the Tories will run robust political campaigns in Northern Ireland. Britain will sell the Chagos Islands to the United States NOT Mauritius! Britain will do a massive military build up and increase military spending significantly. Britain will take several measures to increase birth rates significantly. Britain will incorporate the siesta from Spanish and Latin American culture into British culture. Lower density housing will be built so British families have more space to raise children. British children will be taught fertility education from a young age. The cost of housing will be slashed way down. Crime will be brought down in the cities. The education system will be reformed. The nuclear family will be restored and marriage rates brought up. The British media will shift its portrayals of marriage and family to being more positive. Traditional mores surrounding sex will make a comeback abc be encouraged by the government and by society. The Church of England will reform and get new leadership. Pluralism will make its return to the church. The university system will be reformed. DEI will be banned and purged from British society. Britain will rebuild the “special relationship” with the United States. Britain will pull all its funding for the UN and defund UNRWA. Britain will start buying its energy from the United States, from places like Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota, and New Mexico NOT Russia.
A robust investigation into the grooming gang scandal will be started and the British government will sincerely apologize for ignoring it and all the victims will be paid reparations. The Royal Navy will help fight piracy on the high seas and don’t joint patrols with the U.S. Navy. A national unity government will be formed by new Prime Minister Badenoch and a national state of emergency will be declared. A sense of national unity and solidarity will be fostered. Britain will start ferreting out Russian and Chinese influence in the country. Britain will allow only 50,000 people a year to come into Britain. Companies who hire illegal immigrants will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Corporations will be incentivized to hire native-born British workers and legal immigrants instead. Britain will prioritize immigrants from the Anglosphere and Europe. A solid white ethnic British demographic majority will be built.