The culture war only serves to distract us from the class war we're losing

Establishment elitists are desperate to use culture war to divide us, and distract us from the class war they're beating us at

Far-right culture war extremism has been the vile seepage at the bottom of the bin of British politics for decades. The branding has changed over time (British Union of Fascists, National Front, BNP, UKIP, Brexit Party, Reform) but the repulsive essence has remained the same. Namely using racism and xenophobia to drive divisions between the working classes, and to distract us from the system of class-based exploitation that’s actually causing most of our problems.

The main thing that’s actually changed is that far-right culture war extremism has worked its way from the extreme fringes of British political discourse, into the mainstream.

Reform have been boosted to the top of the polls with the help of their billionaire donors; warped social media algorithms; and constant attention and approval from Britain’s diabolical media class, while the Labour and the Tories attempt to imitate their culture war bollocks and anti-immigrant rabble rousing, rather than countering them.

One of the main reasons the establishment order are pushing this vile culture war nonsense rather than confronting it, is that they know that they’re the ones responsible for cratering living standards; unaffordable housing; collapsing real-terms wages; failing public services; privatisation profiteering; the deliberate vandalism of the social safety net; and the widespread sense that the country is locked into an inescapable downwards spiral.

The self-serving establishment class have found a use for the stinking bin juice of British politics. They’re intent on spreading it around and using the stench of it to mask what they’ve done to us.

The reality is that most of us have far more in common with first generation immigrants than we do with the wealthy establishment elitists who have been bleeding us dry for generations for their own enrichment.

This self-serving elitist class feel no solidarity for us just because they share the same skin pigmentation. The evidence is absolutely clear.

The white-British amongst the Westminster/media/capitalist establishment didn’t give a damn about the harm they were doing to millions of white working class people when they systematically flogged off our infrastructure and services to their mates at miles below their real values; when they ripped up the social safety net; when they used the banking crisis as an excuse to impose austerity ruination and wage repression policies; when they decided to deliberately underfund the NHS and harm the future potential of our kids by demolishing Sure Start, slashing education funding, and closing down countless youth clubs and outreach projects.

It works the same the other way around too. Once people of colour work their way into the establishment class, many of them have ended up amongst the worst pushers of divisive extreme-right, anti-immigration culture war (Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak …). This is because there’s no inherent solidarity between people of colour either, just like there’s no inherent solidarity just between a white working class family and the white establishment order who use capitalism and landlordism to exploit them.

The divisive brand of far-right culture war politics can be traced back to the British Union of Fascists and then the National Front, but the tactic is even older.

The British establishment elitists used divide and rule extensively in the British empire, creating divisions between the populations they were exploiting by favouring one ethnic group (usually the ones with the lightest skin tones) over others.

These divisions and resentments over who was getting more favours from the British overlords created enough internal strife that the British establishment class could loot the country’s natural resources, and mercilessly exploit its people with near impunity.

The same kind of story is playing out now, except these establishment ghouls no longer have an empire to exploit, so they’re squeezing the wealth out of ordinary British people, and using the same divide and rule tactics to provide cover for it.

It’d be wrong to pretend that large scale immigration doesn’t sometimes create problems, especially when austerity ruination; privatisation profiteering; public service cuts; and widespread landlordism have already pushed people and communities to the brink, and when no additional resources are provided in areas experiencing high immigration levels.

It’d also be wrong to pretend that all immigrants are good people, and that some terrible people haven’t found their way into the country.

But in the greater scheme of things it’s absurd to imagine that powerless people at the bottom are to blame for the current state of the country, when the establishment elitists were always the ones with the actual power, and while they’re soaking up ever bigger proportions of the national wealth for themselves as they punish the rest of us with capitalist exploitation; landlordism; privatisation profiteering; austerity; public service cuts; and wage repression.

It’s utterly ridiculous to pretend that the main problems being faced by British families are a few thousand refugees arriving in small boats, or imaginary woke-left bogeymen trying to take away their bacon, or force them to eat sourdough bread.

It’s equally absurd to imagine that the collapse in living standards can be resolved by painting crosses on mini-roundabouts, or threatening asylum seekers outside their accommodation.

It’s deeply infuriating to see the establishment order using the exact same divide and rule tactics from the days of empire on the British people. And it’s even more infuriating that so many actually seem willing to fall for the nonsensical story that it’s refugees and people arriving in small boats who are to blame for deteriorating living standards, rather than the incredibly wealthy people with actual power - the very same people who are busy bankrolling and spreading all the extreme-right ultranationalism as a smokescreen for their own exploitative and repressive practices.