Right said fred
If you ever wondered how the UK is leaning politically, then the events of this weekend would give you a pretty good idea of where it is.
On Saturday, an army of black clad, balaclava wearing men assembled from all over the country and blockaded the port of Dover - one of the UK's largest and busiest ports. They stopped traffic leaving and entering for a couple of hours. Chaos ensued. Some were chanting "stop the boats" - referring to the people who cross the channel on makeshift dinghys from France seeking asylum. It was a protest instigated by some far right group.
The police presence was negligible, the police apparently unaware anything was going on. No arrests were made and the group dispersed after their point was made.
Contrast this with a group of Just Stop Oil protesters who were arrested and jailed a year or so back for planning to block a motorway. Not jailed for blocking; jailed for just planning.
Imagine the resources needed to discover that the Just Stop Oil people were planning a protest. Maybe an undercover cop or government agent infiltrated the group, or sophisticated surveillance technology was brought to bear on this group of people.
That the same resources weren't deployed against the threateningly garbed "protestors" kind of suggests either the police/government agencies didn't know about it, or they knew about it and did nothing. Neither of which show them in a good light.
A meticulously planned far right protest based on racism completely ignored by the law in a country where protests have to be announced well in advance? It kind of suggests that the powers-that-be are happy with this sort of thing occurring.
Furthermore, far right political party Reform (think the UKs version of MAGA) had a party conference this weekend. When the party leader Nigel Farage stood to give his speech, a couple of people stood up and heckled him. They were immediately attacked by a swarm of angry conference goers - most of them obviously pensionable age.
There's video of a young woman being hit on the head with the handle of a walking stick, an old lady pulling her hair whilst an old man behind her grabs her by the throat and almost stuffs his fingers in her mouth. She's almost swamped by violent angry old people before security finally step in and deal with her in a professional manner.
Farage stands on stage, laughing at her and proclaims that it's "Boring."
I've not seen much mainstream media coverage of this. It's mainly been covered by social media.
So the UK is currently in a place where far right protests go completely unchallenged, where dissenting voices at far right conferences get violently physically attacked. Where none of this seems to spark any outrage in the general public.
We're on a dark path.