Into the fire...

In many ways, Brexit is a decapitation policy. Cut off the head and the body dies. That is why the establishment fears it. But we have heard this word "establishment" bandied about with reckless abandon for some time now. That gives us an indication as to why our efforts to leave the EU have failed. The word establishment is far too ill-defined to land a punch.

But so as much a Ukip have handed us a defeat there is an opportunity presented to us by this referendum. Recent events have shone a torch on who the establishment are and the power they wield.

There is a particular club at the heart of UK politics. There are few paths to entry. A prestigious degree in the political sciences from the right university is one point of entry. That alone though is insufficient. You must also believe what they believe and behave as they behave. You must think like them. The greatest faux pas is to question the prevailing orthodoxy in any way.

And though it resides in Westminster it glides effortlessly into the EU and above. There is considerable overlap between the think tanks, charitable foundations, NGOs, lobby groups and the EU. Many of which are EU funded. And there is one notable exemplar of it. To borrow from a recent blog post elsewhere:

"Tribute after tribute bore witness to Jo Cox’s uniqueness. But in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, women like Jo Cox are ten a penny across the West these days — bland, compliant functionaries who have been marinated in political correctness and are happy to regurgitate the platitudes and attitudes of their political masters. And are well-rewarded for doing so."

She was that toxic combination of self-righteousness and entitlement which believed itself possessed of a special moral insight into the moral shortcomings of their own people. Never slow to parade her compassion, she was also calculating enough to help more dubious causes, as when she lent her name to a government minister who was lobbying for Britain to begin bombing in Syria. Bombing and babies; it was all business for Jo Cox.

Hers was the typical smooth career path of the modern political cog. From her grammar school, where she was the Head Girl, she seamlessly moved onto an extended period at two universities before emerging as professional aid worker for Oxfam and Save the Children. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was another fashionable international development outfit in which she managed to wangle a position as “advisor.”

This is the recruitment funnel into this world, where those most able to conform are put on the ticket and parachuted into a safe seat. A Westminster platform it a gateway post to permanent residence in a political establishment going all the way up to the UN. Ministers and above are guaranteed to become part of an elite dynasty and entirely untouchable by democracy. Former foreign secretary David Miliband pockets an astonishing £400,000 as boss of a refugee charity along with fees for public speaking, much like Blair, Hague and Major.

And in this there are no real party divides. It spans into the high offices of the media too. But this is how we get the Stephen Kinnocks of this world. Dan Snow, Stephen Kinnock, Hillary Benn, John Cryer, Euan Blair, Chuka Umunna, all in some way part of an emerging hereditary political class. Particularly on the left it seems.

And though we have a cabal of Etonians dominating Downing Street, they are there largely because they conform to the orthodoxy. Johnson, Cameron and Osborne are not conservatives. The well oiled machine has ways of dealing with those who hold different ideas.

The say feudalism is when it's your count that votes. That is pretty much the model parliament works on to this day. The only difference is that once every five years, by accident of numbers, there's a remote shot at ousting our representatives, who in the meantime can pretty much do as they please in our name. This is not sufficient to call it a democracy. It is entirely self-serving and it is dangerous.

The reason it is dangerous is because this is a class who believes the more one emotes the more virtuous one is. This explains the outpouring of emotional incontinence in the wake of the Jo Cox murder. Those MPs, of which there are still a few remaining who think the whole sordid show is nauseating, must bury their opinions deep where nobody will ever find them. To utter disapproval even as a local councillor sees you disbarred and ostracised. It's political suicide.

There is a political correctness where if breached it is considered amoral. And that is where we get the expression "polite society". There is a convention that the truth must not be uttered. One must not express doubts about climate change, one must never question orthodoxy, and and one never ask questions as to the effectiveness, legitimacy or accountability of the NGOs deeply entrenched in government and policy making. One must never say that Jo Cox and those like her are part of a parasitic class of wastrels who do untold damage to everything they touch.

And so for as long as this establishment exists there is no effective political opposition in the Commons. Even the media is self-censoring out of politeness. And they will say that anyone who opposes them is "hate filled". And to a large extent it is true. Those of us who have different ideas really do hate these people with a passion and will not mourn the passing of Jo Cox however brutal her passing. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

And because the public take little direct interest in politics, they look at the well engineered wholesome image of these people, wrapped in their Oxfam causes, parading their virtue, putting on fair trade events and preaching about sustainable development, how could the average, disengaged voter possibly get the impression that they are malign self-serving fascist bastards who hate democracy and the people the nominally serve?

Hence why the bovine will always vote to remain in the EU. If taking a principled stand against such people means being labelled by the orthodoxy then it becomes socially inconvenient and damaging to the careers of anyone trying to make it in the arts.

And so this is why there is a culture war, and though I detest the Ukips and the Breitbarts of this world I am still more one of them than one of the simpering, slovenly, shallow political class. And if there is a toxic atmosphere, and I certainly intend to nurture one, it is because our establishment is toxic. It has free run of the machines to do as it pleases, with our money, with nothing to stop them except for a timid bunch of gutless Tory backbenchers.

And so this referendum is not just about cutting them off from the global elite ruling class, it is about destroying them and everything they stand for. The expression "culture war" is not just a piece of rhetoric. It is a war, a very real one and we will have to use the mechanisms of state to subvert them.

Brexit is not just a transactional piece of politics. It is a revolution. And it isn't a right wing revolution. Like I say, this isn't a left right issue. This is about removing a self-serving cult from the heart of government. We have already sleep-walked into a technocratic dictatorship without even realising it has happened.

And so with our best ticket thwarted we are back at square one. Ukip has been routed and stands discredited and what passes for conservatism is weak and diminished. We are without an effective organisation and without a strategy. That is what the next debate must be: How we go about taking the power back.

But this is ultimately why Vote Leave failed. It is a contrivance of toryboys who mouth the word "establishment" with no real idea of what it means or why it must be destroyed. They never understood who we were fighting or why. They are part of the problem.

This is a long fight, and this is a fight to the bitter end. We have missed a major opportunity here. But at least now we have seen who the enemy is, how low it will sink and how it operates. We now stand a better chance of fighting them. And fight them we will.

It is fitting that the enemy should choose Jo Cox as their martyr and their figurehead, because she represents everything we ought to despise. Faux sentimentality, self-enrichment and self-righteousness. They who have robbed parliament of its gravitas, robbed the British state of its moral authority and smashed our institutions. And so offend them we must. We must say that which must be said and we must empower people to speak out against them. They draw their power through the lack of opposition.

In this we most first remove the wastrels on our own side. The Hannans, Farages and Redwoods. This isn't about immigration, and its not even about the EU. The EU is just a symptom. This is about democracy - a revolution - removing these people and making sure they never get to do this to us again.

Meanwhile, watch out for the next sleight of hand. They will say that we should be more polite about our rulers otherwise we are contributing to that toxic atmosphere that will see more MPs put in the ground. It will be considered rude and improper in polite society and the media to be seen to be talking about our rulers are though they are malign self-serving shits, and in so doing silencing legitimate criticism.

The subtext of it is that we go back to that war time consensus that our rulers must not be criticised. "That kind of talk gets MPs killed" they will say. Like I give a solitary shit. They have made it quite clear what they think of us. The feeling is entirely mutual. They have started something ugly.