You are the wrong one, the violent one, the weird one.
Whereas I, I am the chosen one, for I am of the first ones.
These were the touching words with which Brent East MP, Dawn Butler welcomed the start of the British Black History Month last year.
The original cut of the video of this charming poem about black racial superiority included portraits of Assata Shakur, one of the FBI’s so-called “Most Wanted Terrorists”, after she escaped custody in 1979 following a conviction for murdering a police officer. It also featured Nation of Islam leader Khalid Abdul Muhammad, a cheeky chappy who called Jews bloodsuckers and called for the murder of all white South Africans. (Bless him, he did at least suggest that they should get a 24-hour warning.) And amidst at least one more police murderer, we shouldn’t forget Eldridge Cleaver, a convicted serial rapist, who considered raping white women an “insurrectionary act of revenge”.
Insufficiently ashamed, either of her abysmal poetry or, y’know, of featuring murderers and rapists, Ms Butler has borrowed from the US again by launching the UK Parliamentary Black Caucus (timed, of course, to coincide with the end of the American black history month).
This group consists, as per its written constitution (again with the transatlantic borrowing), of “African-Caribbean politicians” and wants to “promote the interests and rights of Black and minoritisedcommunities within the United Kingdom. [sic]” I hope their constitution can be amended, in this case for typos, without need for a two thirds majority.
If Ms Butler can steal from the US, so can I. Theodore Roosevelt once ranted against the phenomenon of “hyphenated Americans” — people whose history or even ethnicity tied them in some ways to places other than their own:
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
His successor but one, Woodrow Wilson, likewise said:
Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.
As it happens, I disagree with them both to some extent, not least because I am about to embark upon an Anglo-American marriage of my own. But in these cases, at least one side of the hyphenated humans concerns the country or culture in which the subjects lived. In Ms Butler’s black caucus, there is only room for “African-Caribbeans”. Black Brits are not welcome, it seems. Nor any other non “minoritised” minorities.
Does this matter? Isn’t it just performative woke tosh from a backbench MP who needs to do something with her time to avoid her answering my casework? (Yes, she is my MP, can you tell?)
It does matter. Again, look at America. The Democratic Party is held hostage by “The Groups”. described by the centrist Third Way think tanker Matt Bennett as “progressive infrastructure organisations, most of them single issue advocacy groups, including far left groups, who demand democrats take positions that are consonant with their view but are out of step with working class voters on a whole range of things”. It was one of these groups that gave Donald Trump his most effective campaign slogan of the election: “Kamala is for they/them; Donald Trump is for you.”
If this comes to Britain in greater force, we will see mainstream politicians being pulled ever further from focusing on the issues that matter to most people, rather than the faddish nonsense of the far left.
Worse than that though, it will cause a greater split in our politics, both inside and outside of Parliament. There is already a loose coalition of MPs who were elected because of Gaza. We are likely, at the next election, to see many more of these so-called “independents” being elected, as Muslim voters realise they no longer need the Labour Party to help advance their interests.
Cohesion is best achieved by minimising differences, not constantly highlighting them
Sam Bidwell, of this parish, has written frequently of this split inside our electoral politics. Describing the Lebanonisation of the UK, Sam wrote: “Sectarianism, crackdowns, violence, ethnic tension — this is a political heuristic unfamiliar to many in Britain, but deeply typical in much of the world. Against this backdrop, it shouldn’t surprise us that time-honoured norms are falling by the wayside.”
All of the academic research shows that in ethnically heterogeneous societies, cohesion is best achieved by minimising differences, not constantly highlighting them. Parliamentarians organising to advance their interests based on the colour of their skin is not only morally abhorrent, but it will encourage more groups to start to act like this.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A friend called me from Washington DC recently, and he noted on his morning commute that Black Lives Matter Plaza is being dug up and replaced with Liberty Plaza. America is starting to reject this divisiveness.
It is not too late to prevent Britain hurtling toward ethnic polarisation. But if MPs themselves organise based on immutable characteristics, rather than philosophy, policies, and parties, the future looks very grim. How can we expect quangos and others not to continue with two tier sentencing guidelines? For local councils not to become dominated by the largest demographic? For us to even be able to teach our children to treat each other equally?
So, Dawn Butler, the chosen one, of the first ones. I ask you, not as your constituent, or a hyphenated-anything, but as someone who is terrified for the future of the country, please disband this “caucus”.
