Patriotic Piffle!

I’m not sure as to which audience Keir is trying to court with this lazy, retrogressive tactic of embracing patriotism? We’ve had Brexit. The xenophobes have had their say and we’ll be paying for their closed minded idiocy for the rest of time. Pridefully wearing the flag at this point, like a Blue Peter badge of honour is laughably redundant. Rather like giving a child a handful of sweets for coming last despite, “doing their best”. Appeasement is hollow and lacks substance.

I’m not sure the Labour Party recognises itself anymore. At least with Corbyn we had a script and knew what we stood for but under the new management we seem to go from one knee jerk reaction to another. With absolutely no command of the political compass, we are orienteering into the fog of oblivion. Either that or aimlessly staring into the existential, unelected abyss!

What’s especially tragic in this bewilderingly soulless landscape is the fact that quite literally, people are dying...daily! Children are going hungry. The NHS is on its knees. There’s a massive housing crisis. People have zero job security. Students are saddled with insane levels of debt...and the list goes on. Meanwhile the Labour Party shrugs its shoulders and timidly asks Boris at PMQ’s, “How’s the family?”

This toothless lack of questioning betrays the British people. It’s insulting to see the absence of any forensic and vitriolic dismantling of this gangster Government. Their catalogue of failures should mean the opposition is close to achieving a TKO with Boris barely able to crawl out of the ring in one piece. This should be easy, the incumbent party are catastrophically unfit for purpose.

The lack of passion, vision and dogged determination is maddening. Where are the blueprints for the Labour Party to refer to? Do we really need to remind the administration of our overall ethos? Has fear and self-preservation has taken the place of a solid understanding as to whom the party supports and the beliefs it has cherished since its genesis? No amount of flag flogging will win back the ‘Angry, White Male’ of traditional Labour heartlands, and the Union Jack makes an unsuitable bandage to stem the blood from the deepest of wounds caused by decades of hardship.

We are not exceptional. Our history is littered with the most appalling transgressions and until we start to address our own past through the lens of honesty, patriotic homage akin to hysteria does us no favours. Puffing out our chests at any given Nationalistic opportunity shames us as a nation and serves nothing but to veil our inadequacies, preventing us from facing the ugly truth embedded within the fabric of our country.

In the words of Samuel Johnson,

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”