Toppling statues is wrong but it’s OK for state to hound vulnerable people

Nonetheless, it rattles along in a jaunty enough manner, or at least as jaunty as a song about the final judgment gets. “Whoever is unjust, let him be unjust still; whoever is righteous, let him be righteous still”, sings Cash. It’s a time when the true nature of people is revealed.

The symbolism of the Last Days is occasionally evident in the secular realm and you don’t need to be a religious believer to recognise it.

I can’t recall a time when the UK has been more bitterly divided. Nor is this a bad thing, for it will force us to choose.

For the best part of the last decade the UK has been confronted with several epochal events. These call forth responses which truly define us and our values: both those we have acquired and those bequeathed to us. They include the 2008 banking crisis and its aftermath; the true nature of Brexit; the ongoing matter of Scotland’s independence; the nature of our response to coronavirus; and our instinctive reaction to questions posed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

They make a mockery of all talk about striking a balance; seeking compromises and appealing to moderation. In the modern history of the UK, moderation as a concept is weaponised by those who believe they possess a divine right always to rule; to gather riches to themselves and to bend laws in their favour. “Moderation” here is a one-way street. Thus, the overwhelming majority of the population is urged to be moderate while a few at the top are free to deploy extreme measures to maintain their hegemony.

This can be observed in the unchanging direction of travel of capital and in how wars are waged on a lie, with the lives of British soldiers sacrificed on a whim. It’s also seen in the way people are denied an income sufficient to permit them to enjoy their right to peace and happiness.

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Any attempts to promote trade union activity; to strike for just pay and reasonable conditions of employment are portrayed as extremist and lacking in traditional British restraint.

This appeal to “moderation” permits financial corruption on the grand scale to flourish. It visits a race war on those considered to be “low-hanging fruit”, so that arbitrary immigration limits can be met. “Moderation” and its sisters “balance” and “good order” mean that the police force is unaccountable for deaths in custody, which include a disproportionate number of black people.

It undermines public health by permitting the most senior unelected officials in government to ride planes, trains and automobiles through lockdown restrictions. There is no such thing as moderation and rationality when your purpose is to pursue a nakedly right-wing agenda that features some of the most common traits we associate with psychopathy: narcissism; absence of remorse and being impervious to the pain of others.

Any behaviour deemed not to be moderate, like wrecking a statue or two; being unpleasant to the police; scamming a hundred quid here and there from the social security is raised to the status of a war crime and deserving of a long stretch.

The president of the National Trust for Scotland, Neil Oliver, thinks these are signs of communism and anarchy.

But we’re cool with menacing vulnerable people by making it difficult for them to access benefits; to drive them to the brink of suicide by delaying essential payments and by forcing the mortally ill to seek work, thus removing the last scraps of their dignity in their final days.

READ MORE: Why Neil Oliver is talking malicious nonsense about racist statues

IF you believe social cohesion and national unity have ever existed in modern Britain you are deluding yourself. These are fictions spun by governments to ensure their methods of status-preservation are left unscrutinised. Today though, the fault lines are so visible and profound that they can no longer be denied.

Of course, there’s always been inequality and injustice, and evil has always flourished where these are present. But these have never been so nakedly and brazenly proclaimed and celebrated as now.

Last year, research conducted by Oxfam showed that the world’s 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of its population.

During coronavirus lockdown the combined wealth of America’s billionaires, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk, increased nearly 10%, according to a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies.

This is where we are after a century of blinding technological and scientific progress and discovery.

The biggest economic power on the planet still treats black people like animals and is led by a man displaying his own signs of advanced psychopathy.

The UK Government, in its desperation to get Brexit done, wants to hand parts of our economy over to this man. It regards many of the immigrants who exposed themselves to mortal danger during coronavirus by feeding us and healing us as non-people.

The advent of Black Lives Matter is also drawing out the poison and exposing it: Nigel Farage and his comparisons with Taliban; the sheer thuggish ferocity of the English and Scottish far-right last weekend. It extends to those who say “I’m not racist, but …” , or “I know we need immigrants, but ...” There’s nowhere to hide now: do black lives matter or don’t they? You can’t insert a qualification here.

Permit me to borrow another biblical apercu. This, too, is a cheery one from the Book of Revelation: “So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.”

These are the faux intellectuals and risk-free activists who get edgy when real people display authentic passion on social media. Their world is an endless carousel of official dinners and social gatherings where they collect moments with “influencers”.

They stand for nothing. This may ensure a decent turnout at your funeral but it makes for a bloodless life of consensus; virtue signalling and passive aggression.

In quieter times the social divisions could be fuzzier. Occasionally, you might see something of yourself in the other side and few things were absolute. Those times have come and gone. Time now to pick a side.