THIS is quite a frightening time in Irish politics. In Irish society.
Not since the 1930s have we seen openly far right/fascist elements marching through our streets.
Not since O’Duffy’s Blueshirts in fact have we seen that.
We’ve seen it recently though, haven’t we. We’ve seen hostels being burnt, we’ve seen riots, we’ve seen parades.
They’re out there and we’ve seen them and it is frightening.
They continue to fail, though, electorally and the idea that democracy is defeating them is truly cheering.
However frightening it is, though, is as nothing compared to how the UK looks.
Just what has happened to the UK?
The leading Conservative Robert Jenrick, who is the MP for Newark and the shadow Justice Secretary, recently spoke about his horror at spending some time in an inner-city area and in that time not seeing another white face.
He then, bizarrely, insisted this wasn’t about colour or race, was then, again bizarrely, supported by his Party leader, who is black, and even more bizarrely continued to back his own statement.
There was a time when this kind of statement would have ended a political career in the UK, even in the Tory Party. Not now.
Jenrick’s words, though, are deeply problematic.
In looking at them I’ll start at the beginning.
MP Robert Jenrick used choice words to describe his visit to Handsworth in BirminghamRobert Jenrick claimed about this inner-city area, Handsworth in Birmingham - which he described as a “slum”, that it was a part of the country he knew well.
Jenrick was born in Wolverhampton and brought up in Shropshire.
That’s a bit like me saying I know Limerick well because I live in Cork.
Even more to the point I was actually born in Handsworth and even I don’t know it that well because I was actually reared in a different inner-city area of Birmingham.
He, is from the very start, completely lacking in authenticity.
No one likes a phoney, Robert.
Secondly, what Robert Jenrick does display is a deep ignorance about his own country. The inner-city area in which I grew up had a smattering of older English people, some Asian people, some Caribbean people, and an awful lot of Irish people.
At any time in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Robert Jenrick could have come to my streets and declared his horror at not seeing any English people and hearing nothing but Irish accents.
In the 90s and 2000s he might have gone there and been horrified by the amount of people with Pakistani backgrounds.
In the last decade and a half his horror might have been in response to people of Somali backgrounds.
That’s immigration, Robert, that’s how it works.
The successive waves of immigration that have defined British society and British cities have been of that nature.
Different groups at different times.
These people going to work, college, raising families, going to the shops, are hardly to blame for Robert Jenrick’s ignorance of his own country.
They are not responsible if Robert Jenrick is a tourist in his own beloved country.
The fact that he says such a thing is not only a sign of his own ignorance but also a frightening sign of British politics’ race to the bottom.
Others, Farage or Robinson maybe, might be leading the way but how worrying is it that the Conservative Party wants to join in.
Now, I’m aware that I’m viewing all of this from the other side of the Irish Sea so in many ways my viewpoint might be, like Jenrick’s view of Handsworth, completely inauthentic. But with Union Jacks on flag posts and St. George flags on roundabouts the UK seems a certain kind of place now.
Is it better? Is it an improvement that leading politicians say crass things based on race and colour and that’s deemed to be okay?
It is frightening here but what is happening in the UK seems an awful lot worse, a lot more divided, a lot more bitter, a lot further along the road to somewhere bad.
We are all in a dangerous moment.
Our dangerous elements are, in all honesty, not an impressive lot, not convincing, nowhere near mainstream opinion or positions of power.
They’re a bedraggled, messy lot.
They’re still frightening but always look far more likely to end up in court than the Dail.
In the UK, though, they seem to be sitting in powerful political positions.
Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I really do.
