Reporting News and opinions
One of the most persistent slogans of Britain’s political far right is the claim that “the people did not vote for mass immigration.” It is a phrase repeated endlessly in television studios, social media posts, and political rallies. It sounds persuasive. It sounds democratic. It is also fundamentally wrong.
NN reports that the pilot of a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle, shot down over Iran in April, described a sight that immediately triggered debate inside the U.S. Intelligence Community: multiple Iranian drones in the air, apparently interconnected or coordinated, moving as one. One source described larger drones with smaller drones beneath them, “like legs.” Another described it as a “minefield of drones” in the sky.
For years the International Criminal Court has operated like a colonial-era court with better stationery and a more solemn logo. The docket groaned under the weight of African cases while the architects of certain adventures in Libya, Iraq, and beyond somehow remained mysteriously unburdened by the same enthusiastic pursuit of accountability. The rule of law, we were solemnly told, was universal. The application, it turned out, was rather more exclusive.
The "Great British People" Facebook page, which purports to be from Yorkshire, has had 1.3 million views for its latest video of an elderly white British man crying about his pension. Other videos show reporters discussing "the overwhelming scale of mass immigration" and asking viewers if they miss "the Britain we used to know".
There is a particular kind of political confidence that is indistinguishable, to the untrained eye, from clinical detachment from reality. It is the confidence of a man who, having just won a hand at poker, concludes that the laws of probability no longer apply to him. It announces itself loudly, dresses in a flag, and mistakes the echo of its own voice for the applause of nations. Ladies and gentlemen, Reform UK Ltd has had a good week at the local elections, and the results are as instructive as they are alarming, not merely because Nigel Farage’s vehicle of nationalist ambition has won council seats, but because winning appears to have emboldened the party to say the quiet parts of its manifesto even louder, with the serene self-assurance of people who have never had to read a treaty.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 