Politics: many a true word…
By Richard North - July 17, 2024
Although some of the Twitterati are treating Vance’s comments on the UK as an Islamic country as a joke, that’s not how all the media yesterday morning were seeing them, even if The Times was clear that Vance was joking.
Made at last week’s National Conservatism conference in Washington DC, what he actually said was: “I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently and we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care about it”.
He continues: “And I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon, and we were like, maybe it’s Iran, you know, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the UK, since Labour just took over”.
Without doubt, from viewing the video clip, the context was humorous, and his comments provoked laughter and applause from the conference hall, but a po-faced Guardian – mirroring a very similar piece on the BBC website – laboriously retailed humourless condemnation from Labour worthies.
Deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, was chosen to lead the pack, saying: “I don’t recognise that characterisation. I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently.” She goes on to say, “We won votes across all different communities, across the whole of the country, and we’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies”.
Treasury minister James Murray then gets a look in, telling us: “I don’t know what he was driving at in that comment, to be honest. I mean, in Britain, we’re very proud of our diversity”.
We are told that Labour also found an unlikely ally in the form of Andrew Bowie, the shadow veterans minister. Conveniently, this man declared that said he “absolutely” disagreed with the claim that Labour would create an “Islamist country”. “I disagree with the Labour party fundamentally on many issues, but I do not agree with that view, quite frankly. I think it’s actually quite offensive, frankly, to my colleagues in the Labour party,” he said, speaking to Times Radio.
Interestingly, the quoted passage from Vance was all the Guardian wanted us to hear of the Vance speech, but the Telegraph went once better with an excerpt addressing the immigration issue.
Again, in a humorous style, Vance is said to have told his audience: “American leaders should look out for Americans, and by the way, for the Brits here, UK leaders should look out for citizens of the UK, or subjects, or whatever you guys call yourself in the UK”.
He then went on to claim that immigration “has made our societies poorer, less safe, less prosperous and less advanced”, adding: “If you look at, for example, the United Kingdom, if immigration, nonstop, immigration was the way to create wealth and prosperity and lower home prices, then London would be doing great”.
In what was taken as a direct snipe at Labour’s Sadiq Khan, Vance then delivered his punch-line, declaring: “And I got to tell you, I was in London last year, and it’s not doing so good”.
As one might expect, the lefty Independent joined in the chorus of disapproval, with an article headed: “Trump’s vice president running mate JD Vance says UK an ‘Islamist country’ in bizarre nuclear weapons comment”.
Not content with the Guardian’s cast of characters, this paper added Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, described as the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet. She was allowed to say of Vance’s comments that they represented “the everyday Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism which is casually thrown around by some of the most powerful in our societies”.
However, the Middle East Monitor goes even further, quoting the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which states that Vance’s comments were “divisive and dangerous”. According to MCB Secretary-General, Zara Mohammed, the comments “serve as a stark reminder of how populist, Islamophobic sentiment is used to garner votes”.
Nevertheless, Warsi’s indignation cannot be confined to a mere comment in a news article. To express herself more fully, she is given her own comment piece, headed: “Trump’s running mate JD Vance has insulted the UK with his racist ignorance”.
The sub-heading makes Warsi’s displeasure all the more clear as it declares: “When the Republicans’ choice for vice-president told a national conference that the UK is a ‘truly Islamist country’, it was more than just an insulting anti-Muslim joke: it has serious diplomatic repercussions”.
But Warsi doesn’t just look at the politics. She takes Vance’s comments personally. “It’s another reminder that casual Islamophobia has become part and parcel of our everyday politics”, she complains. “It sends out their message that Muslims are fair game and makes us feel insecure in our home countries”.
“For a while now”, she tells us, “many of my Muslim friends and family have been thinking about their Plan Bs – their exit routes. This rhetoric coming out of the US further reinforces the fear and makes us feel like Muslims don’t matter”.
To conclude, she confides that it is clear to her that, “with a Trump/Vance White House, the world could no longer rely on the United States to be sane and sensible – or even liberal. Britain will soon have to start looking beyond it”. And her remedy to that is to “start rebuilding our relationship with Europe”, the sooner the better.
Back in the main Independent piece, just so that he doesn’t feel left out, James Murray’s comments from the Guardian are repeated, and expanded upon, with him saying: “I’m very proud that we have a new Government, I’m very proud that our Labour Government is committed to national security and economic growth. I’m very clear where we are. I don’t really know how that comment fits in”.
He goes on to ruminate on whether the UK has a continuing “special relationship” with the US, observing that: “I think we do, and I think we do have a special bond, irrespective of individual people or individual comments”.
That observation is especially pertinent in the light of a commentary by Jack Kessler in the Standard, who writes under the headline. “J.D. Vance’s ‘Islamist UK’ claims are a preview of Trump, Episode II”.
This, Kessler thinks, was a power move by Vance, made in the knowledge that no US ally can publicly condemn his language – or at least do so without risking a full-blown diplomatic incident. It is, therefore, “low-key humiliation, one that Britain and the West will have to get used to, should Trump return to the White House”.
Kessler argues that these sorts of comments may not carry the same geopolitical heft of a Trump announcement that the US will no longer adhere to Nato’s article 5 or that he will commence withdrawal of all American forces from East Asia.
Nevertheless, he avers, “it may soon be the task of every government minister appearing on local radio to thread the needle. To gamely swallow the latest indignity or insult hurled at the British people without sounding like a total supplicant”.
Clearly, Warsi saw Vance’s comments as an insult, even if they were delivered in a jokey manner. But, on the basis that many a true word is spoken in jest, she and the ghastly crew of politicians assembled to denounce Vance probably did right to take the comments seriously.
In so doing though, their sensitivity betrays their guilty consciences. They must know in their hearts what the entire nation knows to be true – that the political classes have allowed the cancer of political Islam to grow in this country to the point where it represents an existential threat.
Not only have they have done nothing to check it, as yesterday’s blogpost amply demonstrates, they are in denial about the scale of the problem, having difficulty acknowledging that it even exists.
When that also extends to immigration, which is at crisis level, yet this Labour government has no intention of doing anything about it, despite unsustainable population increases, we have a serious problem.
That a US politician can then reach out from across the Atlantic and, with a few casual, jokey comments, so accurately hit a nerve, says a great deal about the state of play in this country. What Vance had to say was too close to the bone to be funny. And the only thing “bizarre” about his comments is that it took a US politician to make them.
