I have been spending a lot of time in reflection recently. The outcome of the general election on 4th July filled me with an abject longing for the 20th century values we left behind. On the stroke of midnight 31st of December 1999, it seemed common sense, fortitude, bulldog spirit and pride in our culture died. The past had manners, dignity and respect. It had character, it had fun. It had beauty, wit, kindness and authenticity. It was optimistic, inventive, brave, courageous and forward-looking. People were grateful for what they had, even if it wasn’t a lot.
All I feel now is fear for the future. Post-war Britain had its ups and downs, but there was a sense of optimism and anticipation. The 21st century is self-obsessed, selfish, depressing and worst of all consumed by ghastly “woke”.
Everything now revolves around taking offence and victimhood, creating fear of saying or even thinking the wrong thing. There’s climate fearmongering, critical race theory, ludicrous and fabricated gender and identity politics, false narratives and blame culture, particularly “white privilege“, self-blame and introspection. All are products of the over-fertile imaginations of catastrophists, drama queens and, frankly, the lunatic fringe.
The fun has been sucked out of life. Comedy for example, has been replaced by banal, depressing “Reality TV”. Whose reality? Modern TV programming promotes unrealistic aspirations, body dysmorphia and “mental health” fixation. There’s none of the fun of send-up comedy, gritty soaps and light-hearted drama that we knew and loved in previous decades.
The mid to late 20th century had its problems, but it was authentic and aspirational and it had great music. If you’re over 25, name one great band of 2024?
Twenty twenty-four is mired in doom and gloom; the country is in a dreadful state. Hostile cultures that want to take up residence here, but hate us and our way of life, are busy creating fear and oppression. The ‘politics of the subcontinent’, as Nigel Farage recently put it are being played out on the streets of Britain. For example, the disputes raging in Bangladesh are now being fought over in East London. They had nothing to do with this country; we cannot be the world’s policeman.
Britain 2024 is now a miserable, supine backwater, comprised of individuals who take the knee and betray everything our noble forefathers fought for in two world wars. While our own belief systems are trashed, we allow ourselves to be subjugated by those who not only hate us, but devalue, erase and rewrite our history.
The future looks grim. Give it 20 years and we will all be under the control of evil cults and false religions. Surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s already happening? It began in 2020, with the biggest error of judgement ever: the response to Covid-19 and the reaction of the world government. The madness then escalated with the events surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Next came the industrial scale self-loathing and apologism, as politicians and celebrities demanded we house the entirety of the third world – those whose lives and livelihoods had reportedly been wrecked by the “evil West”. It is no small irony that the queue to enter such evil countries continues to grow, while the taxpayer bankrolls illegal migrants in four-star hotels and turns a blind eye to ex-servicemen sleeping in shop doorways.
Meanwhile genuine migrants who came to live alongside us with good intent, decent people of the Windrush for example, are also affected by these events. They are part of our culture. They came here and made Britain their home too. Look around this country now. “Demi paradise” it is not. The land of Shakespeare is now the land of obscure slang, bad manners and crudeness.
So what do we do about it? Well, to start with, what we don’t do is spend pointless hours on social media engaging in digital civil war. We get out there and join with other like-minded individuals to change the system from within. Whatever your “conservative values” are, regardless of which political party you support, you need to nail your colours to the mast.
People talk of revolution, but surely it would be preferable to fight the system from within rather than without? We need to put ourselves up as candidates in every by-election, local council election and general election we can. Why is it that people suppose there is a factory somewhere that manufactures politicians, ready-to-go robots, pre-programmed – although I grant you, that is how it looks!
The truth is that whoever we are, the system in which we operate is managed by politicians. If we don’t like how they are running things, we need to change it ourselves. Masses of us up and down the country need to get active within our communities and start campaigning. You might ask, do I practice what I preach? Absolutely. I am already a local town councillor, and am putting myself up for next year’s county elections for Reform UK, having assisted their local campaign during the election period, helping their PPC for this area.
The more of us true conservatives are on the inside, the more inspiration we can give to others and ensure that, come the next general election, we are able to field a huge crop of conservatives, be they Conservative or Reform UK candidates. I truly believe this will make an enormous difference, and if we make a big difference locally, perhaps we can convince the electorate to turn out to vote.
The turnout at this year’s general election was only 52 percent. This is not good enough. Something similar happened in London in May. The mayoral election that granted Sadiq Khan a third term, saw almost 60 percent of Londoners fail to show up.
However, there is hope. The Reform UK movement now stands at a record 70,000 members, including a significant number of young people. I am hopeful this will inspire the Conservative Party to re-acquaint themselves with their true conservative values. I am not suggesting a merger, but imagine the next Parliament with a massive collaboration of centre-right individuals. Even if Labour manage to get re-elected, imagine the opposition!
As Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” We certainly have enough appeasers ready and willing to drag us back to the 7th Century, courtesy of our import of Islam. It is a united front of true conservatives that now needs to stand up and take back control; starting right here, right now.
Kim Rye is a former Fleet Street copytaker. She is a sub-editor on 007 Magazine & Archive.
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An excellent summary. However, whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword was another woke fantasist.
In my constituency, Reform got two thousand votes; I was one of them, but I don’t know anyone else who so voted. This is a problem, and the answer to it is to establish constituency offices, where Reform voters can meet and organize. There are plenty of empty churches that could be used for such a purpose. To that end we need a constituency core who can organize. We need money. Two thousand voters contributing a fiver a month would raise a tidy sum. Many would contribute more. We must do things for ourselves rather than depend on Central planning.
Any Takers?
Roby
We are already planning in my group. Sorting out candidates for next year’s county council elections. I’m proposing myself. Reform UK groups are busy planning up and down the country. It’s a very exciting time.
It’s my belief that the thing about Reform supporters is that they know what they don’t like more than what they do like, and most don’t like each other either and wouldn’t want to socialise.
I do not intend to engage in an argument suffice it to say that I was involved with the election campaign for our local PPC. It was positive, forward-looking and we got a lot of good response from the public. We are continuing in our efforts to get elected in next year’s County Council elections. There is a lot of enthusiasm, especially on the back of the response we had back in June and July. Personally, I do not take such a negative view, as I have inside experience, rather than relying on mainstream media which is not known for its relationship with the truth.
I don’t want an argument either, but believe me you’re 100% wrong if you think my views are based on MSM – I have no ascess to TV and haven’t bought a newspaper since 2020 nor do I listen to the radio or use social media (unless you count TNC as social media).
I voted Reform, but feel little affinity with other Reform voters and simply can’t unfortunately share your enthusiasm.
Don’t agree. When Reform supporters explain what they don’t like, it is not difficult to infer what they do like. They generally have very clear views on this. Unfortunately, whenever they attempt to be specific, some smart *** middle class Tory wet comes along and dismisses it as rose coloured, sentimental or the implied rejection of every single change, large and small, over the last 50 years. As a consequence, in many social situations they keep such views to themselves to avoid predictable sneers from the usual suspects.
“don’t like each other either”
I’m at a loss to know where you got that from. Finding like minded people in 2024 is a joy.
Expresses exactly what I had in mind far better than I did.
Change will only come about if Reform, or an as yet unknown UK political party, becomes so successful in its appeal (almost impossible nowadays due to the ease of creating slurs that stick with the enfeebled minds of the majority) that it can take over one of the big three parties and then purge the dross.
Also a big, yet understandable, mistake is to view the fairly recent past through rose coloured spectacles, things have been going steadily downhill since 1945 not 2000, and times have never been ideal for any interest group or generation.
I continue to be optimistic now that it seems so many people have become politically engaged, partly as a result of our efforts during the general election. We intend to build on that, especially the following from Gen Z which is really encouraging.
I do agree with almost everything you say in the second half of the article. Life in the UK is now an endless uphill struggle, with everybody seemingly angry all the time, hating each other and the average person resigned to just trying to look after their own immediate family or die from fear, stress and depression. However, I feel that you may be looking back to pre-2000 through rose coloured spectacles. Apart from the music, I can’t remember things being as great as you say. Two more words colour my view of ‘The Good Old Days’: MODERN DENTISTRY 🙂
Some very valid – and actually potentially positive but realistic – opinions expressed here by all the contributors. I recognise all of those viewpoints from my own long but mixed experience of the centre-right/ patriotic/ populist movement. Undoubtedly individualism has been and can be a big problem, but with the type of personal courage, structural reform and enthusiastic initiatives propounded by Ms Rye (and with, at long last, RUK now having that crucial Parliamentary bridgehead) life can and must get better.