What’s Going on in England?

If England was what England seems,
An’ not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass, an’ paint,
‘Ow quick we’d chuck ‘er! But she ain’t!
—Rudyard Kipling

LOVE her or hate her, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland retains a deep hold on the imaginations of those nations which have sprung from her — including our own, as witness the popularity of Downton Abbey. But, as we all know, both President Trump and his Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, have been regularly criticising British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for what they characterise as his attacks on free speech and tolerance for “groomer gangs.” So just what is going on?

Well, quite a bit, actually. But first — what are “groomer gangs?” These are packs of immigrant Pakistani men who in various ways inveigle underage native British girls — some as young as 11 — into prostitution. This erupted into public notice with a documentary and some trials in 2013; but it has been going on since the 1980s. From 2008 to 2013, Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP), thusly head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). This body conducts criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It has been heavily alleged that he was “soft” on the groomers — warning them instead of prosecuting them. A great many police and local political figures have been caught up in the scandal — most of whom are themselves Pakistani or of Pakistani descent.

Now, there are a lot of connected issues bobbing around Britain right now. “Two-tier policing,” for example, where native Britons guilty of thoughtcrime online are prosecuted and imprisoned, but non-whites who rape, murder, pillage and/or burn are allowed to go free. Non-white protesters are protected; white ones — as in those who protested the July 29, 2024 mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop in Southport, perpetrated by the 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants — are harshly suppressed. The internet constantly puts out stories of immigrants attacking native, while the government thunders against racism and tries to throttle freedom of speech. Local council elections the Labour Party might lose are being postponed for various reasons. In a word, Sir Keir seems hell-bent on making 1984 a reality.

Of course, in some ways Sir Keir is simply following Tony Blair’s lead. As Blair began the campaign to push most of the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, Sir Keir has expelled the last of them. Blair’s invention of a Supreme Court and vivisecting the office of Lord Chancellor had helped make Sir Keir’s pantomime totalitarianism possible. At this point then, the question might be asked — but what of the Tories (a.k.a., the Conservative Party)?

A very good question — in 2019 under Boris Johnson, out of 650 seats, the Conservatives won 365. On the surface, it was a breathtaking majority. Certainly one could be excused for thinking that Boris would, with such a majority, undo all that Blair had done to the Constitution. Alas, it was not to be. What looked like a solid majority included at least 50 former Liberal Democrats who would never have done so, and an unknown number of sympathisers. So BoJo, and his successors frittered their time away, and ultimately lost the election to Sir Keir.

But even without that entanglement, by the time BoJo came to power, the Conservatives were hardly Tory. Part of that is the responsibility of David Cameron, who abandoned a great many traditional “Conservative” notions to make himself relevant to the Left. Wikipedia illustrates, for example his changing the party’s views on homosexuality: “While urging members of his party to support the coalition’s proposals for same-sex marriage, Cameron said that he backed gay marriage not in spite of his conservatism, but because he is a conservative, and claimed it was about equality. In 2012 Cameron publicly apologised for Thatcher-era policies on homosexuality, specifically the introduction of the controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which he described as ‘a mistake.'” Abortion? According to this faux “Conservative” scheme, a sacred right.

The problem with the British system is relatively simple — whoever has a dependable majority in the House of Commons, may rule as dictator if he likes. The British system allows for checks and balances — except that they are all inoperative. What of the House of Lords — that same House whose daily prayer is an exact description of Catholic Social Teaching: “Almighty God, by whom alone Kings reign, and Princes decree justice; and from whom alone cometh all counsel, wisdom, and understanding; we thine unworthy servants, here gathered together in thy Name, do most humbly beseech thee to send down thy Heavenly Wisdom from above, to direct and guide us in all our consultations; and grant that, we having thy fear always before our eyes, and laying aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, the result of all our counsels may be to the glory of thy blessed Name, the maintenance of true Religion and Justice, the safety, honour, and happiness of the King, the publick wealth, peace and tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same, in true Christian Love and Charity one towards another, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen”; what of this esteemed body?

Stirring as though these words are — and offered as they are every day in the Lords — they are not taken seriously by most of those who attend them. Even if they were, since 1911, when the Lords lost the ability to do more than delay legislation, they have been progressively gutted, leading to Sir Keir’s expulsion of the last hereditaries. Now they are entirely political appointees, who may only delay legislation by a year.

Well, what about the Church of England as by Law Established — that body which crowns the Monarch, and has “bishops” sitting in the House of Lords? Well, as the Church of England in Parliament website tells us: “Bishops provide an important independent voice and spiritual insight to the work of the House and, while they make no claims to direct representation, they seek to be a voice for all people of faith, not just Christians.” Given the complete control the Prime Minister has over the Church, we must not be surprised by Sir Keir to appoint a woman to be the first to claim to be Archbishopess of Cantuerbury.

So — Tories, Lords, Church…who does that that leave as a possible counterweight to Parliament? His Majesty the King? At his coronation, the sword was presented him by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, with these words: “With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God and all people of goodwill, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order: that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue; and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life, that you may reign for ever with him in the life which is to come. Amen.” Surely, King Charles III is the man who could and should put these things to right?

Sadly, no. Thanks to the so-called “Glorious” Revolution of 1688, the King is subject to Parliament; those lovely words are a reminder of what was — just with the prayer in the House of Lords. He cannot act independently in any case, whatsoever he may think. He owes his present position to that revolution — and as with all of us, has been trained from birth to think that elected politicians are the voice of the people. Of course, his libidinous brother, Andrew, has served as a useful target of public outrage on the Epstein affair, while Sir Keir’s close friend, Peter Mandelson has escaped any opprobrium until recently.

So, are there any political alternatives to Sir Keir’s Orwellian government? There are Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, which has been described as ” a right-wing populist and anti-immigration political party.” Farage said in May 2024 that Reform UK is becoming a “brand new Conservative movement.” As happens amongst politicians, he had a falling out with a colleague in Parliament, Rupert Lowe, who founded this very month the Restore Britain Party, which “advocates policies such as large-scale deportation of people in the United Kingdom without legal status, seeking net-negative immigration, reinstating the death penalty, reducing certain taxes and the size of the state, withdrawing public funding for the BBC, banning the burqa and niqāb, legalising the possession of pepper spray, and expanding the legal scope of ‘reasonable force’ in defence of the home. The party has also referred to stopping ‘wokery’ and abolishing kosher and halal slaughter in an effort to restore ‘Christian principles.'” Of course all of these voices of sanity are characterised and demonized as “far right” by the government-education-media complex which runs the regime.

How to get out of this mess peacefully? The truth is that the fine words remaining from the past in Parliament and the Coronation must be made real — the bones of what was a Catholic order must be made to live again. I recommend highly Fr. Aidan Nichols’ splendid book, The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England. Ultimately, there is no political answer for England’s, Scotland’s, or Ireland’s woes — or any other country’s.