I don’t really follow parliamentary politics at all. I agree with Lenin; bourgeois parliaments have been bought by money and power. (That the current UK government is even thinking about cutting a new deal with some US private equity firms to profit further from the debt-laden Thames Water is a case in point). And, secondily, I am more interested in what civil society can do than government. (There is a whole theoretical question here about whether government and civil society can be aligned. In the UK, Josie Appleton is the leading critic of how contemporary government is damaging civil society). But, this by-election is interesting in that the two leading candiates represent two significant political contituencies in the UK, and, according to the opinion polls, they are neck and neck.
All that said, the real reason for this post was to comment on this example of weaner liberalism in the Guardian. Not surprisingly, this is the Guardian after all, they are trying to sabotage the Reform candidate, and not surprisingly, after all they are modern liberals, they are operating at the pre-rational level.
Consider:
Kenyon, [the Reform candidate] however, faced immediate scrutiny of his social media activity. Deleted posts on X show he appeared to cast doubt on the efficacy of a vaccine, interacted with a Dutch far-right influencer and praised Donald Trump. The Conservatives also asked why Kenyon’s account had been suspended.
Stop. Wait. They’ve been through his social media accounts looking for any dirt they can throw at him. Gosh, who would have thought? It is entirely characteristic of this style of reporting that they say ‘faced immediate scrutiny’, as if it wasn’t them digging up the dirt. What dirt have they found?
Apparently, the Reform candiate, who used to work in the NHS, once questioned the efficacy of a vaccine. Further down the article we get:
Archived copies of Kenyon’s X posts include one in which he replies to an NHS account questioning its claim that a vaccine has 90% effectiveness, asking: “How many people were tested and what is the protection rate for people who hadn’t had the vaccine?”
Now, I hate to break any illusions Ben Quinn, Peter Walker and Jessica Elgot might have, but asking this question shows that Robert Kenyon was trying to understand and question a scientific claim – a veery valid scientific enterprise. A 90% effectiveness rate is not so amazing if in the control group say 85% didn’t get infected when exposed to the same conditions. Unless the 90% had taken account of this – at this distance we can’t know. But at any event – questioning scientific claims is not the extremism it is being touted as. Questioning vaccine efficacy is a kind of hersey for pre-rational liberals, like suggesting that Sars-Cov-2 most likely came from a lab in Wuhan; despite a pile of circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction it is, for them, a “conspiracy theory”. Why? I can think of two reasons. Firstly, modern liberalism is absolutely wedded to corpororate profit-taking and anything which might disrupt the profits of pharma is a heresy. Secondily, I think, they just fnd questioning power frightening and unsettling. Moderns liberals are not facists. They are something unexpected, and maybe worse. They love being subject to power. They just don’t like people questioning power. And, just on the vaccine point, I recall that there were real problems with the AstraZeneca vaccine causing blood clots, [1] such that it was quietly pulled back. I am in favour of science. This means I am open to the medical possibility that a vaccine may have significant side-effects. It doesn’t make me “anti-vaccine”.
The second piece of dirt they have dug up on Robert Kenyon is that he, “interacted with a Dutch far-right influencer”. Later we are given more detail:
In the aftermath of the murder of three young children in Southport, Kenyon replied to a post by I, a prominent Dutch influencer who was among 11 far-right activists banned from the UK before a rally last weekend. Kenyon asked her: “Any description of the attacker?”
Notice that the fact that someone is subject to a government ban (a visa ban on entry at a sensitive time, to attend a particular rally), is, for liberals evidence of malfaisance. The episode referred to is the horrific murder of three young girls in Southport in July 2024. At the time the authorities were initially very cagey about naming the suspected attacker. Anyone who follows these kind of affairs, as apparently Robert Kenyon does, understands that that meant the attacker had an ethnic or immigrant background. This, I would imagine, was what lay behind his comment on social media, “Any description of the attacker?”. The authorities/media cabal spun this for days, endlessly repeating that the attacker was a “British born citizen”, by which we knew that, there was an immigrant connection. And, in the end it came out – he was the autistic and damaged son of a couple who had come to the UK as ayslum seekers after the massacres in Rwanda. (There is some reporting that the father had belonged to a Tutsi militia). [2]
Notice in passing how sneaky these liberals have. We are told that Robert Kenyon “interacted with a Dutch far-right influencer” – but, based on the article, the “interaction” involved a comment, or reply, on a social media post. (I don’t know anything about “far-right” influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek, she may be awful, but the issue is how someone is to be judged and exiled because of a social media association with someone, not because of his own policies and views). A reply on social media, is only “interacting” in rather pedantic sense. Anyway, why shouldn’t he?
His final crime was he once praised Trump!. I wouldn’t. (Especially, now after his capture by the war lobby, but – it is surely not a crime to praise a politician).
In all; notice, the liberals have no intention of debating Robert Kenyon and Reform on the questions of the day. I doubt they are even capable of debate. They are just going to try to drag him down with manufactured ‘dirt’. They are indeed pre-rational. They love being docilised, and want us all to be docilised with them. The pre-rational mythic subjects of power. F* them. Rise up!
Notes