Former home secretary Priti Patel this week slammed the UN for daring to try to defend Shamima Begum, amid the latter losing her appeal against the state stripping her citizenship.
This Tory fundamentalist arch villain is surely not Boris Johnson, as lamentable as his politics is. In her tenure at the Home Office, Priti Patel was clearly and decisively heading for fascist status, triangulating policy to attack the most vulnerable.
Priti Patel: from the throne of hell to the Home Office
A political paradox: spontaneously but according to plan, as if to repudiate the idea and ideal of rational policy making, we Brits – a multicultural tapestry borne aloft by our blood, sweat, and dreams – seem to generate absolute hatred in the shrivelling heart of Priti Patel, hatred distilled in her cruel, reactionary policies targeted at vulnerable minorities.
At an immigration raid, I remember her crowing glee as she watched the lives of a vulnerable group of people ruined; destined to land in a Serco run carceral unit that stands juxtaposed to the spirit of goodwill in human rights law.
She spent her entire tenure repeatedly emerging from the throne of hell with a – frankly fascist – agenda, reconstituted into palatable form for people who still watch and trust the news. Fuhrer Patel’s hate mongering we have no time for, appealing to and unleashing and pandering to the worst aspects of humanity.
A ‘creature incapable of pity’
There is her persecutory, dehumanising mistreatment of refugees for a start. Then she presided over deeply oppressive policing and protest legislation, a veritable clusterfuck of attacks on peaceful assembly, essentially illegalising it; a counterstrategic manoeuvre to neutralise the threat of Extinction Rebellion to the carbon-wed establishment.
A grueling flight to Rwanda to facilities whose safety has not been determined awaits those whose cultural heritage is not deemed compatible with the mythic, illusionary “British” identity, an insincere neo-Tory attempt to exhume one nation conservatism. Rich immigrants, however, are safe from extradition. The pattern seems to be: no poverty, no ostracism. Persecution for persecutions sake.
An authentic testimony to the cruelty of Priti Patel is the data on her on Wikileaks, a repository of information which has a reputation for 100% accuracy.
The Wikileaks data confirms she is a creature incapable of pity but capable of vast terror. Tragically for the reputation of Britain on human rights, she welcomed sponsorship for the 2012 Olympics from Dow Chemical, the inventors of agent orange and white phosphorus, she tacitly endorsing the human rights atrocities they provide ammunition for.
The ‘will of the people’ she surely isn’t
It must be this that accounts for our basis of appraising Priti Patel, the dirty deals done through exposure to, sympathy for, and allyship with corrupt corporate lobbyists.
There used to be, at one point, meaningful influence for UK voters over parliamentary representatives and public policy. Lobbyists, while sometimes ethical, are largely corrosive to democracy and dominate the public policy process. The register of political discourse is banal rhetoric, inscribed with duplicity.
There used to be, if you remember, government and legislation with a popular mandate, parliament as an embodiment of “the will of the people” based on the electorate’s choices at the ballot box, a time before politics as high drama, a perpetual trainwreck driven by carousing mega-egos into dystopia.
The force of the UK press recently has been largely focused on scrutinising the malfeasance of Boris Johnson in his blatant, nauseating contempt for parliament and the British public. In this atmosphere, the arguably more dangerous – if that’s possible- Priti Patel has largely evaded scrutiny.
Priti Patel: a closer scrutiny is needed
A perfunctory glimpse at the data Wikileaks have on her suggests we henceforth scrutinise her more closely. The data revealed that some Labour grandees did act with due diligence and focus on the Dow deal in their quest for accountability and transparency at the time, but this signal was mistaken for mere noise and so the dodgy deal was not widely acknowledged.
As a citizen journalist it is my responsibility to document the hidden realities of power that are purposefully kept secret, to honour first amendment ethics and staunch the foundations of the fourth estate, the future of which is thwart with peril in the wake of the prosecution of Julian Assange for basic journalism.
Priti Patel is only the beginning of my campaign. Until I am silenced I will continue to shine a light on corruption wherever it breeds. It starts here.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube and Good Morning Britain – YouTube
