statement written by Harmony Party interim Media Officer, Ali Wilkin, in collaboration with Harmony Party Media Working Group

As many will be more aware of now, the Johnson regime wants to opt out of ‘parts’ of the Human Rights Act, which would impact the deportation of asylum seekers, and the prosecution of British soldiers.

This should come as no surprise, since he has vocally criticised and opposed them when he was Mayor of London – and the Conservatives said they’d do something in this area in their very vague manifesto.

Now the Conservatives have won 3 elections on a platform of impoverishing disabled people, despite the rising body count; on a platform that promised to criminalise and eradicate Roma and Traveller communities, after a promise to reduce funding for disabled children’s educational support; after the Windrush scandal that the Conservative’s still choose to withhold reparations for; after Grenfell … deaths amongst these groups which were easily scapegoated in the wake of the global financial crash caused by bankers and shonky sub-prime mortgages, and now amidst a global pandemic, have become all too normalised.

If you don’t already understand how Germany became a dictatorship (despite having a democracy), that industrialised the deaths of Jewish people, the disabled, Roma and Travellers, LGBTQ people and communists – this is how: inch by inch.

Johnson’s wish to free himself of laws which he knows, in the future, can be used against him is just one more indication of the power he seeks. For whilst he may claim Churchill to be his political hero, in reality it is Trump whom he fashions himself after.

Just as Trump’s language becomes more extreme, so Johnson follows. And whilst the back bench might grumble, it remains unlikely that they will find backbone enough between them to stand up to Johnson, just as the Republican Party are similarly spineless and unable to stand up to Trump.

This country must face the reality that we are, already, under authoritarian control. We cannot look away; we cannot keep looking back at Germany in the 1930’s and drawing parallels with the past without asking ourselves the most important question – how do stop history repeating itself? How do we stop the rise of the fascism that now rules us (regardless of denials to the contrary)?

And how do we stop fascism from ever coming to power again?