the brilliantly leaping gazelle

A number of things have become clear to me following Stymied’s decision to recognise Palestine as a state. The simple version is that he’s a fucking idiot. The longer version is a bit more detailed than that; that he’s an opportunistic fucking idiot, a deluded fucking idiot and a dangerous fucking idiot, but basically a fucking idiot. However, I do get how further explanation might be needed why I think this.

He’s an opportunistic fucking idiot because he imagines himself to have to have committed an act of shrewd political self-interest. Unfortunately for him though, the the benefits upon which he’s counting on will prove to be illusory, counter-productive and politically fatal. He’s right to be concerned of the increasing threat posed to Labour in constituencies with a significant proportion of Muslim voters. If they can be effectively mobilised to vote in support of a pro Gaza platform, as five constituencies did last year, then what new horrors await in 2029?

He’ll be well aware of the maths. There are 37 constituencies with a Muslim population over 20 per cent, and in a further 73 seats the Muslim population is between 10 and 20 per cent. Labour’s vote fell by over 14 per cent at last year’s election from 2019 in those constituencies where the Muslim population was above 15 per cent. These numbers will be even worse in four years.

If he thinks that by recognising Palestine as a state, he’s nullified the risk posed by Corblimey, Raisin and the Boob Whisperer, to avoiding a calamitous general election in 2029, he’s more of a fucking idiot than I’d previously thought. He isn’t so much shaping events as reacting to them, and now that he’s proven himself to be the kind of man who others can bend to their will, they’ll make him do it again. Because if all of the marches, the demonstrations, the various types of old and new media bullshit, the angry letters signed by the usual bandwagoners, the performative protests outside Parliament and mass arrests can achieve this much, then what possible reason would there be to stop now? What other abominations can they force the government to commit?  

He’s a deluded fucking idiot because if he thinks that because of him recognising Palestine as a state this  somehow further enshrines his reputation as a man of influence on the world stage, he is mistaken. He’s more like stubborn effluent, which refuses to be properly flushed away and that everyone else see’s but is too polite to mention. He’s unaware that Britain is no longer the global power it once was, and is as able to direct events as an adulterer caught hiding naked from his mistress’s balcony has.   

He’s also a dangerous fucking idiot because in recognising Palestine as a state, he’s effectively rewarded a genocidal death cult for being a genocidal death cult. Hummus don’t want a two state solution, because that would mean Israels continued existence, which as Hummus’s founding charter states and it has continued to reaffirm since, it actively wants to cease. 

 In so doing, he’s also added yet more weight to my charge of him being a dangerous fucking idiot. He has no idea of what will happen next and by that I mean no-one can even hazard a guess of what will follow. Will the Basque separatists restart their terror campaign for Catalan independence from Spain? Or will Quebec demand cessation from Canada? There are loads of provinces and states embedded in counties throughout the world that will see this as an opportunity to achieve their goal of independence.

There may not be the exact same set of circumstances as there are in Gaza, there may not be the same concerted international demands for action for action or even the same domestic political pressures on him, but once a door is opened it can be widened. So might the United Kingdom not be quite so united soon? If the SNP again renege on their ‘once in a lifetime’ bid for Scottish indigence, how soon after that will the Cornish do likewise?  And how disunited would this kingdom have to be until London decided that it had had enough, decided that it had the power, the economy and a border (the M25) to go it alone. I know it seems far fetched, but so to did Palestinian statehood becoming a thing, a thing recognised by a permanent member of the UN Security Council up until a few days ago.

Stymied is essentially the political embodiment of the quip “Those are my principles and if you don’t them…well I have others.” My worry is that he doesn’t even know what they are until others or circumstances decide them for him.