Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Norgy]

Britishers, what is this Unite The Kingdom march nonsense that is going on now?

[Sheilbh]

Britishers, what is this Unite The Kingdom march nonsense that is going on now?

Far-right march around Tommy Robinson. There's been two now - the first one had about 100-150k attendees in 2025 (and many arrests after clashes with the police). The second one was smaller - in the tens of thousands - no clashes and fewer arrests. But I suspect a very challenging police environment as they always also attract large counter-demonstrations and the second one was on Nakba Day which always has a very large pro-Palestinian march.

There is a lot of American money going into it and ahead of the last one the Home Office blocked visas for eleven American far-right "agitators" who were billed to speak.

It slightly ties into the weird slightly Schrodinger's Britain you find online in that the Home Office also recently blocked Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker which has attracted a lot of attention. So you have this really weird scenario where the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who is a Muslim woman and member of Labour Friends of Palestine is simultaneously blocking Piper and Uygur from entry at the behest of Israel and blocking American racists from entering the country because we've got creeping Sharia and Muslims running Britain. In general I am a little uncomfortable with the ease with which Home Secretary's can block people and think it's drawn a little too broadly - but the power's not new and has been used in the past to block Kanye, homophobic Jamaican dancehall performers, Geert Wilders, Islamist preachers etc from entering the country so I think it's probably being applied relatively fairly and/or indiscriminately.

Separately just to flag a very tiny thing in the Mandelson files is his attempt to become Chancellor of Oxford University (as well as American Ambassador), which is a post elected by Oxford graduates - he failed (came fourth out of five). But one thing this exchange highlights is the very narrow circles in the Labour Party:


So that's Peter Mandelson the grand-son of post-war Labour Deputy PM and Home Secretary Herbert Morrison (though they weren't close) and Georgia Gould. She's a new MP and minister who was regularly praised by Alastair Campbell when she was leader of Camden Council - she's also the daughter of Peter Gould who was a key influence in New Labour, particularly around polling and focus groups. Obviously in that role he worked very closely with Mandelson and Campbell - who is the "Alastair" referenced there and whose nephew is now an MP.

You see this across Labour whether it's the Miliband brothers, Rachel Reeves and her sister Ellie Reeves, also an MP and former Party Chairman (and, incdientally, married to John Cryer who is now in the House of Lords but was a Labour MP and the son of Bob and Ann Cryer, both Labour MPs), the Benn family. But also, say, Keir Starmer's chiefs of staff. Sue Gray - his first chief of staff (and moved now in the House of Lords) - is the mother of Liam Conlon who is a Labour MP, or his second chief of staff Morgan McSweeney who is married to Imogen Walker, also a Labour MP, and government whip. Or there's Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls - I know Ed Balls is out of politics now and does media but I do find it slightly insane that the husband of the Foreign Secretary is one of the hosts of ITV's morning show which includes interviewing ministers.

You can sort of add a second layer to it if you include civil servants - so, for example - Rachel Reeves is married to Nicholas Joicey who is a senior civil servant. He worked for Gordon Brown, was sent to the IMF, worked at the Treasury, DWP and DEFRA before being given (understandably) a series of leaves of absence and sabbaticals to take up other roles while his wife is the Chancellor.

Seeing the messages from Georgia and Peter about Alastair's nephew just was a bit of a reminder of quite how small and incestuous a club it is. And something that I did think about among Labour's celebration of getting rid of the 92 remaining hereditary peers whe I feel like the Parliamentary Labour Party is basically about a dozen families at this point and they're all married to either party apparatchiks or civil servants

Edit: And also the exchange that is probably going to be the line people remembered (the Tories already releasing graphics based on it), is Pat McFadden, currently at DWP,  that "every meeting I have [with Labour MPs] is 'who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others'. They're asking the wrong questions".

McFadden, who was Blair's political secretary before becoming an MP, talking about lots of manoeuvring that didn't "feel good for Keir". In particular by "Gordon" - i.e. Gordon Brown. Mandelson then confirming that Brown "has it in for Keir (and Rachel) big time). He doesn't seriously believe that Angel is an alternative but she is an instrument of destabilisation. I doubt he thinks Ed [Miliband] is fit for pupose but he is doing to Keir what he has always done to successive Scottish leaders." Which I think is fair - and Brown's role in the collapse of Scottish Labour is a thing.

But it's just insane that this was in 2025 and you basically have Gordon Brown, Pat McFadden, Peter Mandelson and (arguably) Ed Miliband just fighting the New Labour Continuation War. It's like if Tony Blair's government was riven by Roy Jenkins' scheming with Tony Benn while Bernard Donoghue and Marcia Williams (Harold Wilson's Press Secretary and Secretary) are at the top of government fighting it. I can't think of anything like it and I know the factionalism in Labour is extreme and there are these sort of apostolic succession passing down of grudges - from Gaitskellites to Kinnock to New Labour v the Bevanites to the Bennites to the Corbynites. But this is other level and kind of unhinged - I can't think of anything else like this of the personnel and fights of one government (almost 15 years go) rolling into the next as if nothing happened in between.