Weeks into the Burnham premiership, Arzu asks the PM why he still hasn’t tried to change the racist narratives that have not only divided and decimated British society, they have propelled war and quite possibly huge military escalation.
Nobody believes you and your government, your police service or compliant media, when you talk about Iran. I don’t mean those deeply sympathetic to the Islamic Republic, or the anti-war activists. I don’t mean the very marginalised, those less inclined to believe a word from any authority figure’s mouth. I mean pretty much everybody thinks the RAF Fairford story, supposedly implicating Iran, in what appears to be the crime of driving too many white vans near a US military base, compounded in some cases by being a dual national, has a shred of truth in it. It appears, in fact even more ludicrous than the Golders Green ambulance arson, and the similarly weird attacks across Europe by a group so badly named, only the FlyDubai fiasco could outshame them (in case you haven’t heard, the accused in that case is named Bathroom the Bathroom).
The list is longer, with some cases in the public eye, others in the background. But almost every day now there is some bizarre accusation that Iran is trying to do x, y, z nefarious thing. And the stuff is so poor – this is not ‘sexed up dossier level, it’s so lazy. Maybe that’s why no- one believes it. Or maybe because no-one believes it, the people making it up don’t even try.
You inherited the narratives. I get it, we all do. But if you really mean to overturn the ravages of neoliberalism then it means you have to tackle the words that write the policies and then justify them, that frame the laws that are currently criminalising all those who are currently doing exactly what three premiers of this country have refused to do: stop the genocide in Palestine and stop the march to more and greater wars.
But you persist. Pay attention now, here comes the literature bit.
You have said so many right things. It’s like you read Middlemarch but didn’t get that Dorothea, and in her wake Will Ladislaw (the highly racialised outsider) are the heroes, bringing reform and great change to a country whose democracy was characterised by rotten boroughs, appalling social conditions and a class hierarchy, that make its middle-class protagonists fearful lest the guillotine doth come to England*. Instead you have become a sort of Brooke of Tipton**. You care up to a point. Your vision for Reform that sweeps the land, is one which brings you power and fame, and you do care. But just for some of it.
Burnham of Makerfield has seen the damage neoliberalism has wrought in the domestic sphere. You even admit your predecessors got it wrong on Gaza. But the speeches are worth nothing if there is no action, or worse still all action is the same as or worse than before.
And that’s the thing. The spy flights for the Zionist entity continue, just as the genocide, despite all protestation, creeps on at its ceasefire bloodied pace. The pandering to the US in all its foreign policy aims, and that includes the ratchet up to more war in the region and especially against Iran, seems writ in stone. You and your cabinet don’t even seem embarrassed about it. We are, the citizens and denizens looking on, embarrassed on your behalf. And angry. So very angry. Because this failure – and it is a moral and political failure – threatens all of us wherever we are. If you are not to become a Burnham of Makerfield, or a Starmer erstwhile of Holborn/ St. Pancras, then you need to trash the narratives that have made genocide and war on this scale possible. You may not avert the US escalation, but at least there will be no more blood on your hands.
Arzu is a writer and researcher based in London, UK. Follow her on @arzumerali on X and Instagram, @ArzuMeraliOfficial on Facebook.
* at least in the Andrew Davies TV interpretation)
** UK readers watch the series on BBC iPlayer, the book is massive but worth the effort if you have time
