Our government always appears to do too little, too late. That might look like incompetence unless the real aim is to actively undermine the credibility of government. Suppose it is? Suppose those we have in power want chaos, because that’s what they see as their route to profit?
What we have in that case is not a legitimate government. Legitimate governments get their power from people by noting their best interests and arbitrating between them. That’s why we give them power. Our belief is that they will sort the chaos that might otherwise exist.
But suppose we have a government that is consciously seeking to undermine the people of the country by creating chaos to do so? And that it’s doing this solely in the interests of those in it and associated with it? The evidence very strongly suggests that is what we have.
Suppose too that there was very strong evidence that one of the primary goals of this government was to perpetuate this position of advantage for those within it and who it favours at cost to everyone else? The evidence is, again, very clear that this is what is happening.
Do we have a legitimate government in that case? And do we have a legitimate democracy if it can let this happen through an absence of appropriate checks and balances? And what if we do not have a legitimate government or democracy? What then?
I never thought I would ask these questions because I never thought I would need to. But in one sense Boris Johnson is right. His Tory party is nothing like that which preceded it. His is corrupt, populist, and focussed solely on the interests of a few people in this country.
The time to ask uncomfortable questions has, it seems, arrived.
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