Thread by @nickreeves9876

The government has banned civil servants from inviting speakers who have criticised Boris Johnson or his policies.

The Tory elite are kleptofascists who serve only themselves and their super-rich donors. They have no care for democracy or human rights.

The Tories were once a mass-membership party representing the middle class and ordinary British businesses. This pushed it towards supporting democracy. Now the Tory elite serves only itself and its super-rich patrons - neither group have a vested interest in democracy.

Rather than representing voters, the Tory elite has learned to manipulate them with lies, flag-waving and three-word slogans without having any concern for their welfare. The Tory elite does not represent its voters, it uses them.

Deindustrialisation has shattered working-class communities and organisations leaving many disorientated working-class voters unprotected against the right's proto-fascist propaganda of nationalism, xenophobia, scapegoating and cultural division.

It is not enough for people to share economic conditions to create class politics. What is required is communities and organisations deeply embedded in those communities, and those are what deindustrialisation has shattered.

Industrialisation gave birth to class politics. Deindustrialisation has largely destroyed it. The Tories have gone back to the 18th century politics of a corrupt political elite serving super-rich oligarchs. The same is true of the US Republicans.

If my analysis is correct, then Trump and Johnson are merely the symptoms of a fundamental change in the political landscape. We face a long struggle against the forces of kleptofascism - sociopathic greed using fascist propaganda techniques to manipulate a fragmented society.

This analysis is not a counsel of despair. Over half the electorate are not taken in by lies, jingoism, and emotive slogans. But this majority is not united into a coherent political class or behind one party. That is why there must be a Progressive Alliance.