Blood, Soil and Jeremy Clarkson (for Vittles)

In this article for Vittles I explore Jeremy Clarkson, Reform, the farmers’ protests, the far right, conspiracy theory and the need for directly resisting racist anti-immigration politics in the rural

In this article for Vittles I explore Jeremy Clarkson, Reform, the farmers’ protests, the far right, conspiracy theory and the need for directly resisting racist anti-immigration politics in the rural.

When I started writing working on this line of thinking for the Ecosocialism conference in London back in December, it still felt a bit speculative. Clarkson had not long written his piece in The S*n where he talked about the government’s ‘sinister plan’ to ‘ethnically cleanse’ and ‘carpet bomb’ the countryside to make way for immigrants and wind farms. Even though Clarkson’s TV show is wildly successful, it’s hard to know how much influence his newspaper articles have. And just because someone likes the show doesn’t mean they endorse (or even know) his political views, which are conspicuously absent from Clarkson’s Farm. Admittedly, and despite myself, I mostly enjoyed the programme. I know farmers who turn a blind eye to his politics because Clarkson’s Farm has demonstrated certain realities for British farms. I’m partly arguing that people need to stop doing that because this is lending him legitimacy.

In recent months, and since beginning work on this article I have come across a handful of examples leveraging the idea of farmers being ethnically cleansed, of conspiracy theory and outright unambiguous racism. It’s hard to estimate the scale, but it’s growing and it’s significant enough that I’ve come across it in real life, in media clips, on Facebook and in articles. I’m not saying it’s the majority of farmers, and I’m not saying there aren’t farmers who disagree. Part of my argument is highlighting the need to intervene against the normalisation of these views because many do no support them and the left has to offer an alternative.

I also argue against simplistic ideas of the far right as something separable to centrist liberalism. As fascism rises all around us in the West, in large part as a way to enforce the West’s genocide of Palestinians, and in order to maintain our imperialist domination over the world economy, it is hardly surprising, nor is it exceptional, that this is spreading in rural areas. Old fashioned blood and soil nationalism never did go away and it’s making an unwelcome resurgence. Columnists and TV stars can play a key role of political agitation in spreading these ideas to their millions of fans.

Just the last few days the ‘really-existing’ far right British Labour government are repressing political dissent by firstly, making moves to proscribe Palestine Action who are resisting Britain’s role in genocide and secondly, declaring yesterday’s protest outside parliament as illegal. All this as they support the US’ bombing of Iran. Liberal democracy, superficial and differentiated though it was, is crumbling. I add this wider context because there is no firewall between the so-called centre or liberals and fascism or the far right. It is everywhere and it is all around us and the very infrastructures and legal environment of fascism are already being instituted. Just as Biden was already engaged in both genocide and targeting immigrants before Trump came to power. Our struggle is against all of it.

Here's a link to the article: https://substack.com/home/post/p-166514426