Priti Patel the hard right Tory MP who is currently Home Secretary has made a speech at the Tory Conference in Manchester that was typically full of right-wing rhetoric. She claimed the Tories were the Party of law and order as the Treasurer of the Tories backbench 1922 Committee was being escorted out of the Conference after a punch up with security guards.
She also claimed, despite being born in Islington, that what she referred to as the ‘North London, Metropolitan, Liberal elite’ were the people she was aiming her remarks at.
People living in Tottenham, which last time I checked was definitely in North London, may wonder (if they bothered to check her speech which is mostly unlikely, as other matters around jobs, wages and housing may have been on their minds) what she was on about. The area contains some of the more deprived, in terms of poverty, Council Wards in the UK.
Her claim to end ‘free movement’ may also explain why 76% of people in Tottenham voted to Remain. I have never detected a great affinity with the austere EU in the area, anymore than austere Westminster. What I do sense is a huge concern about a Farage and Johnson Brexit which is about more Windrushes and more Hostile Environments.
The Tottenham Parliamentary Constituency contains few if any elites, or indeed liberals in a Party sense. It does contain lots of working class people who have been on the sharp end of the policies of Ms Patel’s Government for the last 9 years and want it to end. Now.
Keith Flett is a born & bred North Londoner, long time Tottenham resident & former Secretary of Haringey Trades Union Council
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