Starmer finds some chants he approves of. The politics of culture wars
Starmer has been going on again about chants on Palestine demonstrations that he does not agree with. He has been vague about what the chants might be, and even when he finds one (about the intifada) he obviously can’t accept that this is a politically disputed term and he is taking sides.
He has also managed to take sides when it comes to chants he does think are ok. These include anti-Arab rants by the supporters of Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv. He believes that they do have the right to chant such slogans on the streets of Birmingham next month when they play Aston Villa.
Perhaps some thought we’d get rid of culture wars when the Tories departed office. They manufactured them of course because they had nothing else. Starmer is now it appears on the same page.
He now wants the police to identify those who have been chanting things he does not like (he does not seem to know who they might be) and by inference these chanters have somehow been given cover by the hundreds of thousands who march for the Palestinians.
The aim is to get the Palestinian solidarity movement to police itself in a way that suits Starmer. Thankfully the PSC aren’t playing.
There are historical parallels. The Ranters were a sect at the start of the Commonwealth period 1649-51 who said things that were not officially approved of. Except as E P Thompson underlined (1987) the Ranters did not exist. They were invented to attack radical views in the post-Civil War period.
He noted
To ‘rant’ was a term of insult, and ‘Ranter’ was, like ‘loony Left’, a term invented by opponents
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