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Glenn Reynolds reports on the Tea Party Convention Glenn just emailed me a question: “When will we see a Tea Party campaign in Britain?” to which I have no answer. If I must hazard a guess, I would say it will be after the Tories take power again… and people realize Cameron is nothing but NuLabour in Tory clothing.
In any case, you may want to read Glenn’s WSJ report on the Tea Party Convention.
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There is a nascent “Tea Party” Movement in Britain. It is called “Lawful Rebellion”. The idea is based on the provision in Magna Carta which allows aggrieved subjects to wage war on a king who does not uphold and implement the charter, having been asked politely first.
The promoters emphasise that the movement is entirely peaceful in its methods and that it is “a movement not an organisation”. So it is very eclectic and involves quite disparate groups. Meetings are being held up and down the country from Kirkcaldy to Bournemouth.
If you google “Lawful Rebellion” or “British Constitution Group” you will find quite a seam of information. The videoed speeches are variable in quality. I particularly recommend the one by Dele Ogun, a Nigerian lawyer practising in London. He demonstrates very well how the form and appearance of democracy is maintained whilst the reality has been subverted.
“It is called “Lawful Rebellion”. The idea is based on the provision in Magna Carta which allows aggrieved subjects to wage war on a king who does not uphold and implement the charter…”
Yes – here is a link from last month (via Captain Ranty) to an interesting encounter between Raymond St Clair and a policeman. Recommended viewing.
As someone interested in the US Tea Party, and hopeful to help organize something similar here, I can’t quite understand how the British Constitution Group equates to the Tea Parties. From my reading of their website, they want to leave the EU and er… thats about it. The Tea Parties in the US broadly support fiscal conservatism, movement towards a much smaller state, free market solutions, abiding by the US constitution and a realistic response to the War on Terror. All of them are an easy sell to most mainstream Americans.
How many British people really want to leave the EU? How many British people are afraid that if we leave the EU we will become poorer, do less trade and be marginalised politically?
If you really want a grassroots movement, you have to offer things people really want.
There isn’t much point until after the election. Give the Tories their chance to fix the problems and when they fail we’re going to need something along the lines of the tea party.
The important thing is to start pushing the Tories as soon as possible. They’re an ideological blank slate (with a few honourable exceptions), we can’t afford to let them just settle down under the confortable blanket of “competent management” and run the system as it is.
I agree with Dale that the moment may come after Cameron has been installed in Number 10, and if he then behaves as if we actually CAN “go on like this”. But I think he will probably do just enough to defuse such feelings.
Much of the timing of the Tea Party thing in the USA comes from the fact that the two big parties both conspired to expand Big Government, do all the bailing out, etc., and that a new and determinedly Big Government President was installed just when millions wanted the reversal of such trends.
As for this Lawful Rebellion stuff, well, you never know, it might take off. But it hasn’t yet. Whenever populist uprisings are in the offing, you always get claims that this or that person or idea is leading it, when all that he/it is/are really doing is attaching himself/itself to the front of the mob.
SUrely it is more appropriate to say that New Labour are just old Tories rather than the other way around
So I guess I shouldn’t check back here to see who is leading the charge! It isn’t going to be the Samizdata lot…
To the question, “When will we see a Tea Party campaign in Britain?” I think the likely answer is, “Never.”
The ghastly truth – at least from the standpoint of most of those who read this blog – is that most British people like Big Government. Actually they love it. According to a recent survey carried out in the UK and published by the Adam Smith Institute, 50% want the government to remain its current size, 39% want more government and 8% want smaller government. Nor is this a recent phenomenon, brought on by the recession; at no time during the last thirty years have more than 10% of people wanted less government. Anyone who doubts this should consider that despite what New Labour has done over the last thirteen years – the systematic assaults on liberty and the wrecking of the economy – some pundits are predicting a hung Parliament after the next election.
The same is true in the US, despite initial appearences to the contrary. In the abstract people will agree taxes are too high and government too big. But when it comes to specifics – should Social Security (old age pensions) or Medicare (government healthcare funding for the elderly) be cut, the answer is an overwhelming “No.” Yet these are two of the Big Four sources of government expenditure – the others being defence and interest on the national debt – and could dwarf the other two in a few decades. These problems have been known about for years, but politicians have refused to confront them, simply becuase to do so would be political suicide.
How this will end is pure conjecture, but it probably won’t be happily. The current situation is clearly unsustainable; current levels of borrowing by governments – British and American, as well as Greek – cannot continue in more than the short term. But cutting expenditure, as Margaret Thatcher found out, is almost impossible while raising taxes sufficiently to cover the deficit would wreck the economy.
There will be no ‘tea parties’ in Britain. Ever.
The things that have animated the US tea parties (smaller state, free market solutions) are the very things that repel the average Brit. The number of people in this country who do want those things would fit comfortably into a one large pub. Simply not enough.
Sorry. Not going to happen.
If the US Tea Parties are largely opposed to too much federal government, then UKIP and it’s supporters could possibly qualify as the British Tea Party. In fact, a large proportion of the English at least would probably support much less power for Brussels, though it doesn’t follow that they would prefer less government overall.
Once the “Tea Party” movement began cheerleading Palin and had her as a keynote speaker, I determined them to be worthless ass Republican shills.
The fact that they think “Bridge to Nowhere” Bitch is a “change” is all the evidence needed.
Mark Steyn suggests that perhaps Tea Parties are an America only thing.
bronkertine, you make the same mistake that most of the mainstream media does. The group in Nashville which invited Palin to speak is just one faction within the Tea Party umbrella (“metacontext”?). And even they aren’t entirely enamored of her. Despite attempts by the Republican Party and various others to co-opt it, it’s still very much an idiosyncratic, individualistic, and very messy grass-roots movement. Which, of course, is why statists of all stripes hate and villify it.
I think, in general, that Tea Party people are old-style conservatives, both economically and socially, and they’re rebelling against the growth in government fostered by both parties. Sort of Eisenhower Republicans, if you will. In my state (South Carolina) they have had a very public falling-out with the Republican establishment. They’re not libertarians, but we have much in common and can work together (for a while).
As one who has attended two so called TEA parties, I’d like to offer my view on this. As KevinB pointed out in comments by Mark Steyns, those sentiments are quite accurate as to the motivations of TEA party attendees.
I’m quite convinced that there are no problems that cannot be made far, far worse when we seek our answers in our government, instead of ourselves. If you think otherwise, perhaps that is why a TEA party might not happen elsewhere?
“The number of people in this country who do want those things would fit comfortably into a one large pub. Simply not enough.”
That might change though and I think the possibility rests upon two things: the first is the state’s continuing ability to manage “the nation’s affairs” without both (a) substantially weakening its’ monopoly on violence, and (b) causing one or more intolerable inconveniences to a majority of the population; the second thing, which feeds into (b) above, is the degree to which a people become commonly accustomed to differentiating between their own interests and those of the state across a large enough number of situations (e.g. education, healthcare, transport and utilities – water, gas, electricity).
I’m not sure that there aren’t reasons to hold some optimism on the first point – which is essentially about where the incompetency threshold lies; much state power has already been outsourced to Brussels; the UK government already has its’ military forces stretched considerably, although how much longer this will last I don’t know; the mismanagement of monetary policy and the consequent distortion of investment across the UK is certainly a hot potato to handle (eventually there will surely be serious consequences for the Treasury’s income); electoral turnout has consistently indicated large numbers of apathetic potential voters and then there are all the myriad smaller ways in which the state is commonly reviled through for example the culture of political correctness flushed downstream from the Home Office and the BBC.
I don’t think a Tea Party would ever be appropriate to the UK because it seems to me that the correct target for us (i.e. the one which we have the best chance of hitting – repeatedly and as hard as possible) isn’t so much the EU or UK divisions of the State* (and certainly not merely the Labour Party), as the common failure across the British population to distinguish between their own individual interests and those of the State, which I think corresponds (loosely) to Perry de Havilland’s notion of altering the “metacontext”.
And actually, I daresay this is probably true in the U.S. as well despite the protestations of Mark Steyn types.
*But of course acting to discredit the EU and encourage its’ dismantling is generally fine by me.
Well there is LPUK(Link)
The report by Glenn Reyolds is good – it puts the lying nonsense put out by the Lamestream Media to shame.
As for Britain – I would like to say lots of postitive things about the chances for liberty here. However, I can not.