Gary Lineker and the ‘othering’ of British politics
Britain, it seems, is not quite the country imagined by those putting the boot into Gary Lineker. It’s more complex, its citizens less stereotypical. Why this should surprise anyone beats me, but there you have it.
The Lineker story is not really about Lineker, football pundit, national treasure and the face of Walker’s crisps since 1994. It’s not about free speech. It’s not even about one man who describes himself as editor-in-chief of the BBC, shooting himself and the Corporation in both feet.
The Lineker story is, at heart, about how politics in these islands is no longer about ideas or fact-based debate. It’s become about pitting communities against each other for electoral advantage. It’s about the debasement of that imperfect but uniquely precious thing: democracy.
Tory spin doctors seem to believe that you stand a better chance of winning by enticing voters to behave, not like democrats with competing ideas, but friends and enemies whose heresies threaten each other’s way of life.
When Lineker trashes the Government’s (in my view odious) refugee policy, ministers turn up the heat, hoping it will cook his goose. Wrong goose as it turns out. You mess with a man who boasts 8.5 million Twitter followers at your peril.
The row, far from doing for Lineker, has enhanced his status as a man of principle while swinging the spotlight onto Richard Sharp, the £160,000 a year BBC chairman, Tory donor and £800,000 loan fixer for Boris Johnson.
Of course, comparing post-war politics to 1930’s Germany or for that matter Bolshevism is not something to be undertaken lightly. All too often the comparisons are superficial or just plain wrong.
But Lineker has a point and it seems public opinion is, by and large, on his side. While nobody believes the government is itching to sink the small boats (though some MPs have come perilously close to saying so) the language it uses around refugees is straight out of the totalitarian playbook.
You could call it a culture war. I prefer to call it “othering”: of migrants, of the “wokerati”, of so-called lefty lawyers, of people who oppose Brexit who are branded as unpatriotic anti-democrats. This othering is now a mainstay of UK politics.
When the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, responds to Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition, at PMQs by calling him a “lefty lawyer”, you’ve moved from the Mother of Parliaments to the bar at the Dog and Duck. It’s time the House of Commons grew up.
Kemi Badenoch, a rising star of the Conservative party, Trade Secretary and now Minister for Equalities and Women, turned down a proposal last week to trial menopausal leave for women. She didn’t argue her case. She dismissed it purely on the grounds that it came from a “left-wing” perspective. This is argument-free ideology.
“Stop the Boats” is a textbook example of this venomous trend. By painting the boat people as invaders it turns a (very real) problem from a humanitarian issue into a battle between “them” and “us”, natives and strangers.
This, the Government believes, gives it a free hand to impose draconian policies that breach international norms of civilised behaviour.
On the morning of August 6, 2020 Nigel Farage filmed himself filming refugees landing in Kent. He described this as an invasion and a national humiliation. This hyperbole played straight into our nostalgia of wartime Britain: “We shall fight them on the beaches”.
Othering of people goes hand in hand with the quiet chiselling away at our rights to oppose government policy by standing up for what we believe in: new voter ID requirements that will make it more difficult for the poor and the young to vote; limiting the powers of trade unions to strike; curbing the powers of the judiciary; limiting the right to public protest; politicising the Electoral Commission.
The row over Lineker has backfired spectacularly on the Government, the BBC and the right-wing media. Not everyone who supports him agrees with his criticism. The terraces are not usually hotbeds of liberalism. But, at least in this case, fair play trumps politics.
There’s an opportunity here for the Labour Party, whose programme for government lacks spine. Instead of persisting with a Tory-lite approach for fear of offending the Red Wall, it should plant its flag squarely on the side of those who champion the qualities that make Britain special: fairness, decency, honesty, compassion and integrity.
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.
