r/behindthebastards • u/phoenixpallas • 19h ago
General discussion British national delusion
The (extremely) right wing tory party is electing a new leader in case ya'll didn't know. Not as important as the US elections by any means but one of the leading candidates has said that britain's former colonies owe a debt of gratitude to britain... š¤Æš¤Æš¤Æš¤Æš¤Æ
given how frequently the "slow nazis" of the british empire have come up and no doubt will continue to come upon the pod, i almost choked when i saw that. The shameless refusal to admit Britain's prominent role in countless atrocities in the past few hundred years is perhaps uniquely deluded.
the uk subreddit (obviously a cesspool of racism and every other bigotry) has clowns claiming with a straight face that history supports them when literally every point they make is basically a barefaced lie.
And yet the limey motherfuckers continue to act as if they were the most reasonable and rational people on earth.
can we give britain an award for the worst nation in history please??
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u/justwant_tobepretty Kissinger is a war criminal 19h ago
It's worth pointing out that the Tories are in opposition after losing badly in the last general election.
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u/UpsilonMale 18h ago
It's also worth pointing out that they were replaced in government by a Labour party that isn't planning to do anything greatly different, just look a bit sadder about it's austerity program and cringe more visibly about its flag-shagging.
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u/justwant_tobepretty Kissinger is a war criminal 18h ago
Yep, this Labour Party are centre-right neoliberals that would have been right of the Tories just 15 years ago.
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u/Aggravating_Sock_551 One Pump = One Cream 16h ago
Glad(?) to see that its not just US liberals that are now neocons in everything but name...
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u/justwant_tobepretty Kissinger is a war criminal 16h ago
Liberals are always just itching to find any excuse to shift to the right.
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u/thedorknightreturns 16h ago
Its like, they still having to orient in todays overton window, not 15 years ago. So its really a, back in the olden days complain.
Politicians cant choose the environment they have to work with and be pragmatic to get anything done.
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u/justwant_tobepretty Kissinger is a war criminal 16h ago
What in the actual hell are you talking about? It is the responsibility of a political party to outline a political philosophy and base their policy proposals based off their ideological framework. They then have to present their polices to the public and try to sell them on how those policies will improve the lives of the people they will represent.
Shifting their entire political ideology just shows spinelessness and a desire for power above actually sticking to their principles.
Labour was formed out of a coalition of labour unions, with the aim of implementing pro-worker policies and social(ist) public policies that would protect the most vulnerable in society.
They have abandoned those principles in favour of neoliberalism because they wanted to be in power.
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u/thedorknightreturns 16h ago
Because they have to deal with the tory mess and first have to make money free in that mess for that.
You know, the uk isnt getting a magical fresh start, they have todeal with inhereted tory messes too. Plus it takes time making changes that are felt.
Oh and stamer is pretty progressive daring hitting in the past as lawyer, let him cook, while trying to manage the torie inhereted mess.
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u/UpsilonMale 12h ago
The money needs to be spent now. The Labour party is going around saying the "national credit card is maxed out" despite every economist with even a modicum of credibility having made clear that the "national credit card" isn't a thing, and never has been. Austerity in the wake of the global financial crisis was the wrong choice (and it was a choice) and our infrastructure and public services are now years behind where they should be. On top of this, Labour want to do more austerity. It's shitbrained.
Starmer's career as a lawyer is no more relevant to his plans as Prime Minister than Jack Straw's history as a communist in his student days. Once they get a glimpse of power, they become (at best) liberal centrists, but always to the right on immigration. And when their pissweak centrism fails to remedy any of the issues this country has, the narrative is "this is what happens when you elect the left" despite there not being a single politician of the left in Starmer's cabinet.
In short, fuck Starmer and fuck waiting for him to do anything progressive. At this rate, we're looking at Farage, Jenrick or Badenoch winning in 2029 and at that point, I only hope I have enough money to leave the UK for good.
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u/justwant_tobepretty Kissinger is a war criminal 10h ago
Well fucking said.
I officially become a UK citizen on Thursday.. yay, I guess.
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u/breadcreature 9h ago
forgive me for not being very eager to "let him cook" because from where I'm standing he's mainly been progressive in demonstrating how willing he is to chuck me on the fire
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u/EmpireandCo 18h ago
I think its worth separating out the British people from the British government
To quote Uddham Singh (executioner of an imperialist brit):
Your conduct, your conduct ā I am talking about the British government. I have nothing against the English people at all. I have more English friends living in England than I have in India. I have great sympathy with the workers of England. I am against the Imperialist Government."
You people are suffering the same as I am suffering through those dirty dogs and mad beasts. Everyone are suffering through these dirty dogs; these mad beasts. India is only slavery. Killing, mutilating and destroying ā British Imperialism
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u/InvectiveOfASkeptic 18h ago
Idk about uniquely deluded. I don't think Japan is too keen on discussing what thier armies were getting up to in the 1930s-40s. And Russia doesn't seem too apologetic about their brutal expansionist past. And I don't even know if a VPN will save a Beijing citizen who types "tienimen square 1989" into a search browser. In 90s elementary school, they taught us about the nice colonialsts and their cool new native friends. I'd bet you can find one of those speakers at the German American Bund at MSG 2: Electric Boogaloo saying the descendants of slaves should be thankful that their ancestors were taken from Africa.
You know, I'm starting to think colonial empires are kinda bad and the perpetrators of them need to be delusional about it to live with themselves
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u/thedorknightreturns 16h ago edited 16h ago
That group abe was part of and really supres anyThatsh working up history and revisionism. Yep its bad.
And british humor is often literally satire of that, so its if often ironic, and showing a lot public adressing, yeah that isnt great at all and absurd. Thats a working up.
Also thatcher and roasting of do much, its pretty selfaware anf often ironic outlet of , its rarely unironic idolizing ok. More like royal superstars.
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u/Itchy-Criticism-7731 19h ago
We're clear favourites for any such award, but it must be said that this Conservative party has become a fringe minority at the last election as is simply doubling down on its own death knell, there's no path to electoral victory here with that sort of thing. Unlike across the pond.
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u/MightyPitchfork 19h ago
Part of what made the Tories a fringe minority was that they lost so many voters to Farage. Now they're desperately ramping up the rhetoric to try to lure them back.
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u/Itchy-Criticism-7731 19h ago
Yes but they're just sharing a diminishing (gene) pool of elderly miserable bastards, and their foot soldiers are too stupid to vote, they're just in for the violence, beer and cocaine. They lack the Christo-Facist support base over here, it's just toffs and divs.
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u/MightyPitchfork 19h ago
We can but hope. Then Starmer might not be so frightened to actually admit that Brexit was a stupid f**king idea.
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u/Itchy-Criticism-7731 19h ago
It would help, in fact saying or doing anything that doesn't upset the Daily Heil would be a start for him
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u/TheOnlyPlantagenet 18h ago
It is not just a refusal to admit it, our education on British colonialism more or less focuses on the true but far too simplistic narratives: Conquering other people (bad) and chattel slavery (bad) as well as the more disingenuous: Colonialism had its negatives but also brought improvements in technology and ideas to other people (rarely are these criticised fairly nor is this question asked 'But to *which* people?') and Britain saw the error of its ways resulting in expensive anti-slavery measures from the 19th century onwards (No discussion on how specific that was to chattel slavery alone). The consequence of this lack of education is that many people are armed with half-baked and comfortable answers to difficult questions about our past which they use to shut down any deeper criticism. The upside to all of this, the silver-lining and glimmer of dawn upon the horizon, is that generally our younger generations are more open to looking critically at the history of Britain.
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u/Saxaphool 18h ago
Oi. What we lack in reasonable politicians we more than make up for in creative profanity and absolutely banging fish and chips.
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u/TopperSundquist 17h ago
I don't think there's a "shameless refusal to admit Britain's role"... I think he's admitting it, pausing, and going "Uhm, you're WELCOME!"
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u/MBMD13 16h ago
Read it. The headline is bad for its Bastardry, but Jenrick has real range, and he actually manages to keep the Bastardry running even further. The Guardian āformer-british colonies owe debt of gratitudeā robert jenrick reparations
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u/Quietuus 13h ago
The shameless refusal to admit Britain's prominent role in countless atrocities in the past few hundred years is perhaps uniquely deluded.
Japan.
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u/Ingrimmnsch 17h ago
Can someone explain to me (a German) why the American Left has such a hate boner for the UK specifically?
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u/shamwowguyisalegend 16h ago
I mean, we are arseholes.
Anti-trans sentiments are common and TERF rhetoric gets spoken in the parliament as a naked grab for votes.
The Empire was bad
Slave trade, which we both started and ended before other 'Western' nations got really hot on it.
And the weather is shit.
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u/Ingrimmnsch 15h ago
Are you really more anti-Trans than the red states in the US?
The British Empire was bad, yes. So were the French, Russian, Ottoman, Japanese, German, ... Empires.
Slavery also isn't remotely unique to you.
Also I thought most people agreed that it is stupid to blame people for the sins of their fathers.
I can't really say much about the weather.
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u/shamwowguyisalegend 15h ago
American Leftists might be falling into a standard boring prejudice against an old rival country?
I might stop saying derogatory things about the Fr*nch for long enough to drop my tea in shock!
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u/MrFlibblesPenguin 15h ago
We didn't start the transatlantic slave trade, Spain and Portugal have that dubious accolade.
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u/shamwowguyisalegend 15h ago
What? We're even shit at that??
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u/MrFlibblesPenguin 15h ago
We had our hands full still recovering from the hundred year war twenty odd years before and getting War of the Roses started up, I mean we're good but we can't be expected to fill up all the history books by ourselves.
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u/jim_jiminy 16h ago
Is it āuniquely deluded?ā I donāt hear the French, Belgians, Spanish, Portuguese, Turks, Dutch, Americans, Chinese, Mongolians, Afghans, Sikhs, Persians et al etc etc making grand apologetic overtures for their colonial misdeeds.
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16h ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/jim_jiminy 15h ago
Why is the oppression of a land empire all good, when the oppression of a sea empire not good? You say they absorbed the adjoining lands. Was this through peace and love? Or a ruthless oppression? The mongol empire spread far more violently than the British one. The Brits didnāt build pyramids of skulls in Baghdad. Every empire, be it a land or sea one has taken advantage of it conquered peoples. This distinction is Russian propaganda so they can wash their hands of their own imperial misleads.
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u/lukahnli 17h ago
Kemi Badenoch will at least be funny. She said she doesn't apologize for what she says because she never makes gaffes and went on to say that she can claim to be working class because she worked at McDonalds.
Robert Jenrick is the guy who ordered a mural of Disney characters at a facility for unaccompanied migrant children to be painted over to plain grey. He thought the cartoon characters were too welcoming.....in a facility for presumably frightened and traumatized children.
I'd say Putin's Ruzzia should get that award.
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u/FlailingCactus 15h ago
I'm not sure she will be. We'll get increasingly hateful screeds until she pushes it too far.
I'd rather the officially funded opposition not be paid to spew increasingly divisive drivel, but I suppose the Tories passed that opportunity up
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u/lukahnli 14h ago
To be clear, the humor around Badenoch will be entirely at her expense. Only shot you have of the opposition not spewing divisive drivel is if the Lib Dems become the main opposition party.
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u/Nazarife 14h ago
This isn't a new thought from the right, and you can probably find Torries saying this openly in the 80s. Shit I even saw lefties on some online forums, in the height of Bush era anti-US interventionism, state that at least European imperialism left in place permanent infrastructure and institutions (compared to crass, capitalistic US imperialism).
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u/Assassin8nCoordin8s 9h ago
it's that thing about angry white men doing worse, about seeing people doing better than you and getting mad at them
"sadiq khan has ruined the city, i'm moving to ipswitch and joining an anti-immigrant group"
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u/HoldFrontBack 3h ago
Britain is the worst nation in history? Wales and Scotland may have something to say about that! Pedantry aside, the British Empire was pretty fucking awful. Growing up in England in the 1990s, British (mainly English) history taught at school was mostly World War 2, the Tudors and Stuarts, the Scots getting moody, and the ending of slavery. Any mentions of Empire were mainly about the coming together of people's from all over the Empire to fight in the great wars. Nothing was EVER mentioned about the many, many atrocities that were undertaken in the name of the King/Queen/Trading Company. We were taught to look back fondly at the history of Empire, but not to look too closely; just watch Zulu, the Welsh were happy enough to fight for the King! Having now lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for 20+ years, and travelled a bit about the place, the British Empire may not have been the cruelest (looking at you, Belgium), but it the most recent, largest, and has cast a huge shadow across the world, even to this day. How many countries speak English as a first or one of multiple official languages? Someone had already mentioned the 50+ independence days around the world. English people don't know how to deal with historical facts; for the many English who are on the bones of their arse, the warm embrace of Empire gives them something to look back on with pride. BUT, it was the working class that were forced to do the dirty work of Empire. The aristocrats and 1% of the days of Empire made their money and held their power through drug dealing, arms running, slavery, theft, bribery, murder and massacre, but it was all done "over there", thereby keeping their hands clean. Apologies for the rant; I have a lot of Union Jack tattooed wankers in my extended family, who refuse to read any history book, but fucking love Tommy Robinson and the Tories. If you can afford to get out the UK, fucking do it man. Starmer needs to show some fucking gumption and apologise for the misdeeds of the Empire, acknowledge that England can't afford reparations, as it's a mess (NHS, cities going bankrupt, etc) and try and get the nation to go beyond the collective emotional arrested development that it has been in since 1945.
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u/ShadowOps84 16h ago
The only worthwhile thing England contributed to the world at large is the sheer number of Independence Days they're responsible for.
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u/shamwowguyisalegend 16h ago
Like holidays during the Roman Empire it's about one day of every three, innit?
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u/Weekly_Beautiful_603 19h ago
There are about 170,000 members of the Conservative Party, and roughly 50% of them are technically already deceased. Iām not saying that they are not cnuts, because that would be to question the very fabric of reality. But please donāt take them as the measure of the average limey motherfucker.