NORTHERN STYLE NEWSWATCH No.16
CREDO 'An Age of Protest !'
We recall writing a study in 1996 entitled `Beyond the Storm - a Ripened Harvest', setting out a broad historical framework of the formation of what is known as Europe, and the unique position of the British Isles within that geographical setting. (For those who have mislaid their copy, or indeed did not receive one, this publication is, of course, still available.) But within a few weeks of it being published information was received which led to an Addendum being added. In opening this Newswatch we would like to quote part of that Addendum, which was taken from an article by a political commentator on the changing face of the political parties now in Parliament and their attitudes to Europe. We quote part of that commentator's concluding remarks:

"And what is this other grand coalition beginning to take shape before our wondering eyes - this coming together of Blairites, wet Tories, assorted peers, business chiefs and trade unionists? Is it not, in modern garb, the same odd assembly of political panjandrums, ambitious placemen, gradual reformers, radicals, non-conformists and lovers of all things foreign - especially the French - which used to be known as the Whigs? It would be absurd to push this analogy too far - to suggest that the politics of Pitt and Walpole are being resurrected in an era of universal suffrage. But there is something about this European debate which is almost primordial, which wipes away the 19th century labels of Socialist, Liberal and even Conservative, and takes us back to the most fundamental debate of our democracy - the sovereignty of Parliament and our relations with the Continent. When the stakes are this high, mere party labels are so much matchwood . . . . And just because realignment [of political forces, our insertion] has been the great chimera of postwar British politics - has been glimpsed and lost so often - it does not mean that now, on the hard rock of European monetary union, the system is not finally beginning to crack. "

To aid further understanding of this quotation we then drew upon Churchill's History of the English Speaking People', when writing about political activity in England in the 18th - 19th century:

" It was a misfortune for Britain in these years that the Parliamentary Opposition was at its weakest. A generation in the wilderness had demoralised the Whig Party, which had not been effectively in office since 1783. Among themselves the Whigs were deeply divided, and none of them had any better or broader plans for post-war reconstruction than the Tories. Indeed, their interests were essentially the same. Like their rivals they represented the landed class, and also the City of London. The only issues upon which they seriously quarrelled with the Government were Catholic Emancipation and the enfranchisement of the middle classes in the rising industrial towns. In the 1790's the Whigs had favoured the cause of Parliamentary Reform. It had been a useful stick with which to beat the administration of the younger Pitt. But they had been badly scared by the headlong course of events in France! Their leaders only gradually and reluctantly regained their reforming zeal. In the meantime, as Hazlitt put it, the two parties were like competing stage-coaches which splashed each other with mud but went by the same road to the same place . . . . . . During the ten years' reign of King George the Fourth the old party grouping in politics was fast dissolving. For more than a century Whig and Tory on different contentious issues had faced and fought one another in the house of Commons. Whig also fought Whig. Modern scholars, delving deeply into family connections and commercial interests, have sought to show that there was no such thing as a two-party system in 18th century Britain. If caution must be the hall-mark of history, all that may be said is that the men in power were vigorously opposed by the men who were out, while in between stood large numbers of neutral-minded gentlemen placidly prepared to support whichever group held office. It is not much of a conclusion to come to about a great age of Parliamentary debate. The ins and outs might as well have names, and why not employ the names of Whig and Tory which their supporters cast at one another? At any rate in the 1820's government of Tory complexion had been in power almost without interuption for thirty years. This government had successfully piloted the country through the longest and most dangerous war in which Britain had yet been engaged. It had also survived, though with tarnishing reputation, five years of peace-time unrest. But the Industrial Revolution posed a set of technical administrative problems which no aristocratic and agricultural party, Whig or Tory, was capable of handling. The 19th century called for fresh interpretation of the duties of government. New principles and doctrines were arising which were to break up the old political parties and in the Victorian age reshape and recreate them. These developments took time, but already the party built up by the younger Pitt was feeling their stir and stress."

We concluded the Addendum by saying that:

" We make no apology for quoting extensively from the work of Winston Churchill, for it has been done to illustrate that the political commentator's opinion we quoted earlier has a grounding in political history. There are parallels between recent past history and what is happening today - turmoil in Europe and concern in England that we will be drawn into that turmoil through a possible break-up, coalition and realignment of the present political system - all of which would lead to great disturbance in the lives of the people of this country. "

In considering this Newswatch we also recalled an even earlier study we wrote entitled `The Real War' - which can be set between Churchill's comments on the 18th - 19th century political scene in England and our modern-day political commentator's thoughts with which we opened up this Newswatch. We quote:

" Long before the actual war broke out in Europe in 1939 there were many in England who were preparing for war of another kind. Events other than the rise of National Socialism in Germany had taken place in Greater Europe, and the rising tide of Bolshevik Communism was sweeping the continent. There were many among the English intelligentsia who wanted to swim in that rising tide, and to channel its waters into England. In the universities and colleges, in the literary gatherings and the tea salons, talk of `the Real War' was taking place. The invasion of Poland by the German armies dragged England into a devastating physical war against Germany and provided the means for the beginning of the social revolution - `the Real War' of 1939-1945. As the fighting forces of England were mobilised ready for action, the intelligentsia, with their dreams of social revolution, were drawn into the armed forces. These people then found themselves in positions where they were able to manipulate the minds of ordinary men and women who had been taken from their communities in town and country to fight in a war they did not fully understand - or perhaps did not want to understand! But one thing united them: When it was over they did not intend to return to their old ways! The physical war was very real - the fighting, death and destruction was at times almost indescribable - but it also opened up educational facilities such as most men had never experienced. And so `the Real War' began in the hearts and minds and emotions of men and women who were ready to demand a change in their circumstances once the war was over. Those men won their real war, and a change in their circumstances, but the intelligentsia did not win the `war' they hoped would follow on at the end of the war in Europe. Aware of the mood of the people, the government of the day brought in the full recommendations of the Beveridge Plan, and so what we know today as the Welfare State was ushered in and became the weapon that stopped `the Real War' of social revolution taking place in England. It has been suggested by historians that if the Beveridge Plan had not been adopted in its entirety at that time there would have been devastating consequences for England, and indeed for the whole of the United Kingdom! "

So much for the background to this Newswatch! Depending upon our personal positions it can be said that we are living in an exciting age - an age of expectancy of change - but it is also an age of uncertainty, and for large sections of the community it is an age of anxiety and distress as change gives way to change and even more change, to the point where anxiety will eventually lead to an age of protest! There is also the distinct possibility that we have also entered an `unreal age' - unreal in the sense that the people of this country have been landed on a `beach' by the waves of political forces which have now spent their energy. People have `awakened' to outwork a life they did not create, having no concept of the forces which brought them to this place and, as such, live a life which to their understanding has always `been' and therefore always `will be'! In reality, however, they are facing a `powerful realignment of political forces' - as seen in the 18th - 19th centuries in the spent forces of Whigs and Tories.

Democracy as we have experienced it over the past seventy years did not just evolve. It was born out of a passionate period of violent protest and war which was finally harnessed into a political party. Living in this `unreal age' we have now sanitised those violent upheavals which came through a `realignment of political forces'. The so-called `Costume Dramas' which have filled our television and film screens are in fact a `re-packaging for social consumption' of the powerful intensity of rival political factions who once strode the boards of this country's stage under the titles of Whigs and Tories, and as Churchill said, when quoting a commentator named Hazlitt, `the two parties were like competing stage-coaches which splashed each other with mud but went by the same road to the same place'. The `great' writers of those times were exposing the sham of political and social life of those days. Trollope wrote to expose the hypocrisy of the political elitist groups, whilst Dickens wrote of the grinding poverty of the people those elitist groups were supposedly representing!

As we watch those Costume Dramas today, in this `unreal age' into which we have been swept by those earlier political powers (which are now spent forces), we have lost sight of the political intensity of those days as we watch the inevitable ballroom scene and admire the manly cut of the military uniforms! But the realignment that was taking place in those days was the wasting away of the power that had been centered on a powerful aristocracy, who with their vast estates were subservient to the Monarch who had powers of patronage, and the emerging new elitist group of commercial and manufacturing `barons' who had their minds set upon extending their interests in the vast overseas markets! Parliamentary reforms were in the main merely the breaking of the power of one elitist group to the advantage of the other! As Churchill put it, `The in and outs (of political parties) might as well have names, and why not employ the names of Whig and Tory which their supporters cast at one another'. (These names later gave way to the more familiar names of Liberal and Conservative). But we need to remember that it was not until 1969 that this country experienced full adult suffrage; democracy as we understand it in our Parliamentary system is a very tender hybrid, in danger now of wasting away as the forces of realignment take their place once again. It was only as the popular protests of the early 1900's gained momentum and burst into full flower - through such events as we briefly set out in our study `The Real War' - that they were harnessed into a political party that finally broke the domination of the previous Whig and Tory (Liberal and Conservative) system of political power in this country.

What, then, was the political commentator we quoted from earlier seeing when he wrote `realignment has been the great chimera of postwar British politics (which) has been glimpsed and lost so often . . .'? Certainly that realignment has not yet taken place. The political party that emerged from the old Royalist Tories is a spent force. The popular protest movement, which gave rise to the other element, the political party of this contemporary age, has `wasted away'. It too is a spent force. The New current political party has been said by some to have `borrowed' the Old and has not been born out of a genuine democratic movement from the people, and as such has very shallow ideological roots, thus leaving us once again with `the great chimera of (contemporary) British politics'. This leaves the `New' political party merely a `bridge', and not a realignment as it increasingly reveals that it is at the mercy of powerful commercial interests that know no political or geographical boundaries, and it is these rising, powerful commercial elitist groups that are becoming the political force which will come to dominate the world scene! This leads us rapidly into a post-democratic age which will leave whole sections of the community `disenfranchised' as surely as they were in the high days of the 18th - 19th century English politics. Undoubtably the `democratic package' will be offered to the people every few years, parcelled up and attractive enough to placate those who have been `washed up into this age by spent political forces'. But the `disenfranchisement' we talk of is already well under way - in the sense that universal welfare (with all that the word means) is being rapidly rolled back from large sections of the people - revealing the appearance of a sub-culture of truly deprived people as the results of that earlier political force which emerged out of `the Real War' are eroded and commercialised.

What, then, do we see from this brief political overview? (And we leave it to the reader to give names to the political forces we have set out here, for we have no intention of entering into a political discussion. We wish to remain totally a-political in our thinking lest we be drawn into party politics.) Without a doubt this is fast becoming an Age of Protest - indeed some protests have become more violent as the years go on. As yet they are single-issue protests, albeit attracting fringe groups of an anarchical nature to the protests. These protests are not the same as those seen in the early 1900's but are more of the nature of those who sense the anxiety of the people and use it for their own ends. But the danger remains that unless the protests are harnessed into a new political party within the mainstream democratic system, expressing genuine grievances of the people, they will lead into greater violence and be suppressed by the ruling authority of the day, bringing to an end the `unreal age' into which we have been born.

This is our understanding of the times in which we find ourselves called into the Kingdom of God, and we would do well to begin to seek true understanding as to what the Lord of the Church is asking of His people as He draws them out of their self-imposed ghetto of personal blessings to find a people who have moved on from an `anxiety factor' into a time of despair, a people who will be ready to hear the Good News of Salvation in Jesus and who will need support and care, deliverance and healing in the power of the Spirit. If we are right in our political analysis there is not sufficient time left for a popular protest movement to bring forth a representative political party to fulfil their aspirations, but there is time for our God to bring forth a people who are able to reveal the true aspirations of God for all who would turn to Him and enter into eternal rest in Jesus!

We finish this Newswatch as we began by quoting an extract from our study `Beyond the Storm . . a Ripened Harvest' which was written in 1996:

" However, we would remind ourselves of a mighty wind of hurricane force that swept through the southern half of England in 1987, leaving a devastation in the woods and forests that can still be seen today. Looking through the archives of the Metrological Office it was soon clear that the last record of winds of such force was the year that John Wesley was born. Among many Christians this was seen as a warning of the devastating winds of change that would sweep across this country at a time soon to come, but there was also the exhortation that a spiritual wind had also blown throughout England in 1987, giving birth to many `John Wesleys' who in the Lord's time would be used for His purposes. Certainly it would seem that this storm is close, with the grave danger of the country's `king being taken captive into Babylon', with the collapse of the social and economic life of this country following on as it is drawn into the maelstrom of Europe. As these events unfold, therefore, we should be encouraged to know and trust in the faithfulness of God - that His `John Wesleys' are in place and scattered all over the country, being prepared for a time `beyond the storm', with the certainty that this storm will be used for `the ripened harvest'. And that could well be the revival we all long for! "

Amen!

May 15th 2001

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