“It’s only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart
away”
Let’s hope that this is the first, last, and only time that I ever quote
the lyrical qualities of a band such as Boyzone (Bee Gees) in an article about politics. It
devalues politics and damages my own credibility to appeal to boy-band authority
to prove my points. But this article being about words, and the devaluation of
words by those who seek to nudge politics in their own direction, I made an
exception. In this particular rant, I’m going to focus on the deliberate
twisting of language and wording to make political points.
I’ll begin with the classic of ‘social justice’. As though justice, a
concept which has survived through the ages - whose principles are encapsulated
by the statue of Lady Justice, complete with weighing scales, sword and
sometimes blindfold - could possibly be so devoid of merit that it requires the
word ‘social’ to change it. It does not: the pernicious adjective ‘social’
transfers the burden of responsibility from the individual to the collective,
justifying injustice in one fell swoop.
We hear of ‘reverse racism’. I’m afraid there’s no such thing. When you
discriminate based upon the colour of someone’s skin, we already have a word for
that: it is racism. It doesn’t require weakening but opposing. It is every bit
as offensive if racism is directed to ‘help’ one group in society as it is if
racism is directed against it. And as sure as ‘reverse racism’ is racism,
‘positive discrimination’ is discrimination.
A related tactic is the use of a phrase to create negative connotations -
for example with ‘hard Brexit’ to refer to any Brexit which actually leads to
the United Kingdom not being governed by the European Union
institutions.
This article was triggered (see what I just did there?) by a member of
the European Parliament from a euro-federalist Group who called me a ‘populist’
because I dared to say that the language of swingeing cuts being used to
describe the Council’s position on the EU budget was utter balderdash. It was
balderdash, not least because the Council is proposing to increase the EU
budget, albeit by less than the Commission and Parliament want. I didn’t use the
word balderdash, or nonsense, or hocus pocus, or fairytale economics, or
anything like that. I was polite, largely because I don’t feel the need to
insult my opponents to get my point across. For what ‘crime’ was I accused of
populism?
I pointed out that we’re all in agreement that in 2018 the UK is likely
to still be in the EU, but that we’re due to leave in 2019. Therefore the EU
might well take the opportunity to prepare its budget accordingly, and to ask
two questions: Does the EU really need to do
this? and Is it actually providing value for
taxpayers’ money?Many billions of euros of expenditure will fail that test,
enabling us to cut the UK’s budget contribution whilst we’re still in - and
enabling the EU to be ready for the UK leaving the EU.
Well that was ‘populist’, the worst insult known to a eurofederalist.
What, though, is populism? Is it not the expression of the will of the people?
For if it is, then it should be worn as a badge of honour rather than hurled
around as an insult. And if it is not, then we need to reclaim the word and use
it precisely as such. We must take on the insipid establishment cosy
career-politician mindset.
It is also saddening that democracy is in such a state that the word
‘direct’ is now added to ensure that the word ‘democracy’ is used with similar
effect to that in Ancient Greece millennia ago. We now find democracy under
threat to such an extent that people are redefining the word - only to mean what
it meant all along.
I’m reminded of Humpty Dumpty’s phrase in Alice Through the Looking
Glass, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more
nor less”. Humpty Dumpty might be correct if we did not have such a thing as a
dictionary, but we do. It’s time to stop allowing the Left of British politics
to redefine words to mean what they want, allowing them exclusive and completely
undeserved access to a moral high ground.
Back to Boyzone - as well as The Brothers Gibb - and in the minds of the authoritarian Left, perhaps a
better quote would be “They’re only words, and words are what we use, to take
your freedom away.”
