IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021 - 9

Marcus Rashford has successfully campaigned for
free school meals out of term time during the pandemic, for children living in poverty. Indeed, he has
been so successful that the U.K. government has now
twice been forced into embarrassing u-turns, despite
government ministers voting against it.6 But recently,
a whispering campaign against him has started in the
right-wing press, detailing his own personal wealth
and setting it in contrast to the people for whom he
is advocating assistance. But, of course, there is no
explicit engagement in active harassment, they are
just reporting the facts, surely.
* Promoting divisive or victim narratives that are
harmful to British society.
Perhaps, the divisive and victim narrative most
harmful to British society has been the Brexit narrative. As analyzed by the Irish journalist Fintan
O'Toole [19], the English7 are driven by two contradictory myths: the myth of English exceptionalism,
and the myth of colonization. On the one hand,
there is a presumption that the English deserve preferential treatment because of their exceptionalism,
and, on the other hand, that the English are being
denied what is rightfully theirs by some perfidious
foreigner, whether from Europe or from the Commonwealth,8 all of them demanding equality (within
the EU) or equity (post colonialism). This mythic
narrative contributed in part to the referendum vote
which narrowly decided to leave the EU, with economic forecasts suggesting that this could do more
harm to the U.K. economy in the long term than the
pandemic has done in the short term.9
Laughably, the mythology of grievance is being
propagated by both the " pale, male, and stale "
(as said above, the loss of privilege being seen as
oppression) and the U.K. government itself, which
in its disastrous handling of both the pandemic
and its signature economic and foreign policy, that
is, Brexit, is bathetically posturing while trying to
find anyone else to blame for their own ineptitude,
incompetence, and self-serving, hence the need to
spend nearly £700,000 on public relations consultants [20]. Again, rather than being held to account,
6

Members of Parliament receiving generous state salaries and enjoying subsidized
food and drink voting to deny poor children food, during an economic and public health crisis .... It was not a " good look. "
7
Mostly the English, not the British (English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh).
8
Commonwealth ... again, Orwell would have been impressed.
9
And to neocolonialism as wealth is extracted by the ruling class from the United
Kingdom itself, in turn leading to the joke that " the English are finding out what it is
like to be ruled by the English. "

March 2021

criticism has been dismissed as " endless carping " :
instead of taking responsibility, the U.K. government
itself is unapologetically constructing a harmful narrative of the " government of permanent victimhood "
[21].
* Selecting and presenting information to make
unsubstantiated accusations against state
institutions.
Seems reasonable, of course, and who would not
want to take statutory guidance from a government
that has made or supported unsubstantiated accusations against state institutions ranging from the entire
legal profession (judges are " enemies of the people, "
immigration lawyers are " activists " and " do-gooders " ),
the independence of the civil service, the impartiality
of the national broadcaster, and the objectivity of its
universities (and the professors who inform expert
advisory groups). Indeed, if asked what are the most
admirable qualities of the U.K. state that differentiates
it from others and makes it a desirable and stable
country, most respondents would list its legal service,
its broadcasting service, its civil service, its university
system, and its National Health Service. The irony is
that for some reason, its elected " conservative " government seems determined to take a wrecking ball to
the first four and sell the last.
In the " choosing resources " section of the statutory guidance, examples of " extreme political
stances include, but are not limited to: "
* a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow
democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair
elections.
As discussed above, but worth repeating, the existential threat to democracy is not so much from a
publicly stated desire to overthrow democracy but its
subversion from within. As for free and fair elections,
the United Kingdom currently has a government that:
campaigned against a referendum to introduce a
proportional voting system (rather than the plurality
or " first past the post " voting system, which gives a
majority of parliamentary representation for a minority of the vote); will not investigate or will not publish
investigation reports on extra-national interference in
its elections (especially the Brexit referendum); and
is threatening to abolish its electoral commission and
replace it with one reporting to the executive rather
than the legislature. Each of which is, granted, a step

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021