In the wake of another awful attack on Tuesday, it’s time we started discussing some of the uncomfortable truths about terrorism. We owe it to the victims, not just of Tuesday but of various attacks here and abroad in the past. In order to stop it happening again, we need to understand what it even is, what we’re up against, and what is the most effective way to avoid it happening.

Of course, security services being vigilant, intelligence serviced being well-funded and communities being resourceful are all wonderful ways in which we already limit the horrendous damage from being much worse. But there is much more we need to acknowledge. Here are 4 uncomfortable truths we have to start talking about.

 

1) In the modern world, foreign policy has to be smarter with its use of violence.

It is little surprise that the bulk of the UK’s terrorist atrocities occur because of a chain of reactions often leading back to violent excursions into foreign lands. We go to war with the best of intentions, of course, but politicians should be much more aware that an enemy who perpetrates terrorism crosses borders. Attacking 1, 2 or even 3 different nations with bombs and troops will not stop the adherents here, and in other countries, from retaliating.

Very rarely do discussions and parliamentary votes on war take into account the likelihood of increased terror attacks; they get carried away, instead, with patriotism, opposing dictators, etc. They absolutely must also start considering the never-ending war of terrorism which it seemingly starts.

 

2) Terrorism isn’t a battle of territory, it’s a battle of ideas.

It may occasionally be necessary to arm rebels, fight on foreign shores and go after the regimes around the world which support terrorism. It also seems necessary to occasionally infringe civil liberties in order foil terrorist attacks which could kill multiple people. Yet that’s where our efforts mainly stop. We don’t seem to understand that this is actually a battle of ideas. As a result, we’re not even fielding a team to fight it.

ISIS, or whatever you want to call them, recruit around the globe with ideas. And these ideas are persuasive because they pitch the story of a deity-backed David vs. a cruel, imperial Goliath. Time after time, it is not terrorists from the countries we bomb which attack us, but the ideas they spread, which infect our young people, who do the damage for them. We are in a battle of ideas, and you need to grasp the next point in order to know how to fight it.

 

3) Terrorism is, almost always, religiously inspired or related.

In the wake of every attack, religious groups come out to condemn the actions, by stating the passages of their religious books which would seem to condemn these actions. Moderate religious people are rightly outraged that someone would commit such atrocities in their name, and they use their beloved scripture to condemn it.

Yet, it’s no mistake that the Bible and the Quran both inspire terrorism, whilst the ancient books of Aristotle, Plato or Pythagoras don’t. The latter do not tend to inspire violence, because despite their age, their work – full of intrigue and knowledge, but also doubt and wonder – has to be fully misunderstood, perhaps even completely ignores, to lead to violence. Whereas the aforementioned religious books have certainty in their commands, and all incite violence against non-believers in sections. That they contradict themselves later on with messages of peace or love is neither here nor there; kind people use these books to justify kindness, terrorists use them to justify violence. Both are equally valid if the book says both.

What’s more, despite what religious groups say, this point is reasonably obvious. For someone to make the ultimate sacrifice – their own life – one has to be both certain in one’s beliefs and sure that it will lead to a better outcome than before. That certainty, desperation to fend off otherwise rational ideas and promise of eternal reward is what drives suicide bombers. You simply do not find that anywhere but in the teachings of religion, be it organised or otherwise.

Terrorism is very difficult to explain without religion. Religion is very difficult to ignore as the cause of terrorism.

 

4) Secularism is a way forward, and the best idea we have to fight back with

That we do mental gymnastics following terrorist attacks, in order to get religion off the hook, is not wise. Terrorists are engaging us in a battle of ideas with our young people. And many times they win. Their message is of eternal reward, promised in ancient texts, and our response is ‘…love… peace…can’t we all just coexist?’ Well, no, not if that’s the best argument you’ve got.

This is a battle of ideas where the opponent is utilising what we have for centuries called the opiate of the masses. An organised, rebellious kind of religion where you can be a martyr and live forever in eternal happiness. And we are responding with meaningless platitudes on concepts most of us barely understand.

Yet, here in the UK, we are brilliantly equipped to fight such a battle of ideas. In fact, we helped start a revolution of thought several hundred years ago which has already fought off primitive thoughts in order to progress society. We were the society, along with countries like France, where the Enlightenment took place. Where people began to lay the foundations for reason, and the opposition to religion, which allowed science to flourish. In turn, everything from technology to medicine became completely, unrecognisably advanced.

We had these arguments on behalf of reason then, and we have them now. We just refuse to use them as we believe arguing against faith is arguing against religious people. It’s not. Religion is impossible to back with logic, difficult to defend in philosophy, and unsafe as a method of public reasoning. Faith is not a good way to form ideas, and it leaves people open to manipulation by people with unkind intentions. Whether it be the terrible Christian terrorism of the past (which continues in nations like America), or the current wave of Islamic terrorism, the rigid certainties of belief which religion provides are not useful or safe for society.

It’s okay to attack bad ideas. And religions are bad ideas. We need to be celebrating and championing uncertainty, doubt and debate, rather than devotion, faith and certainty. That is the way to win a battle of ideas with a particularly violent cult which is spreading across the globe. That is the way to engage, intrigue and win young minds – with honesty and intelligence. If not, even if Isis sizzles out over the coming years, there will be more groups just like it. Religious terrorism has been present throughout history and it won’t stop until secularism has confined religion to being the personal, spiritual belief it should only ever be; far away from government and communities.

The Tories are fixating on meaningless slogans, the Lib Dems are obsessive on reversing Brexit, the SNP – yet again – are focused almost singularly on independence, and Labour are trying to regain ground lost, as always, in the tabloids. Yet whilst many issues get thrown around on TV, no party seems interested in fixing the biggest issue in this, or arguably any, election in the last few decades.

Look at any developing country, and the biggest political struggle – and indeed the most effective way toward economic and social success – is moving toward a democratic system. Moving away from authoritarian, maniacal leaders and toward votes where the civilians get to decide who rules the country. Before any other issues – whether it be state independence, healthcare, social welfare, defence, etc – first a country must struggle to ensure it’s leaders are held accountable and thus are acting in the national interest. Otherwise countries get run into the ground by people who have dodgy intentions and dishonest opinions.

A big part of that journey toward democracy – arguably the biggest part – is not in normal people being allowed a vote, but in the media holding politicians accountable and reporting independent, neutral news on their policies and actions in the first place. Indeed, the first thing a dictator, or anyone else opposing democracy does, is to take control of the media. To take control of the armed forces is to cause violent rebellion, but to take control of the media is to quietly hide your actions and create a culture of ignorance which removes a person’s democratic right to be informed. It’s the easiest way to destroy democracy, and the most famous dictators in history – the likes of Hitler – did it exactly like this. He was voted in, he did not suppress ‘democracy’ as his voters understood it because he had the media tell them he was acting in the national interest.

Yet, the tabloids in Britain, which constitute some of the most read forms of ‘media’, are controlled and owned by people with ideological interests in maintaining governments with certain policies, exactly in the manner that history would show as problematic. Similarly, they are not held to account by the truthfulness, or helpfulness, of their stories, but rather they are guided by principles of profit, like a normal company. A free press is vital in democracy, but it must be free of both governmental and individual bias, otherwise it’s worthless.

It is not only the tabloids, with their ideological bias, which are important to mention though. News channels and audio-visual media are just as bad. Far from providing balanced, neutral and rational analysis of policies and intentions, they run a ‘we reported what blue politician says, so we must report what red politician says’ farce. This is not investigative or useful democratic journalism, it is providing a balance of propaganda, so as whoever has the best PR campaigns can win. Again, this happens in every long-term authoritarian state Hence why Theresa May is avoiding all chance to debate altogether, in favour of carefully managed press appearances and massive slogan-filled posters – she knows how it works, and she doesn’t need to defend her position because the press do it for her.

This problem has been persistent in British politics for at least the last few decades. Even the most neutral of our media sources – the likes of the BBC – are duty bound not by rational, democratic journalism which should neutrally lead them to oppose some politicians more than others, but by a desperate attempt not to point out errors on one side more than any other. Thus, even if the Prime Minister were to completely lie about holding an election for months on end (which she did), it will get only the same treatment as the opposition cabinet member who forgot a couple of numbers on early morning TV. Forgetting figures and consistently lying to the population are not equally bad political actions, but if you judge the BBC’s brands of journalism as neutral then they are equal.

Arguably these problems in British media have become less problematic as social media has begun to take more control of what news we actually see. However, far from create a more level playing field, companies like Facebook have made it even worse. Your Facebook account allows sponsors and those same rich ideological interests to be the primary articles you see, even above posts your friends or pages you follow have made. Which causes problems further still when people end up liking these erroneous pages, and their opinions become more and more entrenched in what are essentially bold, basic lies, being told to affect a person’s vote.

Whereas the ideological obsessions in the tabloid press are open for all to see and extremely problematic for democracy, the bias and control of your political opinions through social media is far less open. Fake news here can even give the impression of being reputable – with official sounding site names, newspaper names, and even professional, non-tabloid styles of writing – whilst being completely false. Elton John has died more times than I care to remember on my Facebook feed, which tells me we are now even more likely to see biased, unchecked news than we were before – even the bias of tabloids would generally not print such a basic lie. Our lives are less free and fair than even they used to be due to social media.

The press – whether it be tabloids, the BBC or Facebook – continue to act in such an ideological manner because it remains free of state control. Indeed, those running the press believe that this is what ‘free press’ means. It really isn’t. Free press is about being free from all bias and control, and that means you have to run newspapers, news broadcasts and news channels very differently to how a company is run. It can’t be run for profit, feeding the electorate what they want to hear, or what the director of ITV or the Sun wants you to hear. Democracy only ever works when the press is completely neutral and free from that control. And actually, yes, that means regulation. A government must pass laws that means the press is regulated independently from government, and independently from the people who own it. And that regulator must have the sharp, pointed ability to close down newspapers who do not act in a way which is neutral, rationally informed and useful to the electorate. It must act to obliterate institutional bias in a newspaper, whether left-wing or right-wing, in favour of truth.

Until we do this, every other issue in the country is largely meaningless. It doesn’t matter if we care about the NHS, or social care, or old people or young people, or foreign affairs or poverty. So long as the press isn’t neutral, you and I will have no idea whether we are moving backwards, forwards or staying completely stationary on these issues, so our votes are useless. So long as controlling interests run the tabloids, or control your social media feeds, you will only hear about the Labour party being ‘communists’ or Theresa May being ‘a pound shop Thatcher’. A democracy can not possibly be free if you are not given the free and independent assessment, by experts in their field, of how the government is performing, and that doesn’t currently happen.

There’s no two ways about it: we don’t currently live in a democratic society, because democracy is about having more than a free vote, it’s about having a trusted, informed media to give you that free and useful vote. A democracy without a free and independent media in the interests of it’s citizens is absolutely not a democracy. You should be angry that none of the political parties are talking about it, because every other issue in this election is absolutely meaningless unless we are informed about it.

 

If, like me, you are sick to death of the government shirking the running of the country in order to run constant public votes – on leaving the UK, on leaving Europe, on electing a new government two years after we elected the last one – then the next 6 weeks are going to be tiresome. Why not use it to argue against and refuse to believe the bullshit that newspapers and ‘journalists’ will have you believe is important.

Here are 4 of to watch out for, along with the arguments to arm you in opposing them.

 

1. “This is an election about Brexit/to lead Brexit/etc”

Brexit is happening. I didn’t vote for it, 48% of the country didn’t vote for it, but it is happening. It was a campaign filled to the rim with political spin, abrupt lies, political careerism and generally dodgy characters (a good few of whom are now in the cabinet…). But it happened, it’s done, Brexit is happening.

To vote for the Lib Dems, on their single-issue campaign that they will reverse it, would be a shockingly ridiculous idea. It was a referendum, and we all had a chance to point out the rubbish the politicians were speaking. Similarly we all had a chance four years ago to vote for a government which would do something about the manipulative, bias British ‘newspapers’/gossip rags. We didn’t, so the press remained bias and people were under-informed when it came to the vote. But to reverse a public mandate on this topic would be to go lower than the unscrupulous people who spread fake news to achieve votes in the first place. It would also be to tell 52% of the people that you wasted their time, don’t care about their vote and generally wish to see them never trust politics again.

Similarly, on the other side of the debate, voting for UKIP in order to ensure that Theresa May only listens to the 1/3 or so of the country who want a hard Brexit is, again, a poor idea. Brexit will happen, there’s no stopping it. But we should now allow people who know something about the EU, not the foreign-hating quasi-businessmen who hate the poor (UKIP), to negotiate the terms of it. Let people who know something about the legislation, trade and immigration make the decisions, not rich Donald Trump groupies with no grasp of the lives of real human beings.

And most of all, vote for people who will actually run the country rather than just be arseholes in Brussels during Brexit negotiations.

 

2. “A united government is a strong government/voters need a strong and stable government”

This is one of the most ridiculous things every British person seems to believe. Almost every idea, every piece of progress, every major chapter of human history has come about through people disagreeing! Every good manager wants their staff to disagree with them and challenge them, every good leader wants their team to point out the problems. This is how things get better!

Preferring, instead, to support people based on how little their teams disagree, or to elect leaders who ‘keep them in their place’ is just utterly bizarre. It’s also authoritarian and decidedly anti-British. It’s what dictators do, or what office managers in the 80s did. The successful organisations and businesses of the noughties are all based around innovation, new ideas, challenging teams and getting rid of the incapable managers whose only tactic was to ‘keep people in their places’.

The Tories, in particular, want you to believe that Theresa May is the best leader because she is stern, disciplinary and generally looks like a head teacher. No good school is run by a head-teacher like Theresa May, whose opposition to new ideas (even the likes of gay marriage) would run a school into the ground. And, moreover, that we want an old-fashioned head-teacher running the country says more about our attachments to authority figures in our childhood than rational decision making in election votes.

If you want a country that keeps up with the rest of the world, let alone leads in it, you need a leader who will encourage a team full of people who disagree. Britain has gone backwards as the world around us has moved on. We need to catch up, not keep trying to find a new Thatcher.

 

3. “Conservatives are good on the economy.”

The Conservatives have long been the businessman’s choice in government. They are generally funded by a small number of individually extremely wealthy donors, as the remit of Conservative policy is to offer low taxes across the board. This, coupled with a desire to see public services gradually phased out, or monetised, means many believe they are strong on the economy.

This is incorrect for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is because having the backing of a relatively small number of wealthy individuals does not mean they are good at improving the economy in a way which benefits everyone else (whether it be smaller business or people working in them). Indeed, quite the opposite. Successful wealthy people generally want less competition for the things they sell, lower (preferably no) taxes on their wealth, lots of unemploympent so there’s a big pool of workers to choose from, low wages so they pay less in costs, etc. These are not good economic desires for a government to support, as it benefits a few businesses and disadvantages the entire countries economy instead.

There is even more reason why voting Conservative is bad for the economy, though.

Starting with Thatcher’s political success, the Conservatives began to put a lot of effort into the public image of their ‘business first’ policies (which as I just explained is not ‘business first’ for 99% of businesses). Largely this revolved around building the theory of ‘neo-liberal’ economics, which orbited a single, politically brilliant idea: we need to be lenient with our tax on the wealthy, and help big business, as otherwise they won’t stay here, spend money here or thus pay taxes here.

With this single idea, the 1970’s Conservatives had found a persuasive reason why the 99% of the country who aren’t rich should vote for them. It allowed them to continue wealth-friendly policies, but also scared everyone else into voting for the kind of system which favours wealth-creation for the few. The Conservatives core belief is that wealth ‘trickles down’ from the lenient taxing and maintaining of several billionaires, or a small group of millionaires, to improve things for everyone. Indeed, this is known as ‘trickle down’ economics. Despite the global economic environment changing dramatically, and the emergence of various different forms of economic theory and evidence in that time, this core and important Tory policy hasn’t changed in almost 50 years.

What’s more, as the decades have gone on, evidence has mounted time and time again which shows that lenient taxes on the wealthy increases equality, rather than trickling down sufficiently. The likes of Thomas Piketty, in one of the 21^st century’s great economic works, has shown without a shadow of a doubt that trickle-down economics not only increases inequality, but also increase economic instability, financial crashes, etc.

The Conservatives continue to amass the support of the wealthiest in society, but the policies of successive Conservative and New Labour (who were basically neo-conservative in economic policy) governments have halted economic growth, caused great financial instability and, more to the point, been very bad for 99% of the people who actually voted Conservative. Wealth has become concentrated in the hands of even fewer people, who in turn do not wish to reinvest it in others, interest rates have not risen from historic lows in years, and even the pound is now stuck in a cycle of decline. ‘Trickle down’ economics has failed, evidence has been telling us this for 10 years, yet arguably the biggest myth in politics remains: that Conservatives are good for business. The only reason we still believe it is because they spend millions on very talented PR experts.

Labour, to their credit, have turned away from New Labour’s neo-conservative economics, and yet, lo-and-behold, they are painted in the press as economically unsafe. Almost as if the press are run by those same millionaires who fund the Conservative party…

 

4. “The SNP are progressive.”

The SNP have governed Scotland for years now, and have overseen a failure in public services which even the Tories would be proud of. They enact policies which, in general, can be characterised as Blairite, or perhaps centre-right, but they amass support among the left-wing of the political spectrum as they continue the rhetoric of being progressive. So, they keep the same lenient taxes on the wealthy as the Tories do, but have the rhetoric of a party who run a communist stronghold. Partly this might work because Scotland isn’t as progressive as it thinks it is, and voters are seemingly happy with rhetoric rather than action. More likely, they simply have the support of about 50% of the population by being pro-independence, and thus this number may not drop regardless of what they do in government. Either way, they aren’t a progressive party if you examine action over rhetoric.

Similarly, they aren’t interested in progressive alliances to help improve things in the wider UK. A cynic might say their destruction of public service in Scotland is a way to make such services seem unworkable whilst Scotland is still in the UK. That would seem accurate to their intentions which is, of course, independence above all else.

In 2015, that single-issue focus meant giving the Tories the ammunition to make Labour seem like they are in the pocket of Alex Salmond (who carefully manufactured his image to only seem to care about the human beings residing above the border) by offering Labour an ‘alliance’ which it was obvious to even the least canny political operators would be used to the Tories advantage. Indeed, many believe the Tory-funded posters of labour leader Milliband in Salmond’s pocket were the defining image of the campaign.

Now, they have begun again trying to poison Labour’s chance of electoral success via mention of political ‘progressive alliances’. It works well in Scotland, because it makes them seem to Scottish voters like they are being the ‘bigger man’ and offering Labour support. It works well for them in England, also, as it makes English voters more likely to vote Tory with thoughts like ‘crikey, that party who only cares about the voters in Scotland might be dictating how public services work here’.

The SNP are arguably the most well-oiled, smart political machine in the UK. But that’s not because they’re the best politicians in the UK, rather there are 3 reasons why they are so effective.

• They can, more or less, get away with doing absolutely nothing in Scotland, and blame it on Scotland not being independent – they essentially have no standards to maintain, other than keep talking about independence. Every other party in the UK walks a political tight-rope, whilst the SNP have some of the most unwavering support ever seen in British politics. They have sold a large section of Scottish voters on independence as a magic cure to Scotland’s ills, a momentous coming rainbow, and thus any problems until then are not because of the government but rather because the rest of Scotland refuses to drink the irn-bru flavoured Kool-Aid.
• They do not need to care about any opinion elsewhere in the UK other than making the Tories popular, and thus making the rest of the UK vote differently to Scotland. It’s much easier to ruin a reputation and cause damage, as they have been doing to Labour, than to win support.
• Whilst religious devotion and unity to your leader isn’t important in modern politics, the SNP are all united because rather than sharing and balancing complex sets of values, every MP or MSP joins knowing the single goal and focus of the party is independence. Thus any policy, agenda, decision or remark which doesn’t fit the goal, or best strategy for achieving the goal, is easy to persuade members of. People don’t join the SNP because their primary focus is social justice; they join it knowing the primary focus is independence. Again, no other party has the political tight-rope replaced with such a large collection of stable floorboards in this manner.

 

These are not the only 4 myths you’ll be asked to believe over the next few weeks; indeed, if 2016 was anything to go by, you might be told nothing that is true at all. But these are the 4 myths which constantly, and usually quite successfully, will try to manipulate you into voting a certain way. The above should you give the arguments and reason to counter this nonsense.