As the dust settles after the first December general election held in eleventy-seven and four-sixteenth years—much like the detritus of a Christmas family reunion nobody ever wanted to have due to rumours of incest within Granddaddy Johnson’s wacky, psychotic family—we dry our tears, dab our syphilitic stinging wounds, and collapse in a heap, hurtling, screaming into the abyss of our shared and much ridiculed existential British psyches. Once again, we are proud to be an empire in which the sun never sets upon the replica Manchester United jerseys worn by war orphans and Chinese, American, and Russian billionaires alike, the former’s lives and families torn apart by unforgiving and brutal civil war, and the latter, self-satisfied and arrogant, casually looking on, washing their hands of any responsibility. Proud oppressors awaiting another crack at the austerity lottery, whilst wanking over Olivia Colman playing the Queen on glossy Netflix propaganda. It’s a wonderful life.

Artists across the country are slowly coming to terms with the devastating results of the Tory landslide. The same Tory party that has decimated arts funding to a shoestring across the board. Banksy’s anti-Brexit mural depicting a man chiseling a star from the European flag was whitewashed by vandals. The artist stated that the “white flag” that replaced it “says it just as well.” Banksy followed this work with poignant images depicting the UK’s homeless crisis, reindeers pulling a homeless man along on a bench. It will be auctioned off and proceeds donated to a homeless charity. The impact of Brexit on homelessness is yet to be determined, but an economic report for Crisis and Homeless Link (Oakley, Thunder, 2018) states that workplace protections currently enshrined in EU law could be weakened and removed; citizens of the UK returning from the EU could find themselves at risk of homelessness and with limited access to support; and “if the economy performs badly in coming years, the risk of homelessness will increase and the amount of money available for homelessness provision could reduce.”

Musicians have thrown their socially conscious hats into the political den of lions. UK rap artist, Stormzy, has for months been locked in bitter Twitter conflict with major Tory establishment figures such as Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and the clown prince himself, Boris Johnson. Coming out in a fierce attack against government ineptitude and the 

 response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Stormzy has pulled no punches and taken no prisoners, releasing a single commemorating the tragedy together with other artists.

After Rees-Mogg’s utterly appalling attack on Grenfell survivors and victims in which he stated that the victims should have used “common sense”—essentially blaming them for their own deaths—the rapper responded, calling Mogg “an actual piece of shit.” When Stormzy promoted the Labour Party before the election, Gove bizarrely quoted the rap artist on Twitter in a shocking “blackface” tweet stating “I set trends dem man copy.” This Twitter missive, coming from a “trusted” member of parliament and representative of the people no less, encapsulates the current trend of grubby, racist, and neo-fascist rhetoric. Toxic sentiments spewing from cowards—proud boys(and girls)—hiding behind a screen.

Institutionalised racism is clearly well alive. Stormzy broke his silence saying that Gove “picked the wrong fucking rapper,” and expressed frustration with political figures who urge critical artists to “stay in [their] lane.” In the latest of Stormzy’s fearless political critiques, he visited his old primary school in Croydon, South London following the election landslide and, when asked, told pupils that Johnson was “a very bad man.”

During the holiday season, a grassroots campaign was launched to promote Jarvis Cocker’s 2006 single, “Running the World,” to the top of the UK singles charts. The lyrics pounce on a zeitgeist sentiment:

If you thought things had changed, Friend you better think again. Bluntly put, in the fewest of words, Cunts are still running the world.

“Running the World” encapsulates what a great many sane thinking British people are feeling in the beleaguered present. The good fight rages on.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s victory lap of the North-East resembled the dead-eyed Night King coming to gloat after his Tory-Blue fire-breathing dragon of the “Get Brexit Done” campaign decimated the traditionally Labour-held red wall of the Shite’s Watch. It seemed that even retreating into a fridge full of milk when confronted by interviewers reasonably asking for some sort of clarity on Boris’s policies, couldn’t deter the already half-zombified proletariat voters. It would only be embarrassing if the vast majority of British people had the capacity to feel such a basic, necessary emotion anymore.

Mobility walkers and used crockery sit outside a junk shop, tragic reminders of the Tory’s devastating austerity policies. Image: Ben Rogers.

But let us move on to the man hailed as the Picasso of far-right thought in the modern, regressive Western World, Nigel Farage, the dark prince of pomposity. A man driven to the brink by his own failures. An awkward cross between the bulbous, cartoonish 4Chan-favourite far-right poster boy, Pepe the Frog (eyes heavy with contempt for the farmers and working class whose best interests he claims are at heart) and a deranged Muppet. The heckling Statler in pinstripe suit, shouting and baying like one of Orwell’s pigs in the EU parliament: the stereotypically crass Little Englander. Farage has stood for election to the House of Commons seven times, with complete and resounding failure every time. His political career is analogous to that of a frat boy trying desperately to sneak a peek into the girls’ locker room, only to have his dick slapped hard. For this slight, Farage became the true architect of the Brexit campaign, the Sauron to Cameron’s simpering Frodo Baggins, finally finding his glory hole.

So what does the future hold for this über salesman of snake oil? Why of course, he will be used as a political shill for his good mate Donald Trump in his 2020 re-election campaign. Wheeled out at rallies like a deranged Dutch darts player with a glass of real ale to hand, he will dance the political Gangnam with grand mal fervour in front of a permanently baffled MAGA audience, they themselves baffling and unfathomable to the lucid onlooker. Numb incredulity pushed beyond return. Throwing pledges and empty rhetoric like stray darts that land way south of the board.

And what of the rumours that the British National Health Service (NHS) will be on the table for sale to the US in future trade talks? The madness of such a bizarrely stark deal beckons supernaturally from the dark recesses—perfectly formed fecal matter squeezed out of Mike Pence’s born again, bleached, and perfectly puckered Christian arsehole. This fecal kraken of a trade deal will rape the NHS as we know it, paving the way for US drugs firms and corporations to inordinately raise costs for treatment and medicines to extortionate vast sums from patients. But for the Trumps, Pences, Johnsons, and Farages of this world, it’ll simply amount to just another dead hooker cover up.

Expert in their slander, they shall reap their demonic reward and all of our mortal souls shall further spiral down the toilet of populist rhetoric. Banksy had planned to update his anti-Brexit mural on “Brexit day” to show a crumpled flag on the ground. It seems he won’t have the chance to do so after the vandal’s buff, much like the vandals in the Houses of Parliament have whitewashed the remnants of social justice. The obliteration of basic human values that the UK has clung onto since Churchill was voted out for a modern and progressive Labour government in the “Spirit of 1945” elections. The result was sweeping reforms to bring employment, education and healthcare for all, not just a select few.

Welcome to the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Enjoy what you voted for, you stinking, sniveling, useful idiots.

“Homelessness and the Impact of Brexit: Tackling the Challenges and Grasping the Opportunities,”

 A WPI Economics Report for Crisis and Homeless Link, 2018, p. 21.
Oakley and Thunder, “Homelessness,” p. 28.
Their single is available on YouTube. 

“Artists for Grenfell – Bridge Over Troubled Water,”

 posted by AFGVEVO, June 21, 2017.
Kehinde Andrews, 

“‘Twitter Blackface’: Why Michael Gove’s Stormzy Comments are so Egregious,”

United Kingdom

Brexit Through the Rift Shop

Jean works as a physical education teacher. She is a closeted lesbian. The reasons for her secrecy are complex, but an overreaching factor that contributes to her tortured mental state is the fear of losing her job and becoming ostracized from her family and community. She avoids socializing with her colleagues for fear of being sniffed out. She lives with constant anxiety. Paranoia lapping like dark waves threaten to subsume her emotional core. Her lifestyle. Her basic freedoms. She cannot reveal her true self. Day after day the pressure, anxiety and dread eat away at her. Wearing her down. Physically, psychically, and existentially.

Whilst having an intimate night in with her girlfriend, avoiding her neighbour’s nosy curtain twitching, Jean must cut the tryst short when her sister unexpectedly drops her nephew off on the doorstep to take care of him for the night. Her girlfriend chastises her for watching "anti-gay propaganda" show “Blind Date,” admonishing as she storms out, "Enjoy your cartoons." She is a divorcee of a straight marriage that left her hollow and numb, family and friends never knowing her secret. Afraid to tell anyone. Stifled. Between worlds. She must even mask herself from her own family, afraid that her Christian sister and her god-fearing husband would completely disown her if they ever discovered the truth about her sexuality. It feels as though there is no way out of this purgatory. Adding to this harmful potpourri of dead-end trauma are a new set of laws that have been brought into legislation broadly prohibiting “the promotion of homosexuality.” The new laws feel like another nail in her coffin.

The film is set in Newcastle, in the north of England in 1988, against the backdrop of anti-homosexuality legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the ruling Conservative Party. 

 acutely and strikingly speaks to the hostile social and political climate sanctioned by Section 28, a series of laws prohibiting the “promotion of homosexuality” that forced many LBGTQ+ organizations and peoples to self-censor, limit their activities, close down, go into hiding, and in some tragic cases, to commit suicide. The parallels between the era of 

 and the current climate of renewed bigotry, in the United Kingdom and the United States (the two countries I call home) is unfortunately resonant.

In one poignant scene, Jean feels compelled to lie about a pupil who is suspected of being a lesbian and has been accused of sexually assaulting another girl in the showers. Jean knows this charge to be blatantly false. The girl is victim to a vicious witch hunt by classmates and teachers. This heart-wrenching scene illustrates the maddening pressure Jean feels to hide her true self and masquerade as straight. Rather than standing in solidarity, she heartlessly throws her student under the bus, resulting in their suspension. Jean chooses to betray her own nature and truth, as opposed to losing her job and her "reputation" within her family and community.

 is a film of true nuance, aesthetically and spiritually. Sumptuously filmed on 16mm, the cinematography perfectly captures the austerity and post-industrial, post-World War II squalor of 1980s Britain, leavened with tints and flashes of blue. Scenes in which Jean is stifled, hidden, and suppressed in her professional and familial life are brilliantly juxtaposed with scenes in which she is surrounded by a community of queer friends, including her girlfriend, Viv, a powerful performance with incredible vivacity by Kerrie Hayes. One of the triumphs of Jean’s portrayal, and something that writer and director Georgia Oakley along with actor Rosy McEwen should be lauded for, is that the film never takes the easy route in bringing Jean’s dilemma to the screen. McEwan’s performance in tandem with Oakley’s screenplay is subtle in terms of dialogue but shows acres more in service to the sub-text and deeper aspects of Jean’s character. Jean is equally ill-at-ease amongst her queer friends, as awkward as she is operating within the straight world. Oakley’s vision is to “present a protagonist without glamorisation or misrepresentation. Jean is no hero…”

In this sense, the film does not pander to any kind of simplified dumbing-down, as so much flabby rhetoric tends to do so in this current socio-cultural landscape of binary oppositional thinking and populist position taking. She is a fully formed human animal, not reduced to some convenient simplistic cipher or political fantasy dreamt up on a shaky partisan pedestal. Jean is part of the LGBTQ+ community, but also exists as an individual, with all the neuroses trademark of the human condition. The film is not an exercise in ticking boxes. It is a three-dimensional portrait of a complex of personality and character, under duress imposed by an intolerant society.

LGBTQ+ rights, where they exist in any protected form, are being rallied against, eroded, threatened, and stamped upon. After all the gains and progress made in the United Kingdom and the United States in recent decades, the burgeoning anti-queer movement is most disheartening and deeply chilling. Section 28, much like the anti-gay and LBGTQ+ laws recently enacted in the U.S., are fuelled by far-right Christian fundamentalism. On Friday June 30th, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a Colorado civil rights law that compelled businesses and organizations to treat same-sex couples equally. It ruled that these laws were in violation of the right to free speech. The case was brought by Lorie Smith, the owner of a web design company, and backed by a Christian group. Last year alone, more than 238 anti-LBGTQ+ laws were passed across the country. That amounts to more than three new laws per day.

In May 2023, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the United Nations Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, warned that he is “deeply concerned about increased bias-motivated incidents of harassment, threats, and violence against LGBT people, including a rampant surge in hate crimes in the U.K. All of this is attributed – by a wide range of stakeholders – to the toxic nature of the public debate surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The threat to Queer and Trans communities and individuals is clear and present from the Tennessee law that criminalizes “adult cabaret entertainment” in a bizarre attempt to ban drag shows, to Florida Governor DeSantis’ record shattering raft of six anti-LGBTQ+ laws (which, among other heinous injustices, gives "license to discriminate in healthcare") to the banning of Pride flags in Hamtramck, Michigan. Last year, the U.K. dropped down the annual ranking of LGBTQ+ rights across Europe for the third year running. Conservative governments have systematically failed to deliver on long-awaited reforms.

Bigots such as failed actor and "political activist" for the Reclaim Party, Laurence Fox, continue to stoke hatred, fear, and division towards Queer and Trans people in the U.K.. Fox recently burned a Pride flag on his social media accounts during Pride month. His fellow lackey, former Tory Member of Parliament and now fellow Reclaim Party member, Andrew Bridgen, launched a “nasty and cowardly attack” on the transgender community via his efforts to pass a bill to ban schools from including transgender rights in their curricula. These hateful and hate fuelled political manoeuvres have enjoyed the support of many educators who, like Jean, should’ve known better and who should’ve had their most vulnerable pupils’ best interests at heart.

Despite an eventual absolution and recompense for Jean’s heinous decision making, I fear the fate of all the small-minded bigots wilting in moral bankruptcy beneath the fundamentalist umbrella—those who shall continue to sabotage movements towards equality. They are a dinosaur breed, bound to be wiped out by the comet of rational progress. One only needs to look to the likes of George Santos and Ted Haggard to realize the true futility of moral denial and cultism and how absurdly ridiculous, and dangerous, a uniform it is. 

 effectively depicts the lack of empathy that surrounds us, the dangers of coming out and being one’s true self, and the corrosive impact on the mental health of LBGTQ+ people in all our communities.

House of Closets

Halloween in Derry is no small affair and is considered by some to be the best in the world. What started as a local tradition—free punch for getting dressed up—was commodified into a carnivalesque crowd-pleaser. Inside the city center, cat faces and zombies flash by. A ragtag cover band of costumed misfits belts out “Boys of Summer.” A South Asian tour group, some thirty strong, are scattered outside the church bell tower taking selfies. Children dart and drift about with excitement, tripping and bumping into people and things.

In a near-empty hotel restaurant in Dublin’s city center, two men sit in midday quiet, alternately looking at their mobile phones and breaking news unfolding on a large flat screen. The disheveled yellow mop bobs up and down, spewing vitriol about communism and Castro. A garish caricature; the developmentally stunted younger brother of the current freak show “across the pond.” This hideous theater has no shortage of red-faced ghouls, pointing and howling, grappling for power.

Just two days shy of the impending October 31st Brexit deadline, an extension to January 31, 2020 now promises to draw contentious debate into the new year. The primary issue in passing the EU withdrawal agreement into law has been the “Ireland backstop”—a measure that would preclude the re-establishing of a hard border between UK-controlled Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The implications could be disastrous to the tenuous peace established just a little over 20 years ago.

Unlike the annual haunting of Derry, the lead-up to the pending Brexit decision was wrought with fear. It was common knowledge that the overnight imposition of a hard border could drive a hard wedge, cracking and deepening the fault lines of the sectarian stalemate that is Northern Ireland. Signs on the side of Derry streets bear anti-Brexit messages: “Hard Border. Soft Border. No Border,” warning passersby of impending unemployment and food shortages that are likely to result. These are new additions to Derry’s extensive portfolio of political tags, graffiti and street murals, monuments, plaques, and museums commemorating 

Declan McLaughlin, a musician and activist who has lived and worked in the Bogside neighborhood for most of his life, sees Brexit as “a catalyst for artists to engage more deeply in political issues.” Like the armed conflict of his youth, the looming specter of Brexit now threatens a decades-long, hard-won peace. “This is the first time in the history of Ireland that there hasn’t been conflict. We don’t want conflict, it’s a small window of time…to resolve it.”

Driving on single lane country roads, winding through neighboring Donegal county, it is nearly impossible to know exactly when or where you cross back and forth between the colony and the republic. Atop a hill with a broad view of six neighboring counties sits an ancient Celtic ring fort, Grainan of Aileach, one of thousands of Bronze-age dwellings scattered across the island. This Halloween, the BBC Foyle (UK) is broadcasting a concert from Donegal County (Ireland), with technicians from Derry (UK) and Ireland.

A hard border would disrupt families, communities and businesses that have long co-existed across an imaginary line enforced by a colonial power. It would compromise the fluidity of relations and ease of mobility cultivated and normalized since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Socio-cultural connectivity would suffer, likely further imperilled by sectarian violence. In different parts of the North and South, the tags of the IRA and the UVF have begun to resurface, and there is talk in hushed tones of paramilitary activity on the rise—the details of which are not shared openly.

But against this rising tide of sectarian unrest is a movement of creative minds and ideas promoting peaceful co-existence, away from conflict and its physical manifestations, towards a unified Ireland. The window of opportunity for resolution to this smoldering conflict is one that is being embodied and projected by artists employing humanist tactics in public engagement. This is a moment for the full trajectory of human conflict and resolution to be realized, giving the world an example of how possible it is to transform peace, from the tenuous to the lasting.

North of Ireland

Tenuous Peace

As I wandered amongst the bric-a-brac of Heathrow airport and late stage capitalism…scattered liberally about the duty free bottles of liquor, oversized bars of chocolate, trashy magazines, and designer jewelry, bags, and sunglasses…I see Charles’ cunty visage gurning out at me, like an in-bred Hugh Grant, adorning packets of shortbread, socks, faces of teddy bears, women’s undergarments, and perhaps most disturbingly sex aids and condoms…a buck is to be made and those coronations and silly jubilees, second-rate pop concerts featuring D list performers who enjoy shoving their tongue up the King’s rear passageway do not pay for themselves. These duties do not come for free after all, but at quite an economic and existential cost. Cough up those taxes British serfs and foreign tourists!!!! The King NEEDS YOU!!!!!!

I realised that over a month had passed since the latest chapter of the royal soap-opera, with Hooray Harry now gearing up to take the British tabloid press to task in London’s high court. When the death of the queen was announced, with a state funeral costing the taxpayer an estimated 160 million pounds, the inevitable conclusion of this jolly game of musical chairs could only have been more expense for the average Joe or Janet. Never mind if you’re an oligarch, oil rich, or ultra-wealthy monarch who is not expected to pay any inheritance tax. Tax Haven London, England has you covered! Where the world’s stolen money goes to be laundered!! The Torys have you covered! As the pompous buffoonery of tradition and hollow ceremony winked out at me from a packet of biscuits, a thought fluttered across my poor aching noggin; I wondered how much it was going to cost to replace all of those pesky postboxes, railings, coins, bank notes, passports, stamps, tomato ketchup bottles….and other items of varying usefulness that still bore the late queen’s image…..THE KING NEEDS YOU!!!!!

On the morning of Saturday 6th May, 2023 the carcass of a 30-tonne whale that had beached itself in Bridlington, northern England was removed by the local council. The whale’s carcass had become a tourist attraction, enticing visitors from miles around. Further south in London another rotting tourist attraction slithered from a gold encrusted carriage, worming its way up the steps of Westminster Abby into a lavish, multi-million pound ceremony for Britain’s first royal coronation since 1952. As the gathered dignitaries, royals, nepotistic hangers on, and washed out celebrities gathered for pomp and ceremony, the British public fawned outside in the dull drizzling rain, hoping to catch a glimpse of the slimy blubber on display. Strikingly enough, the dead eyed expression of the beached whale was a perfect companion to the new King’s deer-in-headlights gaze, as this most privileged and entitled of public figures met with his low-key despotic destiny. A freeloader for the ages.

It is reported that the new King is worth some 1.8 billion pounds. He and his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, took many hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends per year. The payments were received via two land and property estates, the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. These estates have been at the centre of a centuries-old debate over whether the funds should be provided to the public instead. The immoral and unethical pillaging of public taxes and funds has been taking place longer than any civically minded tax payer would care to discover or admit, a malignant tradition practiced for many hundreds of years. By the end of Elizabeth II’s reign in 2022, the royal family saw it fit to garnish themselves with ten times more income than when she began her rule in 1952. How can the British public be EXPECTED to pay tax and foot the bill for this obscene circus of a coronation with poverty rife in the country? The UK suffers the highest levels of poverty in North-Western Europe, worse than 13 of its neighbouring countries. It bears noting that children are most vulnerable, with more than one in four growing up impoverished in the UK. While the obscene hack parade that was the coronation is reported to have cost the taxpayer some 100 million pounds.

The cognitive dissonance of British royalists is truly something to behold. This is a citizenry who have been brainwashed for many centuries into thinking that the royal family is somehow good for the country and good for tourism. The royals have been incredibly efficient in hoodwinking the British public into believing somehow that they are loyal servants to the country and its peoples, despite no evidence to support this claim. This is a public who have suffered from over a decade of Tory misrule, austerity measures, and most recently endured severe fuel and gas shortages this past winter. Many families across the UK—unable to afford to simultaneously heat their residences and cook food—faced the bleak conundrum of whether to "heat or eat." I ask: Why are these serfs so happy to suffer and "know their place?"

This dissonance is most perfectly exemplified by the grubby sycophant, Piers Morgan, who rails against anti-monarchists at every chance he gets, posting rambling, ranting, semi-coherent Twitter missives against the "woke establishment" whilst simultaneously propping up this most corrupt and insidious royal mafia. Gangsterism is acceptable so long as one has money, power, and status. Know your place, know your betters, and doff your cap.

Amidst the obscene pageantry on display were two prime professional nitwits. Dim as they come. Whining and entitled Harry who seems to think that living in a room below street level in his late Granny’s palace was roughing it. Who expected the taxpayer to continue to foot the bill for private security services even after "leaving" the royal family (despite not wanting to give up his title of "Prince"). He who desires privacy whilst simultaneously releasing a graceless tell-all memoir and Netflix show. Then there’s Uncle Andrew, playmate of pedophiles and human traffickers who settled out of court in the notorious Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, in which he was accused of participating in sexual activities with a minor. Andrew eventually settled out of court, paying his accuser, Virginia Giuffre, 12 million pounds. It is rumoured that the Queen herself put up the hush money. Which means that the British taxpayer is also responsible for helping to fund the bailout for this most royal of pedophiles. We are asked to aspire to be like these shining beacons of British high society.

The royal family have been described as "The Firm" by members of their own house. An obscene mafia that has colonized, stolen, and stripped indigenous peoples across the world of their autonomy and humanity. There are only 22 countries of the 200 around the world that Britain has not invaded and colonized. These countries' resources were plundered and their peoples forced to become royal subjects. It has been estimated that India alone was drained of some $45 trillion between the years 1745 and 1938. Britain’s policies towards India are responsible for in excess of 100 million deaths during the period between 1881 and 1920. The largest cut gemstone in the world, the Koh-i-Noor diamond, was looted from the Maharajah of Lahore in 1850 and presented to Queen Victoria. It is still set into the Queen’s crown to this day. These are only some the atrocities committed against Britain's colonies. The global toll of stolen loot, wealth, and the death tally associated with the British Empire and its royal family is truly sickening. Yet apparently something to admire and celebrate.

The King himself is of course no stranger to the company of sex abusers and despots, having been close friends with the monstrous Sir Jimmy Savile, a public figure that loomed large in the British psyche for many decades. Savile began his career as a radio DJ before becoming a household name with a string of primetime television shows and raising millions of pounds for hospitals and charities. It was an open secret amongst the British establishment that Savile was a heinous predator who sexually abused many hundreds of children and young people, many of whom were patients at the very hospitals he raised money for. Savile was a close friend and advisor to Charles and Diana throughout the 1980s and beyond. More recently Charles was found to be accepting suitcases containing multi-million pound bribes from former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani—known as "HBJ." HBJ is responsible for the levying of severe punishments and even death sentences for same-sex couples; laws that recognize women as second class citizens with little to no rights; the migrant worker scandals that stunk up the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, amongst many other despotic and inhumane practices. Human rights abusers must stick together after all.

His majesty’s public petulance has been well-documented. He's gotten angry with a leaking pen; announced mass redundancies to Buckingham palace staff during the church service of the late queen; and complained that his own coronation was "boring," whinging that "there’s always something" as he was made to wait five minutes in his gilded carriage before the proceedings began. It was wryly amusing that when asked to perform for the Coronation Concert held on Sunday evening in Windsor many, many artists turned down this incredible opportunity (including none other than the queen themselves, Sir Elton John). The new King had to settle for being entertained by the likes of Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and '90s boy-band Take That. The assembled royals were not the only Muppets on display, as Jim Henson’s furry puppets rounded off a thoroughly underwhelming evening of embarrassments.

And yet after 13 years of Tory misrule, fresh revelations regarding the royal family’s subtle manipulation of law to solidify their massively disproportionate power and wealth, why is it that the British people moan, yet simply sit on their hands in dumbed submission? This extends to the freshly minted anti-protest laws that the Tories brought into effect just days before the coronation, giving the police in England and Wales extended powers to detain and charge those they suspect of mounting potentially disruptive protests. These laws lubricate Great Britain’s disastrous slide into authoritarianism.

There were stirrings of discontent and protest around the country organised by the anti-monarchist group, Republic, only for dozens of peaceful protesters to find themselves pre-meditatively arrested and removed hours before the ceremony was to begin. The new laws limiting public protests, drafted and enacted by the Tory party, were to blame for this. These crackdowns have only served to galvanize anti-monarchist sentiments and resistance seems to be blossoming day-by-day on a grassroots level. Following the arrests, members of parliament condemned the use of the new anti-protest laws and the Metropolitan police did express regret. It seems these draconian measures may have backfired and there is at least some likelihood that the new anti-protest laws could be repealed.

Aside from a handful of satirical cartoons popping up in more left-leaning newspapers, artists (who have been adversely affected by Brexit) have been disappointingly quiet throughout the coronation period, failing to open debate, criticize, or dismiss this obscene circus. Robert Smith of The Cure has been one of the sole dissenting voices in this relative wilderness of criticism. Smith shared a satirical cartoon on which he collaborated that features a character saying, "All hail the nature arbitrary of privilege that’s hereditary. The huge cost of this ceremony could buy each British child a pony. Yet distracting profligacy must calm the masses all, lest we the fury of the poor unleash." Smith has been impressively outspoken on the subject of the royals and serfdom in the past. When asked if he would accept honors from the Queen, he said: "I would honestly cut off my own hands before I would go there, because how dare they presume that they could give me an honour? I’m much better than them. They’ve never done anything! They’re f***ing idiots."

Another musician, Glen Matlock, the songwriter behind the Sex Pistols' infamous 1977 hit single that brutally criticized the queen and monarchy, "God Save the Queen," updated the lyrics to include the new king. Although one could be forgiven for preferring the original lyric ("God save the queen, the fascist regime") to the rather less impactful "God save the king, the silly old thing."

It is high time that the blubbery, obscene carcass that is the British Royal family is put out to sea. Return the plunder and open the palaces to the public and homeless. The British public, peoples of the commonwealth, all who are oppressed under the aegis of this outdated, outmoded, and humiliating spectacle; Liberate yourselves!!! Off with their heads!!! Bring out the metaphorical guillotine, and let this be a lesson to the leech lords and grotesque amoral nihilists. This is about more than being contrarian, anti-establishment, or rebellious. It is about the British people standing up, staring down the establishment, and shouting "We have had enough!" Why continually put these free-loading dimwits on a pedestal to be celebrated? Revel in your right to protest, to be angry, to rail against hundreds and hundreds of years of repression, submission, and gaslighting on a global scale.

Republic, the protest group that calls for the abolition of monarchy and a democratically elected head of state should be somewhat encouraged by the concern from police and public that their members’ arrests whilst protesting the monarchy was illegitimate and pointed towards the actions of a totalitarian state. Surely now is an opportune time for artists and protest groups to solidify the strong voices of dissent and send a clear message to the monarchy, their Tory enablers, and the sleepwalking pro-royal British public. Perhaps the tide might turn after all.

This appears to be a crucial moment for the U.K. and England, and even the Commonwealth. A vital window of opportunity to scale back, and then dispossess the royal family and its reign of pillaging of wealth, resources, and vitality. With the powerful figure of Queen Elizabeth II no longer on the throne, it seems that the wave of public opinion has never been more unfavorable towards the new monarch and the outdated notion of Empire. A survey by the National Centre for Social Research shows public support for the monarchy is at an historic low, with 45 percent of respondents saying either it should be abolished, was not at all important, or not very important. This alongside waning support for an utterly shambolic Tory party veering ever more haphazardly toward authoritarianism, embedded classism, and outright nincompoopery, let us hope we live long enough to see the last days of empire.

The Crooks, The Thieves, Their Serfs & Their Plunder

When I was first invited to Derry City in 2011, I knew little to nothing about British colonial rule in Northern Ireland, the Troubles, or Bloody Sunday. For much of the 1990s, I had sung along to a namesake, never truly understanding what Bono was crooning about. I had never been taught this history in school. No international history, ever was. Although I was well-enough versed in the Indian colonial past of my own heritage, I had never made the now-obvious connection between the histories of these partitioned lands.

As I walk the hill from the town square down into the Bogside, I am again subsumed by the extraordinary volume and intensity of history, culture, and activism here—by its weathered defiance. In so seemingly provincial a place, residing within the confines of neighbourhoods no larger than a single city block in New York, I see a bubbling cauldron of righteous indignation, much like that teenage boy mimicking The Edge on a knock-off Stratocaster.

When locals describe the now diorama-sized war zone that once consumed the city, all the bombs, the bullets, the blood and betrayal, the gravity of what was lost and what has been gained comes clearly into focus. Generations of Protestants and Catholics alike, hardened by the fermenting brutality of a half-century of conflict, no longer armed with sectarian purpose and the legitimate use of violence, are left with the options of shared peace or implosion.

In January 2022, several thousand people gathered in the Bogside to commemorate the 14 people murdered and the decades of violent repression that preceded and would follow that fateful day in 1972—to commemorate a people routinely punished out of their basic decency. Fifty years later, those grave vibrations, the impending sense of dread, the slivers of humanity drowned in the privilege of the living, all of that somehow finds a breath of solace—if not, resolution—here on the banks of the Foyle.

While Brexit has undoubtedly stirred sectarian tensions and stoked fears that the Troubles “maybe, weren’t quite over yet,” there’s an assured commitment to civility and progress here for which I can’t yet fully articulate my appreciation, but that elicits an emotional response. At age 39, in the year 2022, having traveled to some far reaches, basic peace often seems the furthest of possibilities. But here, looking past the stadium over the town out towards the sea, with the cemetery to my back, a beautifully scarred version somehow comes to form in the fog and grey.

“And It’s True We Are Immune…”

Night falls on the empire where once the sun never set.

Last Years of the Empire