Drupka Kunley: The Irishman is laughing at you

McSweeney’s victory over the Online Right

‘We and only we decide border policy and … immigration, asylum and visas … [these policies will be] made in Britain, not in Brussels.’ - Tony B-liar 1993

When the definitive history of this place and time on the internet is written, by a proper historian and not a journalist in search of a few dark retweets; I hope that they will find this delineation helpful; the ‘originator’ class of the modern online right, as opposed to the hucksters who tacked on then befouled it, had a deep historical knowledge of conventional politics - we are comprised of individuals who have been addicted to the news since childhood, and did not come to discover it when we first started using X, or earlier, Britpol.

The ‘Britpopper Meme’, one of the Dragon’s finest creations, is a reflection of this fact. To contribute towards it meaningfully was impossible if you did not grow up reading the broadsheet press, if you did not know who Iain Martin or David Aaronovitch were. That I am able to recall what Nigel Farage was ‘saying’ in 2010 (as opposed to the background thrum of television news) means I was inoculated to the 2024 hysteria around Zero Seats. I have never had any real interest in life apart from the topic of British politics.

I do not believe there is a fixed capacity for memory, but the tens of thousands of hours of reading have created a knowledge curve which would be impossible to catch up with if you were a failed normie who began to dip into these topics when they discovered r9k as a sixteen year old. I know that I will never, ever, in my life, be able to have a meaningful conversation about football with a normie who has watched it since birth. I have come to terms with that fact. I just wish others would, when they consider themselves worthy of passing critical comment on my analysis. You cannot even begin to comprehend how ridiculous you appear to me, when you position yourself as my intellectual equal - or try to engage me in debate. It’s genuinely offensive.

This epistemological gap has been revealed acutely in the past week by the rash of excitement that those we might consider in the ‘Kunley-sphere’ over Keir Starmer’s apparent turn to the right on immigration, which has led to unqualified rejoicing. It was the Djinn wot wonnit.

It would be giving too much credit to McSweeney to say that his ability to dupe these people is evidence of genius. The choreography of this move has been both transparent and repetitive. Transparent, because literally any moron could take three minutes to read the announced policies and realise that it is an exercise in fudging which will probably increase illegal immigration, as it will allow illegal migrants to work as soon as they arrive in Britain - a policy that open borders ASI shills were demanding Boris Johnson implement at the height of the small boats crisis.

It will also have no serious impact on legal immigration, which was already trending down - and is to the left of Cameron, who at least made distinct (if unfulfilled) pledges on numbers (something Yvette Cooper, then Shadow Home Secretary, now Home Secretary, opposed). Failing to grasp these basic facts puts you on the same intellectual level as the British press, who are universally too lazy and sodden to read anything in more detail than what is bolded for them Government press releases.

None of this detail matters, of course, it’s ‘vibes’ - revealed through rhetoric - on which Labour has apparent shifted, no doubt thanks to the creation of the ‘Yookay’ meme, a world historic event on par only with the birth of Jesus Christ. Again, if you had a reasonable grounding in British politics you would recognise at once that this is nothing new. Whilst Keir Starmer splutters about whether or not ‘An Island Of Strangers’ could be interpreted as being reminiscent of Enoch Powell; remember that as recently as 2007 Gordon Brown was using slogans lifted directly from the BNP and the National Front - “British Jobs For British Workers” - and refused to apologise even when David Cameron accused him of ‘playing on people’s fears’. It was tedious theatre then, and it is tedious theatre now, when it distracts from the very real existential threat posed by uncontrolled borders.

The reality is that McSweeney’s Labour is repeating the same pattern of behaviour as the Conservatives between 2010-2024; they are talking right whilst governing left. Since Labour has come into power the number of small boats crossings has more than doubled, the announcement will not solve this problem because it does not reckon with the fundamental issue; the knot of bogus foreign human rights legislation which obstructs the Government from deporting criminal paedos from other countries. Instead, we have in our hands another promise to fiddle with the ECHR (which will not work, as it has always not worked when it has been tried before). We have been here so many times before, with the hostile environment and Jack Straw before it, nobody who genuinely cares about the country should be caught applauding this transparent spin.

Of course, it flatters the ego of these individuals to claim that their ‘vibeshift’ has been transformative - it gives them the same thrill as when some think tanker or other tweets out ‘Boriswave’. Both terms, again, confuse the debate. There has not been a significant ‘vibeshift’, as outlined above, mainstream politics is still caught in the loop of the 2000s and 2010s - whilst the ‘Boriswave’ is a second iteration of the Tory narrative that immigration has only been problematic since 1997, it is the new ‘mass immigration’, the execrable idea that the demographic changes of 1945-97 was in some way tolerable.

It may be egomania or stupidity, whatever it is, it must be giving Morgan McSweeney enormous joy to see these doyennes of the ‘online right’ dance along to his puppet strings. Could he have ever imagined such luck?

All of those hours, all of that money spent on setting up the ‘Centre for Countering Digital Hate’ - all of those leaked screenshots - when it turns out those hateful trolls can be duped into spreading your propaganda for you.

Sláinte!