There are two types of patriot: the kind who fetishise flags and the kind who prioritise people. In the UK, thanks to a toxic coalition of grifters, politicians and the richest man in the world, the first kind are currently enjoying a period of unprecedented dominance over the second.
It took me years to fully understand what Samuel Johnson meant when he described patriotism as “the last refuge of a scoundrel”. As a child, a love for your country comes almost as naturally as a love of chocolate, and you simply don’t understand that some people will use it to camouflage conduct that is self-serving, or even treacherous. But in recent years, Johnson’s warning has come into ever sharper focus as foreign-sponsored attacks on our democracy have been amplified and accelerated by people who drape themselves in our flags while actively acting against the interests of our country.
The links between various events – from Covid conspiracies, to violence on our streets, to Sir Sadiq Khan’s Ulez, to arson attacks on Sir Keir Starmer’s former home – are not immediately obvious, but they are real and they are profoundly dangerous.
Reports this week that the men convicted of torching Starmer’s property had been recruited by Evgeny Lyukshin, a 23-year-old Russian diplomat with family links to the Kremlin, remain unconfirmed. Thanks to research by this newspaper and the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, there can be no doubt about the conspiracy theory which grew after the arrests of the men responsible. Or about the identity of the accounts and people who propelled an extraordinary lie into the heart of public discourse: namely, that the criminals were prostitutes seeking revenge on Keir Starmer over unpaid bills.
