This is a warning to our country. This election was the most bitterly polarised I can remember. The divisive speech on the far right and the intimidatory tactics of the far left have gone too far.
We are not the US. There’s a reason many voters have said Sunak’s concession speech and his first speech in opposition were his best. Because we finally saw some humanity and humility. Those are the qualities that resonate with our electorate and we cannot allow hate speech and harassment to become normalised.
Despite the rise of Reform I think we can be very proud of the way our election was handled and the extremely smooth and gracious transition between Sunak and Starmer.
We had our hot point during the Brexit times and things feel much healthier now in terms of debate, although it could still deteriorate again by 2029, hopefully the recovery remains on track.
When the shock clears I don’t actually think it’s surprising this assassination attempt has happened, Trump and Biden both felt hugely at risk of something like this with the political temperature out there + the fact every ****er out there is armed and assassination attempts in America are hardly rare, in the last 70 years they have President Kennedy, Candidate Kennedy, Reagan, Bush (one of the 9/11 planes was set for the White House), Obama (ricin letter).
It also happens at the lower levels, some Trumpers themselves were intent on killing Mike Pence in the insurrection.
There was a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer (Governor of Michigan and possible Biden replacement).
US congresswoman Gabby Giffords who was shot in the head in 2011.
The hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
Political violence in America has always been pretty common unfortunately.
Although unfortunately we have had Jo Cox and David Amess in recent memory, so we aren’t entirely safe from that ourselves, but we do feel in a healthier space than we were, at least for now.