‘Thou knowest in the state of innocence Adam fell;

What should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy?’

Sir Jack Falstaff – Henry IV, Part 1 

 

It is a strange thing indeed to live in an age where people openly acknowledge the death of ancient notions of honour; that they reside ‘in the days of villainy’. To acknowledge your epoch as an age bereft of uplifting principles is to admit that your society has failed to emerge victorious from the eternal struggle for societal justice. In such an age social injustice pervades society, inequality is woven into governmental institutions, state bodies oppress selected groups and those charged with their protection are as morally bankrupt as the establishment they represent. The impact of this moral bankruptcy on the populous as a whole is evident, as the moral fabric of a nation begins to disintegrate, societal harmony is greatly impacted. This polarisation of society between left and right, rich and poor, and native and immigrant creates a climate in which minorities face greater threats than in times of relative harmony.

This pattern can be seen in modernity by the instant upsurge of race related hate crimes which followed the Brexit vote, its subsequent nationalist result and the increase of nationalist movements across Europe. The political leaders and the turmoil they have brought forth in the United States, Latin America and Africa bear further evidence of the morally bankrupt age and their political beneficiaries.

What becomes of the men and women chosen to represent minorities in such an age? Do they, as Jack Falstaff, become men of the times and push the bounds of the neglectful moral framework of the age? Are they able to withstand the iniquitous deluge, retain ethical principles, and tower above their immoral contemporaries? Or do they retire to the shadows in disgust, live disinterested lives and look upon the days of villainy from an honourable distance?

Like Shakespeare’s Jack Falstaff, Chuka Umunna has decided to be a man of the age. Once proclaimed ‘the next Obama’, formerly ‘the next labour leader’, then hailed as ‘the inbetweener’, Umunna is able to navigate through the days of villainy with perverse ease. A political lothario, he has awoken from a myriad of regretful drunken stupors in strange beds, turning to face repellent bedfellows almost nightly.

[image error]BRISTOL, ENGLAND – APRIL 23: Sarah Wollaston MP, Chuka Umunna MP, Anna Soubry MP and Heidi Allen MP at the launch of The Independent Group European election campaign.

From the beds of Stella Creasy to Anna Soubry to Jo Swinson the inbetweener has willingly begun mornings with a plethora of political walks of shame. Yet, it is clear that no shame is felt by the unrepentant Umunna. With Negrodom in a perilous state he long decided that Brexit is the foremost political issue in the world. For the weekly slaughter of black adolescents, continued socio-economic peril and cultural degradation of the black community could not compare to the necessity of a ‘people’s vote’ on the final Brexit deal.

As a result, he joined a cabal of disaffected and maligned politicians in creating a new political party, Change UK; he was the only member who was not white. We heard not of one change this party intended to initiate which would have been directed at the black community to which Umunna owes his allegiance.

[image error]Chuka Umunna & former Liberal Democrats Leader Jo Swinson

Not content with abandoning one party, he crossed the floor once more to join the mendacious Liberal Democrats, sensing that the delusional Jo Swinson would provide him a route back to power. She did not. We hear nothing from Umunna now, now that power is not on offer, and now that the Black community requires leadership. He has, in fact, never spoken or acted in the defence of the black community in Britain. With no political gain in aiding the black community, the quasi-Machiavelli has seemingly concluded that he will concern himself with matters of greater political gain.

‘Part of the reason that I joined the Labour party, that my family supported the party’, says Umunna, ‘was because it was an anti-racist party. I think the failure to deal with the racism that is anti-Semitism is particular, and clearly is a problem.’ Again, the question must be posed, what of the black community of which he is supposed to be a member? Not a word from Umunna. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Labour Party has a racism issue. A leaked report has documented the ‘hierarchy of racism’ within the party and the racist insults which its black members are subjected to. Umunna, a member of the Labour Party for nine years, never said a single word on the matter, neither during nor after his membership. Is Umunna the first black man in history to resign from a post because of racism that was not aimed at his own racial group? And while racism was being aimed at the racial group of which his is a member.

[image error]Labour MPs Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna , during a protest against anti-Semitism in the Labour party in Parliament Square, London, as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with anti-Semites “again and again”.

It is as if being black, or mixed-raced, is now little more than an exotic footnote. It comes with no obligations, sense of duty, revolutionary inclinations or unifying principles. One is simply black, or mixed- raced, tout court. He or she inevitably has tales of childhood poverty, absent fathers, club nights and societal oppression to regale the non-black population with. These hallmarks of authenticity are no longer unifying bonds which bound an oppressed community and produced leaders which sought to liberate the bedraggled masses. They are now little more than anecdotes used to strike awe in the viewer at the magnificence of the individual’s journey. However, this journey seldom ends in a place of benefit to the black community as a whole.

[image error]Chuka Umunna & Wife Alice Sullivan

Although his Nigerian father arrived in the United Kingdom with ‘very little money’ and he ‘started off washing cars’, Umunna tells us proudly that ‘I was the first black shadow cabinet member in Britain ever appointed in 2011.’ Other than the members of the Umunna family, one has to consider how many black people this historic appointment aided. Was there a single black person in Britain who received a tangible benefit from living in a country with a black shadow cabinet member?  If so, one would have to scour the length and breadth of the country to locate them. We are forced to conclude then that, as is always the case, this appointment did more for the ego of Umunna than the black community. He alone is not guilty of the contemptible crime of vanity, yet his acceptance of the title of ‘black’ and his subsequent inaction in the name of blackness make him and any like him guilty enough for condemnation. If the Black British community cannot look to black politicians, born and raised in South London, of the compassionate left, to address their social problems, who exactly can they look to in government?

‘There’s institutional racism in many institutions in our county,’ says Umunna ‘and if you simply leave the field, as it were, instead of try and argue and see change through in an organisation, then I’m not sure you always make progress.’ This is an astonishing statement from a man who has never even bothered to look upon, let alone set foot upon the field in defence of Negrodom. Considering that his track record on black issues is shamefully nonexistent, and the continued impact of institutional racism on the black community, Umunna’s assertion is unbelievably galling.

He is a general who speaks boldly of wars he has valiantly fought, only in his mind, all the while those beneath his charge perish in the actual field of war. Umunna sees a bloody war ongoing in his native South London and thinks only of the corridors of power in Brussels and Westminster as he marches in the opposite direction. Ignoring the wails of mothers who no longer have sons, ‘food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit as well as better’, he consoles himself while witnessing the police cordons surrounding another dead black boy lying on the street. ‘Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men,’ he whispers as he saunters into the Lib Dem HQ, knowing well he shall not utter a word of the death he has seen to his bourgeois friends lest they remember that he resembles the murderous black youth of London.

After being dubbed a ‘spear chucker’ by the very nationals whose country he wishes to heroically save, Umunna boldly stated that ‘I don’t think anyone should give any quarter.’ The words ring so hollow as to be farcical, for by now the black community knows well that Umunna has no interest in the battles waged against it. ‘There are very few black politicians and the difference between me and the politicians whose shoulder I stand on is that I come from a middle-class background’, Chuka said candidly. Alas, such are the consequences of the days of villainy, where dishonest parvenus stand aloofly on the shoulders of the oppressed masses they are honour bound to represent. After all, ‘Thou knowest in the state of innocence Adam fell’; what should treacherous Chuka Ummuna do in the days of villainy?

[image error]Sir Jack Falstaff – BBC Adaptation

 

Bibliography

BLUNDY, R. (2015, June 24). Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters ‘can’t use computers’. Retrieved from Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/chuka-umunna-targeted-by-racist-online-trolls-after-saying-ukip-supporters-cant-use-computers-9560799.html

Gayle, D. (2020, August 13). Hierarchy of racism’ fears threaten Starmer’s hopes of Labour unity. Retrieved from The Guardian : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/13/hierarchy-of-racism-fears-threaten-starmers-hopes-of-labour-unity

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Shakespeare, W. (2008). The Oxford Shakespeare Henry IV Part One . New York: Oxford University Press.

Ummuna, C. (2018, June). The Inbetweener. (T. Lewis, Interviewer)