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swordsandholly · 4 months

Text

Keep it Casual

NSFW | MDNI

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish x fem.plus size.Reader

cw: injury mention, death mention (in passing - no character death), brief weed smoking

Word count: 3.7k

One-shot/Drabble

Boy loves girl, girl loves boy. They’re not allowed to admit it, though. It’s good, right? All the benefits without any of the commitments. It’s what they both want, right?

Johnny MacTavish is an enigma to you in many ways. You’ve known each other for years - ever since you came over to the UK for Uni. He was in basic training then, out drinking when he approached you. His buddies were brutish and rude, only looking to add a soft American to their list of conquests, but Johnny… he spoke to you differently. Looked into your eyes, listened intently, gave you his full attention and nothing less.

You’ve been thick as thieves ever since. Beyond that, even. You and Johnny are entirely indivisble. Even when he’s gone for weeks, months, at a time, you’re inheretnly interlinked. Whether by phone calls or the matching tattoos you got on your ankles one drunken night, you’re connected.

There aren’t any labels for it. When people ask you default to best friends, but that doesn’t quite encapsulate it. There isn’t a word in the English language for what you have. You’re not partners - you’ve both had plenty of those each, however briefly. Even those always end. You and Johnny can’t be torn apart, though.

You know what the problem is. The reason you both keep it this vague, amorphous thing between you. Labels are frightening. Labels make things real. Labels mean you have to tell other people what you are, that suddenly there are expectations to live up to.

Labels feel like a death sentence in his line of work. Too many lost husbands, partners, lovers.

You lay on your belly in bed, legs kicked up in the air as you engross yourself in a book when the door knob clicks to the side. Johnny has a key to your place, of course, just as you have one to his. You don’t bother to get up. The chain always hangs loose when he’s gone - knowing he’ll come around at any moment. The door would stay wide open if it could, just for him.

You hear a thunk as as he drops his duffle on the ground. He didn’t go home yet, just came straight here. His boots fall on the floor next, then his jacket drops quietly in the hallway as he slowly makes his way to your room - to you.

“Bonnie lass…” Johnny greets, crawling across the bed toward you. He managed to get down to just his standard issue t-shirt and boxer briefs before climbing in. He knows you hate outside clothes on the bed.

“Johnny.” You smile, rolling onto your back as he climbs over you. Your fingers card through his mohawk, tugging gently on the strands curling at the base of his neck. “Need a trim there, bud.”

“Aye.” He chuckles. “Was waitin’ tae see ye. No one does it as good as my girl.”

His girl. Your boy. That’s the closest either of you ever get to tempting fate.

You hum. “How was work?”

Work. That word doesn’t even come close to what Johnny does. You can’t say more - can’t utter the word deployment. Coward.

“Ach no’ tha’ bad this time. Go’ my heid knocked around a bit.”

“So the usual?”

“Oi.” He scoffs in mock offense. “Donnae be rude.”

“I’m never rude.” You snicker, turning over and reaching for the top dresser of your nightstand. “Do you want to roll or me?”

“I think I’ve earned some princess treatment.” Johnny flops back on the bed, a finger hooking in the hem of your cotton panties as you sit up. He always does this when he first gets back - has to have some part of him touching some part of you. Not that you’d ever complain. You need it just as much as him, though you’d die before admitting to it.

Those blue eyes bore into you as you roll. It’s tradition - a celebratory joint when he gets back. Then you’ll binge all the TV shows and movies you saved up while he was gone and order an ungodly amount of take out. Indian. His favorite. Sometimes Johnny will go back to his apartment the next day to get some quiet time, maybe visit his parents, before he has to go back to work on the base but other times he’ll stay with you his whole time back home. Just taking up your space and being so domestic it makes your teeth hurt like too-sweet candy.

You always hope he stays.

“First hit for the guest of honor?” You smile, holding the joint out for him.

“Och, yer a blessing, hen.” His hand is warm as it brushes yours when he takes the joint from you, eyes locked on your own. There’s something intense in his stare that you aren’t used to. It makes you look away, almost shy under his gaze. He coughs suddenly, a harsh burst of smoke puffing from his lips.

You can’t help but laugh at him, “Getting weak lungs, soldier boy?”

“Oh, feck off.” He elbows you gently.

Somehow you’ve already got the giggles. It’s just something about being around him that makes everything feel better - brighter. More lively. Even the colors of your ugly little ashtray (the one you painted terribly when Johnny’s niece insisted the three of you go paint pottery while babysitting) feel so much more clear with him near.

“Oh!” His brows shoot up suddenly, as if he just remembered something direly important. “I got somethin’ fer ye. Be right back.”

You watch him jog down the hall - definietly not staring at his butt, no ma’am - and listen to the sounds of Johnny rooting around through his duffle bag. Your lips quirk up into a smile when he lets out a distant “aha!”

He comes back with a small, velvety box, flopping back into bed beside you and criss-crossing his legs. “There was this little artisan shop in a town we stopped through. The Captain wanted tae get his wife somethin’ an’ I saw this an’ thought of ye.”

The box slips into your hands. It’s small and light. You roll it between your palms a couple times before shaking it with a grin. Before you can make one of your usual silly quips about what might be inside, your eyes meet Johnny’s. They’re on fire, sparkling with anticipation for you to open the little gift. He’s gotten you things before (you actually have a shelf dedicated to his nicknacks from around the world) but this seems… different. There’s a heaviness to his expression that you’re not used to.

You glance between him and the box briefly - opening it slowly. Your eyes turn to saucers as you come face to face with a finely crafted silver necklace. A little four pointed star with a sparkling gem in the middle that looks the same icy blue as Johnny’s eyes. Little flecks of pink and green catch the light as you turn it between your fingers.

“Johnny-“ You gasp, at a total loss for words.

“Ye like it?” He asks with an uncharacteristically nervous pitch to his voice. His palms rub together absently as he glances between you and the necklace in your hand.

“I love it.” You smile softly, heart fluttering as Johnny breaks out in a grin of his own. “Put it on me?”

“Course.” He whispers, pushing your hair to the side and locking the clasp with deft fingers. It hangs perfectly underneath your clavicles, resting between the other jewelry you wear daily.

Those hands linger for a moment, before both slowly brush down over your shoulders. Rough, calloused fingers glide across your skin and leave an electric current in their wake as light kisses trail up your neck. “Missed ye, bonnie.”

You sigh and lean back against his broad chest. “Missed you too.”

Teeth sink into the crook of your neck, pulling a gasp from your lips. Large, rough hands grab and knead your tits through your thin tank top. He plucks at your nipples - rolling them between his fingers as he sucks deep marks into your neck.

You open your mouth to complain about leaving visible hickies but all that comes out is a breathy moan. You run your hands up his thighs on either side of you, dragging your nails across his skin in the way that always leaves him panting.

One hand travels down, grabbing onto the softness of your belly appreciatively before continuing. His fingers glide over your covered pussy, teasing you to gasp and squirm under him. Rough fingers continue to pluck at your nipple, eventually pushing their way under your tank top for better access. A low hiss escapes Johnny’s lips as your breasts fall free of the camisole.

“Fuck, bonnie. Can I taste ye? Please? Need ye so bad.” Johnny groans in your ear. “Please.”

How could you ever say no to him? He doesn’t even have to ask, really.

He repositions you on your back, tucking a pillow under your hips. Ever the considerate type. His fingers hook in your panties, a low, pleased rumble echoing through his chest as he shucks off the soaked fabric.

No matter what he’s doing, Johnny’s eyes always find yours. He could be across the most crowded room in the world and, imminently, they’ll find yours. They crinkle at the sides with his smile that pulls the scar on his chin.

“So pretty fer me.” He murmurs, lowering himself between your thighs as he bites and kisses up the soft flesh between your legs.

Johnny is a lot of things, and a total much is easily near the top of the list. Maybe number one, even. He presses his face into your cunt - mouthing over your clit and dragging his tongue down between your lips. It’s almost more for him, you think, the way he drags his tongue through the crease between your thigh and pussy. You can’t complain - you would be a fool to with the way he absolutely worships your body.

A harsh suck to your clit as your back arching. Strong arms wrap around your thick thighs to hold you down as he devours you.

“Taste so good, lass. Sweet as fuckin’ candy.” He moans against your cunt.

“Johnny!” You gasp, hand tangling in his overgrown mohawk. A low moan pulls out of you as he licks from your back hole to your clit before stuffing his tongue as deep in your pussy as he can. Chants of obscenities and pleading and oh, god, Johnny please you’re so good fall from your lips.

You know better than to try to hide your sounds. If he could he’d devour them just as much as he already does you - inject them straight in his veins to live there forever. Two fingers push into you, the stretch causing you to gasp. Johnny chuckles as you buck into the touch. The fingers curl directly up into that spot inside you as he nips at your clit.

Your climax hits you like a train - stars blooming behind your eyes and your back arching sharply. You’re always so sensitive after he’s been gone. So ready to have him again.

“Thassit, tha’s my good girl.” Johnny kisses up your thigh, working you through your orgasm with his fingers. “Ready fer me, baby? Missed this pretty cunt so bad - thought about her every day.”

You nod excitedly - mind too fuzzy and content to come up with the words to respond. Lazily, Johnny reaches over to the nightstand to grab a condom. He knows your home, like you, inside and out. Every nook and cranny might as well be his.

It could be his.

It should be his.

Johnny cups your cheek, kissing you slow and deep. His tongue parting your lips gently before exploring every inch of your mouth. Those rough hands trail down your body with reverence. One going from your cheek, to your sternum, over your belly to sink into the softness of your waist. The other holds tight on your hip as he lines up.

You gasp and moan against each other as he pushes in. The stretch is delicious. Your nails sink into his strong back.

“Practically made fer me, bonnie.” He groans as he moves. It’s slow, languid.

He’s so beautiful. Always has been. No matter how he changes - new hair, new scars, new tattoos - he’s still beautiful. The prettiest man you’ve ever met. You run your fingers through the downey layer of dark hair over his chest - tracing the outlines of his muscles, up over his thick shoulders to cup his cheek.

Your bodies move together easily - a well practiced dance that you’ve perfected over the years.

“Christ.” Johnny gasps into your ear - strong forearms bracket your head, burying you under him. “I lov-“

You turn your head, catching his lips in a kiss. It’s terrible of you, you’re sure, but there’s nothing those words can communicate that a well timed gasp or a perfectly placed caress can’t say better. His nose knocks against yours, your hands travel all over him, seeking out any purchase they can find.

It turns desperate. A clawing need as you rediscover each other for the millionth time. Wet, open mouth kisses against each others skin and bodies moving perfectly in tandem. The light high from smoking leaves your skin warm and buzzing with electricity. It borders on overstimulating - just barely this side of too much.

“Johnny…” You whine, tilting your head back.

“Aye?” He pants, laving at your clavicle. “Gonnae cum f’me? Cream all over my fuckin’ cock?”

All you can manage is a keen, teeth sinking into his shoulder to hide you face form him. A hand tangles in your hair, pulling you down to stare up at him.

“Eyes on me, hen. Want - ah - want ye lookin’ at me when I make ye cum.”

It’s too intense. It always is looking into those baby blues. As if they can see right through to the most buried parts of yourself. Johnny shifts your hips up ever so slightly, the new angle bullying his head against your g-spot with each thrust. Your nails claw across his shoulder blades.

It doesn’t take long before you’re careening over the edge with him, bodies tensing against each other. Clenching down around him like a vice while you gasp for air.

“There she is. Tha’s my girl.” Johnny murmurs against your lips, still rocking into you in short, sloppy motions. Just to drag it out a little longer until you whine at the overstimulation.

You let yourself lay back to catch your breath, floating back to earth while Johnny disappears to toss the condom in the trash. He’s back nearly as fast as he left, pulling you against his chest and burying you both under the soft sheets of your bed.

“Shower?” Johnny whispers into your hair, eventually. You nod against his chest, slowly peeling yourselves apart. Your fingers remain tangled all the way to the bathroom.

He whirls you after you turn on the shower, kissing you slow and deep as you wait for the water to warm up. A warm hand splash across your lower back - keeping you close. You’re left breathless when he finally pulls back, pupils blown so wide in the low evening light that you can hardly see the blue of his eyes.

You sigh to yourself as you step into the shower, grateful that you splurged on the apartment with the especially large bathroom. It definitely wasn’t with Johnny in mind. You’d never make your decisions based around such a nebulous relationship.

Not the size of your bathroom - enough to fit both your wide frame and his broad shoulders.

Not the location of your apartment - only a few blocks from his.

Not keeping his favorite snacks stocked at all times just in case he comes home early.

Not referring to your apartment as his home.

“Lean down a bit.” You smile, pouring a glob of shampoo into your hand for him. Johnny’s always been picky about his hair care. You always make sure it’s on hand in your bathroom.

He does the same for you, of course, when he can, but somehow you both always end up at your place instead. Not that you’d ever complain. You like your place. It’s safe. Warm. A cocoon away from all the parts of the world that have scarred you so deeply.

Johnny groans happily as you scratch his scalp, the quality shampoo cleaning far more deeply than any of that standard issue stuff he gets on deployment ever could. You watch the suds slowly drip down over the lines of his back, breath catching as your eyes settle on a nasty, raised patch of skin you hadn’t seen before.

It looks like a chunk got ripped out of his back, right under his ribs.

“Johnny.” You gasp.

“Hm?” He looks over his shoulder at you, brows raising as he realizes what you’re looking at. “Oh tha’? It’s nothin’. Just go’ a bit knocked around, remember?”

You bite your lip, tamping down the rising fear in your gut. “D-does it hurt?”

“I’m fine, lovie.” Johnny turns, giving you that sparkling, million dollar grin. He knows it scares you, shakes you to the core.

You’ve already lost everyone else in your life, having the ever present threat of losing Johnny as well is too much to handle sometimes. It keeps you up at night, when he’s away, imagining all the worst that could happen to him.

How easy it would be for a simple bullet or knife to shatter your world.

That’s why the two of you keep up this little arrangement. This song and dance at arms length. To spare you. Both of you. Either when he doesn’t come back or you break and run.

You won’t run, though. As much as it hurts, the good is too good to give up. You’ll stay through it all, with just enough distance to keep your sanity.

“Ye with me?” Johnny asks gently, slowly pulling you out of your thoughts and back into the moment.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Long week.” You lie, leaning up on your tip toes to plant a small kiss in the corner of his mouth.

He hums, turning to meet your lips. You let yourself fall into him, fingers running through the hair on his chest, up to the back of his neck. He just feels right under your hands. Perfectly molded to press up against you - hard muscle to balance out the softness of your body. Angles and curves. Push and pull. Sun and moon.

Holy hell, you’ve become a sap.

“Sit.” You point to the chair you drug into the bathroom and Johnny happily plops down - big, fluffy towels tied around your chest and waist respectively. A content smile settles across his face as you slowly work your way across his scalp with the electric razor. You let your fingers to scrape along after you just the way he likes.

When you were young, you watched your mother cut your fathers hair. It seemed so subservient to you. Shameful, almost. You said you’d die before doing that for any man.

You carefully raise each section of his mo-hawk, cutting it down to the exact length Johnny likes to style it. A little on the short side, actually, so that it has time to grow before looking messy. Shearing the sides and taking extra care around his ears. He doesn’t need any more nicks or scars.

Johnny suddenly looks pensive as he watches you in the mirror - carefully taking in each of your movements.

“You’re worrying.” You murmur.

“I-“ He sighs. “It’s nothin’.”

“Johnny.” You level your gaze on his in the mirror, he looks off to the side.

“I’m just- I cannae-“ He sighs. “I miss ye.”

You snort. “I’m right here.”

Johnny shrugs. For once, he stops talking. You hate when he does. It’s the only true hallmark that something is wrong.

“Johnny-“

“Do ye want tae hear a new Ghost joke?” He interrupts. It’s an out. You’ll let him have it.

“Lay it on me.”

“Whit’s the difference between the bird flu and the swine flue?”

“What?”

“One requires tweetment an’ the other requires oinkment.”

A huffy laugh escapes you despite yourself. “That’s terrible.”

“Aye. Imagine listenin’ tae that in a life or death situation. Could be the last thing I hear!”

You giggle, finishing up with shaping the edges of his hairline. “How is it?”

Johnny stands, leaning close to the mirror and running a hand over his hair. Your eyes lock onto that newly forming scar again. It makes your throat feel tight.

He stretches his arms way over his head with a groan. “Think it’s time f’some proper lazin’ about.”

The rest of the night goes by as they usually do when he gets home. Indian take out, a romcom in the background, another round of fucking. Or two. It’s near eleven when you finally settle into the sheets, Johnny long asleep beside you. Comfortably snoring with that angelic peacefulness you only ever see in his sleep.

Will he look that peaceful if he dies?

The thought makes you want to throw up.

It takes all your mental fortitude to push that train of thought away. Opting to lay beside him, eyes flicking across his features as you attempt to memorize them all. The curve of his strong brow, the arch of his nose, the slight part in his lips as he sleeps. Your thumb traces the scar on his chin while you cup his cheek. As if sensing your current state - and, if you’re honest with yourself, you’re sure he can - a strong arm wraps around you to lock you against his chest. You let your legs tangle, breathing him in and following the pattern of the rise and fall of his chest. Real and tangible under your hands.

You’re just so glad that, at least right now, he’s home.

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mariacallous · 2 months

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“The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep,” Gore Vidal once wrote of the resurgence of the far right in the United States. In the case of the rioting that has erupted across England and Northern Ireland this week and last, old hatreds have been stirred up using new technologies.

The initial spark for the violence that has plagued British towns and cities was the sickening murder of three young girls last Monday in the seaside town of Southport, stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga session. It was the sort of horrific crime that is mercifully rare in Britain. The last comparable attack on children occurred almost 30 years ago.

The only suspect in the Southport murders, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was immediately arrested. We know Rudakubana’s name only because the judge in his case lifted an anonymity order—imposed as standard when the accused is a minor until legal proceedings begin—because false claims about the suspect’s origins were helping to fuel the racist violence. Social media posts claiming that the attacker was a Muslim, a refugee, a migrant, or a foreigner received 27 million impressions on Twitter/X in the 24 hours after the Southport killings.

Far-right groups descended on Southport the day after the stabbings. We know little about Rudakubana, but on Aug. 1 we did learn that he is a British national who was born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, a country with a large Christian majority. This has not prevented far-right thugs from rampaging through towns and cities including Manchester, Liverpool, Sunderland, Rotherham, Tamworth, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Aldershot, and Belfast, targeting Muslims

Many on the right have rushed to attribute the mobs to a sense of disillusion and a supposed social gap between the working class and the “elite”—a group in which they are never keen to count themselves. A few left-wingers have shared similar opinions. It is true that material factors have created a propitious environment in Britain for unrest. After 14 years of Tory government, before the recent Labour victory, the country is a poorer and more resentful place, its sclerotic and creaking public infrastructure barely functioning after years of neglect.

There is much to be angry about. Yet this does not adequately explain the nature nor the scale of the violence, much of which has been driven by a bourgeoning alliance between a right-wing elite and the mob—an alliance that, as Hannah Arendt once put it, rests on the “genuine delight with which the former [watch] the latter destroy respectability.”

For its part, the mob has attacked mosques, set buildings on fire, looted shops, violently assaulted ethnic minority bystanders, attacked cars on residential streets, and thrown bricks at the police. “We want our country back,” they yelled over the weekend while attempting to set fire to a hotel in Rotherham because they believed it was housing asylum-seekers. “P**i Muslims off our streets,” they yelled in Leeds. Footage from elsewhere showed men adorned with swastika tattoos, arms thrown up in Nazi salutes, voices yelling at anybody with brown skin to “go home.” This is not a rage that can, or should, be appeased.

This is not the first time rioting in the U.K. has been driven by bigotry. In Notting Hill in 1958, a mob of 400 white people attacked West Indian residents and their property. In the same week, racially motivated riots also broke out in St. Ann’s in Nottingham. Going further back, the Gordon Riots of 1780 saw an eruption of violent anti-Catholic sentiment.

Despite the atavistic nature of the hatreds unleashed this week and last, many who have taken to the streets this time around are creatures of social media. Several prominent far-right influencers have come out on social media in support of the mayhem with all sails unfurled. Others have been whipped into a near-homicidal frenzy by misinformation on apps such as X.

The kudzu spread of incendiary falsehoods began with the lie, first promulgated on X by the managing director of a clothing company, that the suspect in the Southport murders was an asylum-seeker named “Ali Al-Shakati.” The misogynist influencer Andrew Tate shared the false claim while asserting that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant.” The far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as “Tommy Robinson,” has used X to call for “mass deportations” and described Islam as a “mental health issue.” Meanwhile, disgraced actor Laurence Fox reacted to the stabbings by calling for Islam to be “removed from Britain.”

The mob responded accordingly. The day after false rumors about Ali Al-Shakati had began swirling around on social media, a group of white men attacked a mosque in Southport. The street violence has continued ever since.

Lurking in the background while disinformation is spread is a wealthy right-wing elite that has started to flex its political muscles. Some of the worst purveyors of misinformation have accounts on X only because right-wing billionaire Elon Musk has reinstated them—together with numerous other white supremacist accounts—under the guise of “free speech.”

Musk has spread misinformation about the riots on the app, claiming in one post that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain and amplifying one of Robinson’s posts. Robinson was reinstated by Musk in 2023 and today has more than 800,000 followers. Similarly, though he was banned from X in 2017 for claiming that women should bear “some responsibility” for being sexually harassed and assaulted, Tate was reinstated by Musk in 2022.

The takeover of media platforms by wealthy elites is driven by a right-wing adoption of the Gramscian belief that the conquest of power comes only after the conquest of culture. Musk, the world’s richest man, purchased X for $44 billion in 2022 in order to combat what he calls the “woke mind virus.” Together with renaming the platform, one of Musk’s first actions was to do away with legacy blue checks and open up verification on the platform to anybody with $8.

The move thrilled Musk’s sycophantic fan base, which had previously chafed with resentment at the status differential on the app between themselves and what they contemptuously referred to as the “legacy media.” But it also turned X into the world’s largest vector of misinformation. It is also of a piece with former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s idea of “flooding the zone with shit”—i.e., destroying the traditional media’s ability to give the public accurate information by letting it sink in a deluge of bullshit.

It isn’t only social media where influential right-wing figures have been allowed to blur the distinction between legitimate protest and far-right violence. Ever since the riots began last week, the British television station GB News has often sought to excuse them. Launched in 2021 and co-owned by the multimillionaire hedge fund manager Paul Marshall, since the murders in Southport, GB News has given airtime to an assortment of cranks, demagogues, and grifters. On more than one occasion, the station’s language has come dangerously close to incitement. The leader of the Reform U.K. party, Nigel Farage, who has his own show on GB News, also took to X in the aftermath of the Southport attacks to ask whether “the truth is being withheld from us” by the police about the identity of the suspect.

Earlier this year, Marshall—who as well as owning the reactionary website UnHerd is believed to be trying to purchase the Spectator and the Telegraph—was caught liking and sharing content close to the material that has been circulated this week by paranoid fascist weirdos. In February, the anti-extremist charity Hope not Hate revealed that Marshall had endorsed tweets calling for mass deportations and which suggested a civil war between “native Europeans” and “fake refugee invaders” was imminent.

Many of the presenters and guests on GB News have spent this week mocking Prime Minister Keir Starmer for labeling the riots as far right. Instead, the channel has sought to portray the street violence as driven by the “legitimate concerns” of disenfranchised members of the working class. The idea that the thuggish behavior of recent days is somehow representative of the working class is itself a form of middle-class prejudice—rooted in the unspoken assumption that working-class people are inherently stupid, racist, and violent.

GB News operates on familiar right-wing populist lines. Its prolier-than-thou presenters make superficial overtures to the masses while its modus operandi is to ensure that power is never truly shared or redistributed. But let’s not be too partisan about it: GB News is pushing at a door that has already been loosened by more “respectable” media coverage of migrants and asylum-seekers.

There is a self-pitying refrain on the right that you “can’t talk about” immigration. Yet the big mouths and shock jocks of the right-wing media seldom shut up about it. This time last year, the broadcaster James Whale suggested on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV that the U.K. “should point weapons” at migrants in the English Channel. Even talking about migrants in this sort of bloodthirsty language is no impediment to getting on. A few months later, Whale was made an MBE.

The suggestion that the violent protests represent the last resort of Britain’s forgotten majority is, of course, laughable. When polled, nearly 50 percent of Britons wanted harsher-than-usual sentences for the rioters, 39 percent the usual norms of sentencing, and just 4 percent more lenient charges.

Less than five weeks ago, Starmer convincingly won a general election against a Tory party that campaigned on the slogan of stopping the boats carrying asylum-seekers to the United Kingdom. In truth, the ghouls who have haunted television studios this week making excuses for the rioters see any Labour government as equivalent to an occupying power. They want their country back because, after 14 years, they feel as if it has been lost at the ballot box.

But if anybody has a right to think of themselves as the voice of the people at the present time, it is the newly elected Labour prime minister. He may not own a television station or a social media app, but he does have a 174-seat majority in the House of Commons. The rule of law—and democracy—must prevail.

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