Toby Rees-Mogg made to look like the tolerant one.

Last Friday Toby Rees-Mogg, a prominent Brxiteer, had been invited by the UWE’s Politics and International Relations Society to discuss a range of topical issues.

TR-M as you know is a High Tory right-wing populist with unashamed "homophobic and anti-abortion beliefs"; he also is a prominent Brexiteer. As recently as November 2017 TR-M was advocating the slashing of tax while supporting the austerity programme that is responsible for in excess of 120,000 deaths since 2010.

However, the political right is fully exploiting the TR-M incident at the University of West England in Bristol Friday. Before the start of the debate uproar took place in the hall as a group of hooded and masked young people “broke into the lecture theatre” and began hurling abuse calling TR-M a “bigot”, “fascist” and “racist” – epithets I’ve no doubt TR-M

smugly privately upholds.

So, as the ruckus continued, TR-M strode from the lectern towards the intruders and confronted them. There ensued a bit of a tussle that saw TR-M attempting to have a dialogue with the protesters. In effect an arch High Tory was portrayed as an advocate of reason and tolerance, while those in hoods and masks a bunch of thugs.

Sure, I understand anyone protesting against the likes of TR-M. An MP typically of his class whose sense of entitlement and privilege are heard through each exquisitely enunciated word and phrase articulated through a plummy voice expensively refined through an Eton and Oxford education. Except, when I watch the protestors scoring an own goal.

While regarded as a bit of a figure of fun across the political spectrum, jokingly referred to as the Right Honourable Member for the 18 C, TR-M nonetheless appeals to a certain type of British voter. The kind who voted Brexit, hanging on the words of other wealthy men who they are convinced are ‘good blokes’ with their best interests at heart, namely Boris Johnson and Nigel Forage – while Farage isn’t an Old Etonian, he does brand himself as a blokes bloke, ‘one of yer own’ in Arthur Daley parlance.

When are we going to wake up to two basic political principles:

1.     Wealthy people of the Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Farage stamp don’t care for the vast majority of us, the poor, low waged and aspiring middle classes. So, stop being taken in by the ‘hail fellow well met’ façade – they fucking despise you.

2.     That protesting in the manner of the hooded and masked men last Friday simply allows the Old Etonians to turn the situation around and take ownership of the moral high ground; it allows slippery ex metal brokers to make you believe that your interests and his interests run in parallel, and that in the end you’ll each receive equal awards.