Dear John,
Yesterday, pro-Trump influencer and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking to students at Utah Valley University.
As an organisation dedicated to revitalising our democracy (and therefore upholding public debate and peaceful disagreement) Open Britain unequivocally condemns this and all other acts of political violence.
While we wait for the facts to emerge, we should all take a step back and reflect on how dire the political realm has become in the US, and consider how - if this does indeed turn out to be a political act - we might prevent our own country descending to the same depths. What social and democratic breakdowns have brought us to a place where someone can contemplate killing a person simply for espousing their political views? And what does the immediate fallout of this incident tell us about our broken politics?
Even before any of the facts are known, speculation is running wild. Many on the far-right, in the US and here in Britain, have already begun spinning Kirk’s assassination into their existing narratives. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Boris Johnson, and others have rushed to claim - without evidence - that this was the act of a left-wing opponent. Trump seems intent on exploiting this young man’s death to rile his base and justify further military-led crackdowns on US citizens he sees as his political and cultural opponents.
This is exactly why political violence is so dangerous: it almost always begets more violence. In the US, Trump has already deployed troops to Los Angeles and Washington DC, stoking division under the banner of “law and order.” Kirk’s killing threatens to pour fuel on both far-right vigilantism and Trump’s state-sanctioned repression.
It’s important to be clear: political violence in the United States has not been a one-sided phenomenon. In just the past few years, Trump supporters killed Democratic State Representative Melissa Hortman, targeted Governor Josh Shapiro, attacked Paul Pelosi, and of course stormed the Capitol in an insurrection that left one protestor and several police officers dead, and lawmakers fleeing.
At root, this tragedy is a symptom of a failing democracy and a tattered social contract. When people lose faith in constructive compromise, in civil debate, and in the democratic institutions that enable those things, they can easily be persuaded to turn instead to violence and intimidation.
That is why Open Britain will continue to stand up for democracy, dialogue, and peaceful disagreement, both here in the UK and abroad. The way we respond to violence must be to double down on our commitment to democratic norms, not to abandon it.
Political violence is wrong - always. Our task is to make democracy work so people never feel violence is the only way forward.
