This is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, a
Conservative Member of Parliament for South Dorset. He lives in Charborough
House (pictured above) on his the family’s 7,000 acre estate, surrounded by one
of the longest walls in England, featuring massive arched gateways, one topped
with a lion and one with a stag.
Richard Drax is firmly part of England’s landed gentry and
ruling elite. Much of his wealth can be traced back to sugar plantations in
Barbados, established by his ancestor James Drax, who was integral to
establishing both the sugar and slave industries in the Caribbean. Records
compiled by University College London show that in 1836, after the abolition of
slavery and as part of a massive government compensation package, the Drax
family were paid £4,293 (the equivalent of around £3million today) in compensation
for the loss of their “property” - the 189 slaves owned by the family and made
to work on their sugar plantation. Despite calls for reparations, slaves and
their decendents have never recieved compensation.
Ancient history, you might say. Yet Richard Drax owes his
privileged position to generations of exploitation and the appropriation of
lives and resources by his family. So how does he use his privilege? In a
county where a handful of families own and control tens of thousands of acres
of land, in a region where up to a quarter of houses are second homes, in a
country with more than 600,000 empty homes; Richard Drax uses his position to
take aim at immigrants by saying “this country is full”.
He wants to restrict those allowed into the UK to those “with
money in a bank account” because, at the end of the day, to people like Drax
your value as a human being is only equal to your net worth.
Drax is not unique. Much of Britain's elite ruling class
made their wealth on the backs of others, others who they now blame for
Britain’s problems. Aided and abetted by their friends in the media, they point
the finger of blame toward Calais and the mediterranean, and while people are
distracted they continue to siphon wealth and resources from the rest of us.
From an article by Andrew Butler on the Films For Action
website
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