Activism and objectivity redux

J Freedland in the Gruaniad today deplores the ways in which our noble institutions have been dragged into ideological battles -- naturally with Brexit as the main example.  Recalling his own earlier days as a critic of the obvious limits of the judiciary because of their limited social backgrounds,he now wants to repent -- because Brexiteers are saying the same things when judicial decisions go against them. Freedland is especially cross about the way in which the findings of the Electoral Commision about overspending by the Leave Campaign has not been acknowledged by Brexiteer MPs. For him the findings cannot be criticised: 'It is not an allegation that Vote Leave broke the law. It is now a fact'. To be a tiny bit finicky, however, it is possible that Vote Leave will appeal against the findings, and, in the remote possibility that they win, the findings will cease to be fact, one of the  paradoxes of judicial findings, of course.

“These people are human beings like any other,” I wrote [in his earlier guise as a critic of the Hutton Report]. “It seems worth remembering that, before he was a law lord, the judge was plain Brian Hutton.” I thought I was bravely shattering the mystique of the priesthood we call the judiciary – he’s just a man called Brian! – but afterwards a few people I respected , people no less hostile to the Iraq war, took me to task. They warned that I had taken a small step down a slippery slope, disparaging the system that upholds the rule of law.

To admit the general case would be to allow Brexiteers to score a point. So instead of pushing on into an analysis of ideology and how it works, a massive backpedal is required.
However, all this shows his critique was only partisan all along? Judges now do not suffer from social biases and implement (unconscisous?) ideologies? They are not 'just men' but have become an institution. The 'rule of law' really is above ideology, and/or a judiciary dominated by upper class white men is the only safeguard 'we' have. No need for any consideration, however preliminary, of the issues of 'social background' and 'bias' when it comes to Brexit. 

Freedland is exposing his own earlier claims to objectivity, in the name of a higher good, claiming the authority of the repentant -- as in 'I once believed this myself  but I was wrong and now I see the light'. He sees lots of examples all around him, especially in Trump's America, and thus a whole moral panic is up and running. Running these all together with Brexit strengthens his own beliefs and smears his opponents in the classic double role of ideology.

The whole episode shows how partisan Freedland's stuff has been all along. It wasn't really a critique of ideology he wanted but just judges that agreed with him. Brexit has flushed him out as it has so many in the quality press or on the BBC. Criticism may be directed 'upwards' against elite judges or 'downwards' at the unspeakables, but it is still partisan, representing another class view just as surely, even if it is the class view this time of the restless cultural petit bourgeoisie. They have been increasingly strident in their assertion of this class view in the 'coverage' of Brexit and must therefore take their share of blame if the blinkers of 'objectivity'  have fallen off for their enemies.