The Quasi-Religious Aspect of the Modern Transmovement

I know that many of the readers of this blog have very different attitudes towards the trans issue and so may find the following essay offensive. It is certainly not my intention to insult or offend anyone, but merely to examine a distinct sociological aspect of the mass trans movement as it has emerged over the last decade or so. This has taken it far beyond the issue of the appropriate treatment of adults and children suffering distress or confusion about their biological sex. If this was simply the case now, I believe that it would have been quietly and amicably resolved a few years ago, and would be of no more interest than the question of suitable treatment for other people suffering distressing psychological and mental health conditions.

But the medical question has been co-opted by radical postmodern political activists and has been transformed and broadened as part of today’s identity politics. The ideologues behind this movement see it as part of a broader agenda to radically transform western society, and the mass movement that has emerged from this is bitterly intolerant of its critics and detractors. It has thus taken on the sociological character of a religion, and in some aspects particularly resembles historic heretical sects and cults as explained below.

Mutilating the Flesh for the Spirit: Trans Ideology as Quasi-Religion

According to the ideologues, adherents and activists of trans ideology and practice, trans identity, and the social and medical transitioning of troubled and psychologically confused individuals from their birth to the opposite sex is entirely rational and scientific, based on a scientifically recognised and confirmed medical condition. Its gender critical detractors, however, such as Barry Wall of the EDI Jester channel on YouTube and his many followers, are harshly sceptical of this ideology. For them, stripped of its scientific trappings, the trans movement is ‘a flesh-sacrificing cult’ with its basis in the Cartesian dualist separation of mind and body. A recent commenter, furiousfemale996 on one of the Jester’s posts, ‘Queering Classrooms – LGB Alliance Responds’ recommended that if the trans ideology is taught in schools, it should not be taught as a sexual identity like homosexuality in PSHE, but instead taught in RE as a religious cult: ‘They need to teach all kids how to recognise the signs of a cult.’

In fact, sociologists of religion such as Clifford Geertz have formulated the concept of quasi-religions to describe secular ideologies and movements that perform some of the sociological functions of religion, and the trans ideology certainly conforms in many respects to such a classification. Indeed, the concept of religion itself is notoriously difficult to define. While most people would automatically regard religion as the worship of supernatural beings, these are absent in some religions. The Latin term ‘religio’, from which the modern English ‘religion’ is derived, means literally ‘to tie together’ and may originally have meant something like filial piety to the Romans. Many cultures do not recognise a religious sphere as distinct from the secular as the two are so bound up together in their way of life. Snorri Sturluson, the 13^th century writer of the collection of Viking myths, the Edda, described Viking paganism as ‘an old law’. Some sociologists of religion eschew discussions of the supernatural and define it as about ‘matters of ultimate concern’. Another academic definition simply states that it divides the world into the important and valuable and less important and valuable. There are also secular religions, such as Humanism and its predecessor, the Ethical Church Movement of the 19^th century, that developed as rationalist, scientific alternatives to supernatural religion. The sociological description of these as quasi-religions, rather than simply religions, is important as many atheists take considerable offence to their movements being described as a religion. The ‘quasi’ element in the term serves to differentiate these movements from supernatural religion proper, while emphasising that they still perform some of the socialogical functions of religious belief and worship.

The secular movements identified as quasi-religious include nationalism, Humanism and the totalitarian political ideologies of Nazism and Communism, the latter because their doctrines of the Thousand Year Reich or the age of true communism have strong similarities to millennial, apocalyptic Christianity. Religions commonly have a set of core doctrines, rituals and ethics so that their adherents form a distinct ideological and moral community.

The core beliefs of the trans ideology may be simply described thus:

Everyone has a unique gender identity distinct from their biological sex. For trans people, this gender identity is opposite to that of the sex they were born as. This gender identity represents their authentic sex, and must be recognised and protected through progressive legislation. As members of the opposite sex trapped in the wrong bodies, they also require medical and surgical intervention to transform their bodies into those of the identified sex. At the same time, following the ideas of postmodern feminist Judith Butler and her text, Gender Trouble and the doctrines of Queer Theory, sex itself is a matter of social performance following socially constructed ideas of masculinity and femininity. Thus, sex is reduced to a matter of fashion and stereotypical gender roles and activities, distinct from the biological, embodied reality. This has led to nonsensical statements from politicians like Keir Starmer that only one per cent of women have penises, or circular definitions of womanhood such as ‘a woman is anyone who identifies as one.’ At the same time, the trans community and its supporters draw a clear moral distinction between themselves and their critics. The trans community has appropriated the general gay rights movement, presenting itself as an integral part of the general gay and bisexual community, which is conceived as uniquely loving. An LGBTQ+ cartoon to promote gay and trans acceptance among children reviewed and critiqued by the ‘femalist’ pro-woman activist, Kelly Jay Kean-Minshull, presents this community as animals in a parade. One of them has the mastectomy scars from ‘top surgery’, the polite euphemism for double mastectomies performed on trans identifying girls and women. The voiceover, singing a version of ‘The animals went in two by two, hurrah’, declares that they love each other so proudly.

Trans people are also presented as uniquely virtuous and persecuted. Outside the realm of the blessed elect are the gender critical fallen, creatures of absolute hate, prejudice, and malignity. As Maria MacLachlan of the Peak Trans vlog on YouTube and other gender critical feminists have discussed and demonstrated, these activists accuse feminists like MacLachlan of being Nazis, planning a ‘trans holocaust’, who must be physically fought, beaten and killed. See her video ‘Awful Argument 8: Terfs Are Rightwing’. MacLachlan has herself been physically assaulted by a trans activist, and has documented similar attacks on gender critical feminists in videos such as ‘Another day, another trans activist bully, another feminist assaulted’. In America, gun-toting goons in black bloc have appeared as stewards for trans rallies. This may be considered as a political paramilitary uniform, which would be banned over on this side of the Atlantic under legislation designed to suppress genuine Fascists like Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. As I write this, the government is deeply concerned with the issues of political and religious extremism and is busy formulating a definition of such that would allow the proscription of dangerous anti-democratic groups. A definition of extremism and terrorism could fairly include the violent, paramilitary wing of trans activism but due to the identification of trans with pro-gay liberalism and its advocacy from the left, is unlikely to do so.

Rather than being rational and scientific, the core doctrines of the trans movement resemble supernatural religion, and particularly Platonic Gnosticism. The distinction between a gendered mind separate from the body does indeed bear a marked kinship to Cartesian mind-body dualism, with the twist that the ghost in the body’s machine has its own gender. It also resembles Gnosticism in that primacy is given to the disembodied gendered mind with the body given much less regard. In Platonism, the ancient Greek philosophy derived from the great philosopher, the human soul comes from the realm of the spirit among the stars. In Gnosticism this realm is the creation of a good god, as opposed to that of matter, in which these spirits are entrapped. Matter is the creation of the evil god, and the flesh body a prison from which the Gnostic believer hoped he would be freed on death to ascend to the higher realms through belief in the Gnostic cult’s salvific message.

The trans cult eschews this supernatural, post-mortem doctrine in favour of a this-world practice in which the trans person has their flesh altered and mutilated so that they may ‘live their authentic lives’. At the same time, ideas of femininity and masculinity divorced from their biological reality, also resemble Plato’s transcendent forms. These are the patterns for the material world and its objects, which are their expressions. Thus, for example, there is the transcendent idea of a dog, or a man or woman, beyond the individual dogs, men, and women of material reality. In Queer Theory, this transcendent idea of gender is superior to biological reality. The idea of that sex alone, divorced from the reality of the physical body, is considered authentic. The biological sex is considered false, almost a product of mara, the realm of illusion in Hinduism, when it contradicts the inner conception of the sex of the trans person. The rhetoric that trans people must be accepted as their preferred sex or altered to conform to it to live their authentic lives comes partly from the contemporary emphasis for authenticity in popular culture. Rap musicians, for example, frequently talk about ‘keepin’ it real’. But it also seems to derive from Kierkegaardian existentialism and its stress on an authentic faith and life.

Gender mutilation is also a part of many cultures and religions, ranging from FGM, male circumcision to castration. Male circumcision is an important rite of passage among the Dowayo people, studied by the anthropologist, writer and broadcaster Dr Nigel Barley. In his book The Innocent Anthropologist Barley states that the Dowayos regarded circumcision as removing the biological elements that prevent boys from being real men. In a passage discussing how widespread the practice is amongst cultures throughout the globe, he states that in some societies the testicles may be hacked off. As the Jester has stated, there have been religions that practised castration, such as the Christian Skoptzi, as well as the Galli, the priests of Cybele in ancient Rome. They castrated themselves and dressed as women. Some shamans were also transvestites. The trans ideology resembles these castration cults, especially with WPATH’s embrace of the Eunuch Archives and eunuch as a gender identity.

But Queer Theory goes beyond individual transformation to call for radical social change. Some members of the movement have called for the destruction of the bourgeois heterosexual family, such as a recent trans person, Samantha Hudson, promoting Doritos in their Spanish advertising campaign. Internet trans activist Jeffrey Marsh has also suggested to the confused and distressed young people watching his YouTube channel that they should break with their biological parents if they refuse to accept their imaginary gender identity. This is particularly pernicious, as Clive Simpson and Dennis Kavanagh, the hosts of the gender critical Queens’ Speech podcast, have made clear. Many young gay people have suffered from being disowned and rejected by their families unable to accept their sexuality. This has caused them no little upset and distress, and is clearly not something to be blithely recommended to naïve children. But radical trans activism goes much further. The mathematician and fierce critic of postmodern woke nonsense, James Lindsay, in one of his anti-woke New Discourses podcasts has critically analysed a piece published in an American educational journal by two LGBTQ+ activists, one of whom is a drag queen. For them, drag queen story hour is not just about promoting literacy and toleration towards gay and trans people amongst young children. It is about creating an alternative, queer identity among children and youngsters in order to turn them into radical social activists. This queer identity is deliberately made unstable in order to alienate them from bourgeois society. Instead of their biological family, the children are to be turned instead to the trans and queer community as their real family. This again resembles the radical cults and ideologies that seek a radical transformation of society, including Nazism and Marxism, which attacks the family in The Communist Manifesto.

The trans movement also resembles radical cults in its separation of the trans individual from the outside world. The trans community is presented as uniquely loving and accepting, in contrast to the normal world outside the movement. Members of the trans community may encourage youngsters undergoing a crisis of gender identity to flee their homes to live and reside with them. It is exactly the same as the way religious cults have sought to separate their believers from their friends, family and community outside them. It also resembles ‘lovebombing’, a strategy also used by cults to capture new converts. In the initial phase of proselytization these cults impress upon their new members how the cult loves and values them. As the person is drawn into the cult, the attitude hardens until they may be subjected to harsh punishment inflicted for breaches of the cult’s discipline or morality. Questioning the cult’s doctrines and seeking to leave are particularly harshly dealt with. Detransitioners, former trans people who have regretted their decision and sought to revert to their previous birth sex, are shunned and excluded from their former trans colleagues, and may even be abused and vilified like heretics and apostates.

Whatever its scientific trappings, it is clear from this analysis that the trans movement counts in many respects as a secular quasi-religion. Even the claims of a scientific basis do not disqualify this identification. Since the rise of science, many new religious movements have claimed a scientific basis for their doctrines. One of the small press Spiritualist magazines published in Bristol in the 1990s proudly declared that it was ‘in support of psychic science’.

The designation of a movement as a religion or quasi-religion is not a comment on its moral content or nature, even though many people in today’s sceptical, secular society consider religion as intrinsically irrational and malign. Much bloodshed and oppression has been inspired by religion, but at their best religions have also inspired tremendous altruism and social advance. The French historian of science, Jean Gimpel, in his The Medieval Machine, described how Christian religious belief resulted in scientific breakthroughs and advances in the 14^th century. Several of the mathematical treatises from India and the Islamic world collected by Henrietta Midonick in her Treasury of Ancient Mathematics: 1 begin with a dedication to Brahma, in the case of Hindu India, and Allah for Islam. And while Humanism is a quasi-religion, it is very far from violent and oppressive movements such as Fascism and Communism.

What the designation of quasi-religion for the trans movement does mean is that its claims to scientific objectivity needs to be scrupulously and critically examined and rejected. At the same time, as Mr Wall’s commenters have suggested, it should be taught in RE rather than PSHE. Britain is now a multicultural, multifaith society. Regardless of what one feels about their truth content, most of the traditional religions since the Enlightenment are benign, offering their believers hope and comfort in a transcendent realm away from the trials and sufferings of the flesh as well as stressing the importance of altruism and moral conduct. Others, particularly some of the most notorious New Religious Movements that emerged in the ‘69s and ‘70s, are much more malign. School students should be taught that intolerance, repression, and cult-like behaviour are not confined to supernatural religions. They are also to be found in the secular realm amongst ideologies and movements that would angrily reject any claims of a religious or quasi-religious basis. Yet they are there, and children should be given the skills and reasonable scepticism to identify them as such and so avoid them.  And this needs to include the trans movement as a grave threat to young minds and bodies.

Further Reading

Jonas, Hans, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, 2^nd Edition (London: Routledge 1963).

Smith, John E., Quasi-Religions: Humanism, Marxism and Nationalism (Basingstoke: MacMillan 1994).

Thurlow Richard, Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918 -1985 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987)

Wilson, Bryan, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982)

No, Galloway’s Victory In Rochdale Is Not A Black Day for Jewish Brits

Well, George Galloway won the by-election in Rochdale yesterday, and the pro-Israel establishment and media have had a meltdown. I came across a headline today from one of the right-wing news and comments channels on YouTube proclaiming that it was a ‘black day for British Jews’. No, I really don’t think so. But it was a black day for the Israel lobby.

The right has tried to frame the current war in Gaza as a justified reprisal by Israel, which has a natural right to defend itself, against evil anti-Semitic Muslims. And the protests held up and down Britain in protest at the mass killing and displacement of Gazans by the IDF, which according to the Palestinian authorities, has now reached 30,000, have similarly been denounced as anti-Semitic and the marchers ‘Islamists’. Israel does have a right to defend itself, and Hamas’ brutal murder of 4,000 people at a music festival is a terrorist atrocity. But Israel’s reprisal has massively exceeded the number of Israelis killed, just as Operation Cast Lead in 2012 was massively disproportionate to any terrorist incident or mass protest that provoked it. Douglas Murray has appeared on Jewish YouTube channels denying that the IDF’s invasion of Gaza is ethnic cleansing. Well, in the words of Christine Keeler, ‘he would, wouldn’t he’. News channels like Middle East Eye have dug out comments and speeches from the Israeli leadership, including, I believe, Prime Minister Isaac Herzog, stating openly that ethnic cleansing is exactly what they’re doing. It has also been reported that that the IDF plan, or planned, to expel the Gazans firstly to refugee camps in Egypt, and then to Europe.

The pro-Palestine marches have been composed of Brits from a variety of backgrounds. Very many, possibly the majority, are Muslims deeply concerned about the treatment of their co-religionists in the Holy Land. A minority of these may justly be called Islamist, because of their shouts of ‘Jihad’ including one group who filmed waving its black flag while lying to everyone else that it was really the shahada, the Muslim creed. But many are White, including Jews, who have said how welcome they felt among the demonstrators, including the Muslims.

There are points of concern with the process of the election up in Rochdale. Starmer, who has declared himself to be ‘100 per cent Zionist’, withdrew the whip from the Labour candidate because he repeated what the Egyptians said about the Israelis not responding to their warning of an impending attack, with the addition of a bit of speculation of his own. Such as why was the music festival actually moved further towards Gaza, and why was it that the placed was ringed by IDF bases only four miles away, but it took eight hours for the troopers to respond to the atrocity? Stalin and his faction immediately accused the Labour guy of making anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and so imply that somehow asking these questions was tantamount to spreading the lunatic and genuinely vile smears that Jews secretly control the world and are plotting the destruction of Whites, Muslims, Blacks or whoever else is claimed to be their victims. But Israel does have a genuine history of staging false flag attacks. The most notorious of these was the attack on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War. It was stationed off the coast monitoring the conflict. This alarmed the Israelis, who were afraid they’d pass on its intelligence to Egypt, and so Israeli troops boarded the ship and slaughtered its crew. There is genuine, and genuinely revolting anti-Semitism in the Arab world. You can buy the infamous Tsarist forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Egypt, and a few years ago it was serialised on Egyptian television. But the Labour party’s candidate’s question actually seem reasonable. They aren’t about Jews, but about the Israeli state and military, who do have a record of lying.

In these circumstances, and with Starmer’s refusal to back a ceasefire until he started losing Muslim votes, it was almost inevitable that Galloway would win. Galloway has a long record of supporting Arab nations. I’ve heard he converted to Islam, and that his first wife was Palestinian. He is not, however, an anti-Semite. The News of the Screws journo who used to go around posing as an Arab sheikh in order to entrap the great, the good and the not-so-good into saying or doing something indiscreet or criminal tried it with Galloway over the Holocaust. The Fake Sheikh arranged to meet him for lunch at a London restaurant. On his way in, Galloway recognised the hack’s minder, nicknamed Jaws. Like the Bond villain, this guy was approaching seven feet tall and had a mass of gold teeth resembling the character’s steel gnashers. Galloway was put on alert, which was justified when the Fake Sheikh asked him if he thought the Holocaust was a good thing. Galloway responded as any decent person would, and said it was an horrific crime against humanity, and the hack went back to his office disappointed. Galloway, as far as I’m aware, isn’t an anti-Semite by any stretch. He’s just critical of Israel’s treatment of its indigenous Arabs. As many proud and self-respecting Jews and Israelis are also. There have been mass protests against the Gazan genocide by Israelis and also by Jewish Americans.

Britain’s Jewish community has been worried about its waning social and political influence for a number of years now. About half a decade or so ago there were reports that the community was worried that it was losing the concern of the British public for its issues and history of persecution in favour of other ethnic groups. Hence there were a series of events intended to celebrate Jewish achievement to British society and culture. These naturally included festivals about Jewish comedians and literature. The last was featured on the One Show. A lady speaking for the festival said you didn’t have to be Jewish to go to it. Galloway’s victory does show the strength of Britain’s Muslim electorate and its concern for Palestine, and in this sense it shows that the Israel lobby, which identifies itself with the Jewish community, has lost ground. But as the mighty Tony Greenstein has pointed out, Judaism and Jewishness does not equal Israel. Zionism was a minority movement among European and American Jews before the War. In America this lack of interest continued until the late ’60s and ’70s. It ended with the rise of Neo-Cons, and their identification of Israeli values with American Christian values. Now the pendulum’s swinging back, American Jews are turning away from Israel, and most of the country’s support now comes from bonkers right-wing Christian organisations like Jack Hagee’s Christians United For Israel. Just don’t tell ’em Palestinians are also Christians, and they’ve also been subjected to abuse and violence by the Israeli state and right-wing settlers.

I think much the same thing is happening in Britain’s Jewish community, despite the oft-touted statistic that 70 per cent or more of Britain’s Jews believe that Israel is very important to their identity. Tony critiqued that stat a few years ago, showing that the true figure was probably rather less. The campaign in the Jewish community to unseat Corbyn as leader of the Labour party because of his pro-Palestinian, but not anti-Semitic views, was chiefly led by the United Synagogue. This is only one sect amongst the diverse variety of Jewish denominations and political and religious tendencies, as well as organisations like the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which seems spectacularly unconcerned about real anti-Semitism in Britain, but terribly worried about any criticism of Israel. A fair number of the victims of the Labour party’s anti-Semitism witch hunt were Jewish critics of Israel. Some of these men and women have received abuse, violence and threats after the pro-Israel organisations smeared them because of their views. One of these was a lady in Devon, who had her car firebombed after one of these gutter hatemongers put her location on a map.

Galloway is an avowed anti-racist and definitely not an anti-Semite. The pro-Palestine marchers are also, in the majority, simply that: pro-Palestine. Whatever may be said about the genocidal implications of the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ – and remember, Likud also uses this as part of its foundational ideology, the vast majority of these people certainly do not want the persecution and annihilation of the Jewish people.

His victory is not a black day for Jewish Brits. But it is a crack in the political grip of the Israel lobby.

No, We Are Not Under the Heel of Islamist Mob Rule

I dare say you’ve seen the various spluttering in the media and online. There’s been frothing outrage on the Islamophobic right after the events of Wednesday night. At the same time as the abortive debate on the SNP’s motion for a ceasefire in Gaza, there was a Stop the War protest outside parliament as well as other protests outside MP’s constituency offices. As a result, GB News and other right-wingers have been accusing MPs, and particularly the Labour party, of cowardice for supposedly giving in to Islamist demands. GB News in particular has been ranting about how Britain is now under Islamist mob rule, a stance echoed and repeated by others on the nationalist/populist right.

There are several criticisms of this view which clearly demonstrated it to be completely false.

Firstly, it wasn’t an Islamist protest. It was a protest against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in Gaza, present as a reprisal for Hamas’ butchery of the kids at a music festival. As such, it naturally involved a large number of Muslims. Which is pretty much as you’d expect, as Muslims are keenly interested and deeply upset by the treatment of their coreligionists in Israel and the Occupied Territories. But the Palestinians aren’t just Muslims – they’re also Christians, and there are any number of videos on YouTube of Christian clergy and lay people being abused, spat at and struck by bigoted Israelis. This is the face of Israel that the Israel lobby and the official Jews of the Chief Rabbinate, Board of Deputies, Jewish Chronicle and Campaign Against Anti-Semitism don’t want westerners knowing about. They want you to believe that the only people persecuting Christians in the Holy Land are Muslims. It’s true that Christians are persecuted by Muslims, but they’re also persecuted by Israeli settlers and quite often the people literally standing between Christians worshipping in church and an mob of Israeli fanatics intent on destruction is the Muslim doorman. The secular Israeli state also persecute the Orthodox Jews of Jerusalem’s Old Jewry. These are the descendants of 19th century Jewish immigrants to the Holy Land, who came to practise their faith in the land of their ancestors. They reject, however, Israel as a secular state and, like their brethren and sisters overseas, believe that Israel will only be restored by divine will under the Mashiach – the Messiah. You can find videos on YouTube of them being tormented and beaten up by the IDF. If you want to know how Israel really treats the Palestinians, I strongly recommend reading the blogs and books produced by Israel-critical Jews, like Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Martin Odoni and so on. Also, the marchers for Palestine included a number of severely normal White Brits. The Islamophobes have made much of Starmer being confronted by ‘Islamist’ protesters on the train and on the station in Edinburgh. Well, I’ve seen the video, too, and most of them looked White to me.

Now I do think that the right does have a point when it comes to the massed protests outside MPs constituency offices. It does look like intimidation after MP David Freer announced he was resigning because of the abuse and threats he and his family suffered. This comes after the murder of Amess by an Islamist fanatic, as well as the attack on Lib Dem MP a few years ago by a nutter with a Samurai sword in which the MPs assistant was tragically killed, as well as the assassination of Jo Cox back in 2015 by a native British rightist. I agree with the Stop the War Coalition that such protests should not be banned, as it would isolate MPs from public opinion, but believe it was wrong to do so in this case. Not least because it hands ammunition to a government determined to curb any kind of public protest.

Secondly, the Labour party doesn’t appear to have given in, whatever it looks like from outside. From what has been said by critics of Labour’s behaviour towards the SNP motion, it appears like the opposite, carefully crafted to look like a call for a ceasefire. According to a message I put up from the StWC yesterday, Starmer presented the motion after a phone call with Israeli PM Isaac Herzog. Herzog is in no way a peacenik, and I’ve come across several quotes from him indicating that he has an absolute and unyielding hatred of the Palestinians. It looks like Starmer deliberately added his amendments knowing that this would upset the SNP and they’d walk out. Damo Kernow, the man from the ancient British kingdom of Cornwall, has put up several videos about this. He notes that Labour’s amendment stripped out any criticism of Israel and removes the stipulation that the ceasefire should be immediate. He also notes that the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, allowed the amendment to go ahead despite breaking parliamentary rules he declared were antiquated. These were rules that had last been amended in the 1980s during the IRA bombing campaign. Hoyle has very strong pro-Israel views, and proudly tells the world how his grandfather was one of the founders of Labour Friends of Israel. This now looks less like parliament caving in to Muslim opinion than a carefully crafted piece of sabotage designed to look like genuine support for a Palestinian ceasefire. Which is what you’d expect from a master of lies and deceit like Starmer. As the Native Americans used to say in Westerns during their pow-wows with the cavalry, ‘White man speak with forked tongue’. Well, definitely not all White men, but definitely in the case of Starmer. He’s made a career out of it.

But I don’t doubt that there were Islamists among the marchers. Any kind of left-wing protest attracts firebrands and extremists. I was at secondary school during the St. Paul’s riots in Bristol in 1980/81. Our school fortunately wasn’t affected, but I do remember a White guy standing on the stone square supporting the trees lining the school entrance, ranting down a megaphone trying to incite the kids to join the rioters. Mahyar Tousi put up a video showing a group of Muslims waving the black banner of Jihad, while telling the cops and everyone else that it was merely the shahada, the Muslim creed. It wasn’t, and waving an enemy banner is outlawed, so they should have been arrested. But these are the bigots and extremists, who I’ve no doubt comprised only a small minority of the crowd.

And the statement that Britain has now fallen and is now under the Islamist heel is more than a little exaggerated. Last time I looked, King Charles was still ensconced on the throne, not a caliph. Rishi Sunak is still PM – unfortunately – and not a mullah, as in Iran. I live in Bristol, which is a multicultural city with its fair share of mosques, as well as Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwaras. I haven’t seen any rampaging Muslims hordes up my way, nor from anywhere else in the city. I’ve mentioned how Patrick Christys, one of the esteemed fixtures of GB News, more Grievous Bodily than Great British, put up a video calling for sharia law to be banned. Well, last time I looked, sharia law had no official standing and only five per cent of Muslims wanted it introduced. Over 70 per cent of Muslims polled believe Islam was compatible with British society. But Grievous Bodily News has form when it comes to alarmism and scaremongering, so it’s no surprise that they’re doing it now about the protests for Gaza.

I do think, however, that we also need to be very cautious and suspicious of some of those marching. I’ve no doubt that the Islamists are trying to exploit massed Muslim opinion against the war in Gaza in the same way some Marxist sects used to practice ‘revolutionary entryism’ and deliberately infiltrate conventional, social democratic parties like Labour in order to disrupt and radicalise it. The critical event that mobilised specifically Muslim politics in Britain, according to the scholar Alfred Kepel in his book, The Revenge of God, was the confected outrage over the Satanic Forces. This was falsely accused of blasphemy by the Ayatollah Khomeini as a cynical political gesture to take the spiritual leadership of the Islamic world away from Saudi Arabia. It has led to death threats and attempts on the lives, some of them all-too successful, of the author, Salman Rushdie and his publishers. I can remember the mass book burnings in Bradford, and the rantings of its leaders, Mohammed Akhthar and Kalim Zaddiqie. Akhthar’s pamphlet, Be Careful With Mohammed, was a full-scale attack on Christianity and western secular democracy, and exaltation of Islam as absolutely perfect. It ended with a short section ‘What Western Intellectuals Think of Islam’, containing a series of quotes condemning the religion from various writers and public figures. As for Zaddiqui, He was filmed in a BBC documentary, The Trouble with Islam, telling his congregation that ‘British society is a monstrous killing machine, and killing Muslims comes very easily to them’. When he was challenged, Zaddiqui muttered some nonsense about the publication of Rushdie’s notorious book marking the beginning of ‘a holocaust of Muslims’. That was 30 and more years ago, and it’s no more come true than Alex Jones’ telling the world that Obama was going to become a dictator and put ordinary, White Christian Americans in FEMA camps. I don’t doubt that some of the Islamists who joined the marches are considering ways in which they can spread their disaffection and hate amongst bog-standard ordinary Muslims who simply want peace and dignity for the Palestinians.

We cannot let the forces of hate use the marches to spread fear of the Islamic threat on one hand, and Islamist disaffection on the other. The marches are not Islamist mob rule, and are not to be presented or used as such.

British Ethnic Minorities Abandoning Left-Wing Identity Politics for Values of Family, Faith and Flag

Rakib Ehsan, Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong About Ethnic Minorities (London: Forum 2023).

I first came across this in an interview Ehsan himself gave about it on YouTube. I can’t remember now what channel it was on, but I think it may have been the SDP’s as Ehsan’s politics seem similar to theirs – left-wing economically but conservative socially. He also says at the outset that he tries to bridge the gap between Blue Labour and Red Tories. I have very strong issues with both of those groups, as they cloak their Thatcherite economics that disenfranchise and exploit working people in the language of the left. See Philip Blonde’s Red Tory. The book is directed very firmly at the Labour party. Ehsan sees the party as having abandoned class based activism in the wake of the BLM movement for divisive identity politics imported from America. This is a country that has a very different history and political culture from the UK, and this is going to cost them the votes of the very ethnic minorities they seek to court.

Contrary to identitarian propaganda, Britain and its people aren’t racist, although racism still exists and needs tackling where it does. The supposed privilege Whites enjoy over people of colour disappear when examined in detail. Some ethnic minorities are surpassing Whites in school grades, pay and employment. There are also differences in achievement between White demographic groups. Working class White English males are nearly at the bottom, with only Irish Travellers below them. Chinese and Indians outperform Whites. Black Africans are also outperforming Whites academically. There is no overarching ‘BAME’ community, as these are very different peoples who have different levels of achievement. Black Africans, for example, are much more successful than Afro-Caribbean peoples. The success and growing achievements of people of colour is being obscured by the grievance narrative that they are all being held back by systemic racism. As a man of mixed Bangladeshi-Uttar Pradeshi heritage, he felt particularly insulted when Jeremy Corbyn declared that only Labour could unlock the potential of Britain’s Black and Asian communities. This attitude, he warns, is going to cost the Labour party the votes of Britain’s non-White communities. Rather than being obsessed with racial grievances, these communities value the two parent family, religious faith and are patriotically British. It is these values, that are despised by the woke left, that produces their increasing academic, economic and social successes. This success should be celebrated, and the White population, which is trailing behind in many instances, could, he dares to suggest, take a leaf out of their book. At the last election, one million people of colour abandoned Labour for the Tories.

Brexit Not Fascist Project of Nostalgic White Supremacists

He is also a Brexiteer and is at pains to argue that Brexit wasn’t the project of Fascist, backward-looking Whites. Many of the Whites who voted for it did so because they came from communities who believed the country had been harmed by the EU, not because of immigration. And a large proportion of the non-White population also voted Leave. One in three Asians did so. They feared the immigration to this country of large numbers of people from parts of Europe which were much less tolerant of non-Whites. They also wanted Britain to establish greater contact with the Commonwealth.

Ethnic Disparities Based on Other Factors Apart from Racism

As for the disparities between ethnic groups in sport, jobs and education, some of this is down to class, and differences in culture and job expectations. For example, Bangladeshis largely do better than Whites at school, but come from a very traditional culture that sees women’s place as being in the home. There is thus a relative lack of Bangladeshi women in the workplace. He also discusses the question of the absence of British Asians in cricket played at the county and national level. This comes from the allegations of racism at Yorkshire CC. He states that this was clearly a case of racism, and that the club was racist hellhole. But he quotes several British Asian cricketers that there are particular attitudes in British Asian culture against playing cricket professionally. Asian parents want good, secure jobs for their children – jobs like doctor or dentist. Professional cricket is very insecure, and so their parents will try and steer their kids away from it. As for the police, in many instances it’s a matter of family tradition, with children following parents and relatives in the force. Thus, White people tend to predominate simply because of family tradition. And on the subject of the cops, he cites evidence that shows that most people of colour are satisfied with their local police forces. Indeed, more non-Whites trust the cops more than White British. This does not include the Metropolitan Police, who are distrusted because of their proven racism, misogyny and other forms of bigotry. He believes that this could be tackled by breaking it up into smaller, local forces, and letting local forces also run the parts of the Met that extend into surrounding counties like Kent.

Regarding Islam, he cites the statistic that three-quarters of Muslims believe that Britain is a good place to be one. This is much more than the general British population. More Muslims are also concerned about the threat of Islamism than Whites. He also criticises the Labour MP Naz Shah for claiming that the Prevent programme was resented by Muslims for demonising them when the stats showed that 53 per cent of Muslims weren’t aware of it.

Black and Asians Patriotic Brits

The Black and Asian communities were also generally more patriotic and had a greater trust in British democracy, although this was much less so in the younger generation. 78 per cent of older Asians had faith in British democracy, but only 58 per cent of the younger generation, just a bit lower than Whites at 62 per cent. He put this down to the older generation coming from countries which were unstable with very repressive regimes, tracing the history in particular of the British South Asian community. This began after the War with Sikhs from the Punjab, who had been displaced from Pakistan and given poor quality land in India. They were then followed by Gujuratis seeking employment in the NHS. And then came the ethnic cleansing of the Ugandan Asian community by Idi Amin and his policy of Africanisation. The South Asians in Africa were employed as middle ranking officials and businessmen between the White colonial officials at the top and indigenous Africans at the bottom. There were already immigration restrictions in place, but they were admitted by Ted Heath. I’ve heard again and again, including from Asian speakers at our local church, that the Ugandan Asian community is still grateful to Britain because of this.

He also has immense respect for the Queen and King Charles. The Queen had a strong sense of duty to the Commonwealth, while our current liege lord is strongly multicultural. He said in his coronation speech that Britain is a ‘community of communities’ and that he wanted to be known as ‘Defender of Faith’, meaning all Britain’s religious communities, not just the Anglican church. On the subject of which, he notes the strong contribution made by Black Africans to keeping it alive in the face of the massive secularisation of the White population. He states that you are far more likely to get a sense of the deep antiquity of Christianity in Britain in an African cafe eating Jellof rice in London than in many White communities. It is ridiculous to blame the Queen for the evils committed under imperialism and colonialism, and Britain’s non-Christian religions are certainly not resentful of Christianity. He takes issue with the secularists in the Labour party, who feel that religion is outmoded and dangerous. They are actively putting non-Whites off, because these cultures have a very strong religious identity. More Muslims see their religion as important to their identity than Whites. The Labour party has a strong tradition of Christian Socialism, and these non-Christian religious communities would like to see it revived.

Importance of Education to Indians and Chinese

He also puts the growing success of the Indian and Chinese communities in education and professionally to strong families and religion. He cites statistics showing that children from stable, two parent homes are less likely to join criminal gangs, are more emotionally stable, and do better at school and in the world of work. Far fewer Asian children live in single parent families than Whites. They, and the Chinese, are also very aspirational. They want their children to do well, make sure they work hard at school and in the case of the Chinese make sure they keep away from bad influences. They also have the support of the wider community, with elders actively taking an interest in the welfare and progress of the young. He does not decry single mothers, recognising the immense hard work so many do to raise their children, and that the relaxation of the divorce laws were brought in for the very good reason of allowing women in particular to escape abusive marriages. But it has had a devastating effect on marriage and the family in Britain. 63 per cent of Afro-Caribbean children live in one parent families, and 43 per cent of Black African. 25 per cent of Whites also are being raised in families largely without a father. This is holding these groups back, and he dares to suggest that Whites could take a leaf out of the Asian communities in starting to value marriage and the family more. I am in complete agreement, and don’t think this is at all controversial.

On the subject of religion, he states that he has mixed views on the subject, wondering if it really is outmoded and dangerous, especially after the terrorist attacks of 7/7 and the massacre of schoolgirls by a suicide bomber at the Ariana Grande concert. But the stats also show that people, who have a strong religious faith are generally more mentally stable, more optimistic and with a higher degree of life satisfaction than atheists. He also believes that respect for the cultures of ethnic minorities should not be used as a pretext for avoiding tackling crime and extremist attitudes in those communities, which could be excused by their perpetrators as part of their culture.

Britain Not Racist Country

He also cites the statistics showing that Britain is not a racist country. A large majority of Whites -well above 70 per cent – believe that Englishness is a matter of values rather than colour. The number of people linking Englishness to White ethnicity is low, and fell markedly in the last decade. Britain has robust laws against racism and discrimination, and the level of real racism, including abuse and violence, is lower in Britain than in many continental countries like France, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. This, he claims, shows the falsity of the Remain argument that views the continent as a paradigm of anti-racism in contrast with evil Britain. Anti-Black racism also isn’t confined to Whites. Eight per cent of Blacks in Britain have experienced discrimination at the hands of other Blacks. 84 per cent of Brits have no problem with a person of colour heading the government. Rishi Sunak, regardless of his wretched political policies, is an example of Asian success, who should be celebrated. His parents both worked in the medical sector – I think his father was a pharmacist. Sunak was privately educated, rising professionally and politically.

This is where the book is really controversial. He takes these stats showing that Britain isn’t a racist country from a variety of reports, including those of CRED and Sewell. The last was commissioned under the Tories, and came under widespread attack for supposedly erasing the reality of racism in Britain. This was despite it being written by mostly Black and Asian academics. Various Labour MPs accused it of being Fascist, with one even Tweeting an image of a Klan meeting underneath. The Black and Asian politicians, who do not accept that Britain is racist, like Kemi Badenoch, are subjected to horrendous racist abuse as Uncle Toms and worse language. He himself has been attacked in these terms. His favourite has been that he is a ‘Muslim Mosley’. Well, I’d say that the Muslim Mosleys were the Islamists convincing lost and alienated Muslims to join Daesh, or march around our cities demanding sharia law while waving the black flag of jihad. The British left, and primarily the Labour party, has taken over dangerous and divisive identity politics imported from America. What many of the people of colour demanding these policies want is not equality, but preferential treatment. He is also suspicious of many of those attacking Islamophobia, as he suspects that many of those are Islamists using it as a strategy to introduce aspects of sharia law. I think he’s right here, as the mass protests against the autistic schoolboy for Islamophobia when he scuffed a Qur’an, a horrendous blasphemy under Islam, certainly shows. He is against the European Court of Human Rights ruling that businesses are allowed to discriminate against women wearing the hijab if this threatens to be disruptive. He points out that the hijab simply covers the face. It is not like the niqub, which covers the whole body, including the face. The ruling threatens to prevent devout Muslim women from finding work outside the home and bring them into contact with mainstream society.

Attacks on Corbyn

Naturally for a man of the right he gives Jeremy Corbyn a good kicking. He claims that Labour lost the 2019 election due to his inability to tackle the anti-Semitism crisis and the promotion of identitarian politics. But this wasn’t the case. Corbyn had very wide support and paradoxically a greater share of the vote than Blair and New Labour, regardless of the fact that it was the poorest electoral performance for the party since the 1930s. What brought him down was a very manufactured campaign by the British right and the official Jews of the Board of Deputies, Chief Rabbinate and various pro-Israel groups. They were alarmed by his championing of the Palestinians against the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Israeli state, and so did everything they could to smear him as an anti-Semite. Corbyn has a long career of standing up for Jewish Brits, but this counted for nothing to people who regard any opposition or criticism of Israel as an anti-Semitic. As for the real anti-Semites in the Labour party, the true nature of the crisis was kept hidden from him by right-wing intriguers and traitors within the party. People like Margaret Hodge, who admitted she did everything she could to stop Labour being elected.

Rejection of Labour’s Proposed New Equality Act

He respects the Labour party for the anti-racist legislation it passed in the 70s as well as the Equality Act passed by Blair, but is firmly against Labour’s promised new Equality Act demanding affirmative action. The majority of Black and Asian people do not want or need it. Indeed, he claims that there is a suspicion that Labour will hold people of colour back in order to stop their success invalidating the claim that their lagging behind Whites is all due to racism. He is also critical of organisations like the Runnymede Commission pushing this narrative. Twenty years ago the Commission praised Britain for its multicultural tolerance. Now it claims that Britain is marred by deep structural racism. But British society isn’t racist and hasn’t become worse. It is just that the Runnymede Commission, in order to keep itself relevant, has joined BLM and the other grievance mongers. Labour’s embrace of these groups and individuals, such Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, is putting voters, including those of colour, off. And they may well abandon the party because of it.

The Trans Issue

He also has controversial views on the trans issue. He states that trans people should enjoy the same protection from abuse, discrimination and violence as other protected groups. However, transwomen should not be allowed to enter women’s private spaces such as prisons, toilets and changing rooms. In many ways, this is common sense as trans identified biological male rapists have been put in women’s prisons in California and Scotland, and there has been an outcry against it. The SNP lost much of their support when they also placed these dangerous men in women’s prisons. It does conflict, however, with the view that ‘trans women are women’, even if they are not biologically, and so trans activists and supporters will naturally find it very offensive. And he is also not afraid to call divorce parties degenerate as part of the collapse of marriage and the nuclear family in the west.

Radical Attacks on Marriage and the Family

This is a controversial but necessary book. Controversial because it overturns the received wisdom about British ethnic minorities as the victims of systemic racism needing aid and allyship from mainstream White British society. The statistics about the beneficial effects of growing up in two-parent family are almost certainly correct. They’ve been reproduced several times before. This will jar with some on the radical left. There has been an attack on traditional European marriage since the time of the 18th century French philosophes. Free love instead of marriage was embraced by 19th century Romantics like Shelley and Byron. It has also been part of the Anarchist critique of capitalism as well as Marxism. Marx states in The Communist Manifesto that it degrades women and believed it was dying out among the working class in his own time. This was further expanded by Engels in his The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, which also drew on the Das Mutterrecht of the German antiquarian, Backhausen. Backhausen had believed that society had passed through several phases of development – a communal society without institutional marriage, followed by matriarchy and then finally patriarchy. Archaeologists and historians have since rejected this. Historical research has also shown that marriage very definitely wasn’t dying out among the 19th century working class. Nevertheless, marriage has been attacked by radical activists. I can remember the controversy about Pebble Mill, a BBC lunchtime magazine programme in the 70s, when they invited on a couple who very definitely believed that marriage was dying out, and that this was a very good thing indeed. Over the other side of the Channel, the Postmodernist Marxist Althusser attacked marriage and the family as part of the sociological infrastructure of capitalism and feudalism.

Benefits of Religious Faith

Similarly there is abundant evidence supporting the view that religion is beneficial to one’s wellbeing. A few years ago medical researchers claimed that having a faith in general added six months to one’s life. And back when the New Atheists were beginning their assault on religion neurologists found that people who had mystical experiences were generally in no worse mental health than the rest of the population. This obviously isn’t something secular and atheist activists want to hear. Nor do I think they really want to hear that in general, non-Christian minorities don’t have an issue with institutional, public Christianity. The claim that they do tends to come from secularist and atheist organisations like the Humanist Society as part of their project of removing Christianity and other forms of religion from the public sphere. The philosopher Bruce Trigger tackled this subject in his Religion in Public over decade. He claimed that many Jews did not want the bishops removed from the House of Lords because, so long as they were, it created a public space for religion in politics.

Ethnic Success Also Due to Differences in Culture and History

I also think that the stats showing that Britain is not an intrinsically racist country is likely to be true, even if the report that argued this was commissioned by the Tories. If it is untrue, then it has to be shown to be untrue through further sociological research and polling. The argument that it must be the case from ethnic disparities is false, because as Thomas Sowell has shown, different ethnic groups have different attitudes and economic and professional specialities due to their history and quite often geographical location. The Chinese and Gujuratis are, like the Jews, ‘middleman cultures’ strongly based on trade. They therefore tend to surpass other groups in business, as do the Lebanese in South America. Ehsan himself argues that the success of various ethnic groups depends on the cultural resources and the attitudes and material advantages they may have enjoyed when they left their country of origin. Ugandan Asians have prospered, despite having been robbed of nearly everything they owned by Amin and his thugs, because they were business and professional people. Afro-Caribbeans, however, generally speaking lack this entrepreneurial and professional background and so lag behind. And the idea that all White people are privileged is going to ring particularly hollow for White working class boys and the hollowed out coastal towns and post-industrial communities. The instant dismissal of the claim that Britain isn’t racist is based on prejudice rather than genuine scepticism.

Changes in Patterns of Racism Since the Experience of the First Afro-Caribbean Migrants

The attitude of the identitarian left that Britain must be intrinsically racist seems to come mostly from the experience of Afro-Caribbeans, who are generally more distrustful of the police and democracy than other groups. They have indeed, along with the first generation Asian immigrants, suffered real racism in the form of institutional discrimination – no dog, no blacks, no Irish – racist bullying and violence, particularly from real Fascists in the shape of the BNP, National Front and other lowlifes. It is Afro-Caribbeans in particular who lag behind Whites. This history has bred an attitude among many that Britain is racist and hostile, backed up with convoluted and contrived arguments from the Postcolonial set. This has become part of the general culture of the left, because of the long tradition of anti-racism and anti-imperialism. It looks plausible, because for over four decades now the received view has been that Britain is racist to a greater or lesser extent, even though the situation has changed and is now becoming much more complex. Diane Abbott didn’t want to discuss inter-ethnic minority conflict and racism, but this attitude is contradicted by rioting last year between Hindus and Muslims in Leicester. Ehsan points out that this shows that ethnic conflict isn’t just something confined to Whites. And there is now and industry of grievance mongers in academia and woke capitalism, whose careers are centred around portraying White Britain as innately oppressive, that Blacks and other people of colour are always victims and that Whites should feel guilty as racial oppressors tainted with the blood of the indigenous peoples they exterminated and enslaved.

Multiculturalism Pulling Ethnic Groups Apart, Not Together

Ehsan notes that while Britain may be more tolerant than other countries, there is still a problem in pulling the different ethnic groups together. He cites further statistics shown that a majority of Brits feels more needs to be done on this count, and argues that was is needed is a common set of shared values. But this is one of the problems of multiculturalism. Blair recruited as his community representatives people who very definitely not representative of their communities and determined to push their own sectarian or ethnic politics. And the attack on the welfare state has meant that different communities are competing against each other for government funding and aid. For all his faults, Corbyn did represent a return to class politics, which is another reason why there was such a concerted attempt to remove him. If the working class in general receives proper welfare support, there is less jealousy and resentment between ethnic groups, and so Whites in particular are less inclined to heed racists like the BNP.

Blue Labour and Attacks on the Welfare State

As for the position that government action is needed to strengthen the family, I agree. But this goes further than simply making it a matter of tax. And I am very suspicious of the right when they claim to strengthen the family. All too often it is based around the view that it’s declined due to the welfare state, and so the first thing they do is cut welfare support even further while loudly crying, like Thatcher, that it’s more self-help and will make people more self-reliant.

He is critical of the Tories as a corrupt group wrecking the economy for their own benefit and hope that Labour will put forward pro-working class policies. But this won’t come from Blue Labour any more than it will supposedly come from Red Tories. What comes from the Blairites and the other Thatcherite infiltrators is more privatisation, including that of the NHS, more cuts to the welfare state and more attempts to strangle the unions, all of which you can see in Stalin’s leadership of the Labour party.

This book is necessary as it argues against the current racial narrative from a man of colour, who clearly believes that such narratives are damaging the Labour party. Certainly racial attitudes have changed radically in my lifetime and it is time that the debate recognised this. But at the same time, as Ehsan is careful to state, racism still exists and needs tackling where it does.

Moscow Cops Raiding Gay Bars After Judge’s Ruling

That was the headline of an article I came across on the internet news page for my computer today. The raid apparently follows a ruling by a judge on the LGBTQ+ community. As our benighted world needs any more hatred and prejudice! Many people have commented on the institutional homophobia in Putin’s Russia. Over a decade ago Graham Norton had a few scathing comments to say about while hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, which has always been a festival of trans-European camp. That year it came at the same time Putin sent the goon squad in to beat up a load of gay rights protestors. Now I’ll admit I have strong views about the teaching of homosexuality in schools and don’t like the trans ideology. I think there is a problem in that some of it is age-inappropriate and Queer Theory seems to have been designed to make people confused about their gender. At certain ages I think all the kids really need to know is that some people love people of their own sex, and that’s fine. However, there are people who genuinely needed to transition and I am very much aware that ordinary trans people do suffer abuse and prejudice. But this is just vicious persecution.

It’s not representative of all Russians, however. There’s a lot of homophobia, but also a big gay scene in St. Petersburg. I don’t know if anyone remembers it, but a while ago the Beeb screened a documentary in which Anita Rani and a male presenter went to explore Russia. The male presenter visited a couple of Russian backwoodsmen, who made it clear that they felt gayness was disgusting. Rani, on the other hand, helped to operate the bridges on the St. Petersburg canals to allow a ship to pass. She then went on to have a bop and interview the people dancing the night away at the city’s gay nightclub.

Putin himself seems to be very touchy about the issue regarding speculation about his own sexuality. Also a few years ago an artist found himself arrested for disrespecting Putin because he painted him and his prime minister, Medvedev, wearing women’s underwear.

Thinking about the raids, a thought struck me. Wouldn’t it be terrible if the cops raided a bar and the barman or woman recognised them and greeted them. ‘Oh, militsioner (policeman) captain Ivanov! How bona it is to barda your dolly old eke again!’, as Julian and Sandy of Bona whatever it was that week used to say on Round the Horne.

Laurence Fox Arrested and His Home Raided

I don’t know if you peeps have come across this yet, but former GB News presenter and head honcho of Reclaim, Laurence Fox, had his home raided by the rozzers this afternoon and was himself arrested for conspiracy. I gather that some people out there have connected this to his tasteless comments about not wanting to engaging in carnal conjunction with feminist journo Ava Evans. That’s what I first thought, but apparently it’s not the case. Lozza has had the banhammer of the law come down because he was daft enough to post on Rumble that not only did he support the vandals attacking Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ cameras, but was near to them and planning to join the attacks with an angle grinder. This would, I assume, be conspiracy to commit criminal damage.

Our favourite internet non-historian has posted a piece about this suggesting that it’s just childish behaviour on Lozza’s part and that he may have been deliberately trying to get himself arrested, just as he was when he interviewed by the cops for setting fire to a Black Lives Matter flag in his backyard and putting the footage of himself doing so on the internet. He considered his behaviour in all this that of a teenager rather than a middle-aged man.

This makes me wonder if it isn’t some kind of publicity stunt to keep himself in the public eye now that his job with GB News appears to be finished. If it is, it seems to be a pathetic one, given some of the other issues he’s railed about. I would have thought trying to make a statement against the teaching of the trans ideology and its basis in the postmodernist nonsense of Queer Theory would have been more impressive and worthwhile in his point of view, but as Graham Linehan has been attacking it at the Tory party conference, perhaps vandalising the ULEZ cameras is all that he’s got left.

Leftwingers – Please Don’t Vote for Keir Starmer as Your Constituency MP

This is a video I put up yesterday urging people of the left not to vote for Keir Starmer. The reasons are simple: he’s treacherous, authoritarian, a convinced supporter of the security establishment against protesters and demonstrators. And his policies are simply those of the Tories that have done so much harm to Britain and its working people.

• He is a Blairite Conservative, who was elected as a ‘continuity Corbyn’ leader, continuing all Jezza’s excellent policies but with the nasty pieces like the accusations of anti-Semitism removed. He was going to renationalise the utilities and the NHS, strengthen the welfare state, worker’s rights and so on. Instead, he stabbed Corbyn in the back by vilifying the man he had praised when Corbyn was in power, withdrawing the whip and trying to get him expelled.
• As leader, Starmer has been authoritarian and anti-democratic. Starmer’s favourite candidates for political posts have been parachuted into constituencies over the heads of local parties and officials. He has also summarily suspended or expelled Labour activists and members on trumped up charges, sometimes reaching back into the past for supposed offences that were perfectly permissible under Labour rules when they were committed. He has gone further and closed down constituency parties and locked some out of their own bank accounts. Please see a video by Kernow Damo about this last piece of injustice.
• He’s a hypocrite. Many of the people he has suspended or expelled did no more than like a tweet or a video by someone of another party. This has been interpreted as breaking the rules against supporting a rival party. But the Labour right has gone further. Many of those claimed to have been conspiring against Corbyn were on Tory forums. One was even so right wing that he hated the Labour left more than the Tories on the site. And then there was the right-wing constituency party that was so appalled when members of Momentum and the left started to join it that its leaders appealed to Lib Dems and Conservatives to join them to counter it. But these people are still in Starmer’s party and have not been disciplined.
• Sectarian anti-Semitism. Starmer has declared himself to be ‘100 per cent Zionist’. Many of the people purged under Keef’s reign have been accused of anti-Semitism. The majority of these, according to the excellent Jewish Voice for Labour, have been Jews. In fact, they are frequently not anti-Semites at all, but simply guilty of criticising Israel for its continued persecution of the Palestinians. These have included genuinely anti-racist Jews and gentiles, who have themselves suffered anti-Semitic abuse and assault. Israel has never had the unqualified support of all Jews, and many of those who criticise it do so because it is exactly the same as other oppressive, persecutory states that they also criticise and oppose. Marc Wadsworth is a case in point. He was accused of anti-Semitism after he made a remark about a Labour MP passing a pamphlet on to a hack from the Torygraph. He didn’t know she was Jewish, but this remark was interpreted as corresponding to the trope about Jews being untrustworthy. In fact, Wadsworth was a dedicated anti-racist campaigner who worked with the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s to frame legislation against the BNP or NF assaulting Jews in the Isle of Thanet.
• Racism. Starmer treats anti-Semitism extremely seriously, but has done precious little about allegations of racism towards Black, Asian and Muslim members, despite claims that Islamophobic acts have risen by a third. He has instead attacked those making the claim that there is a hierarchy of racism, with hatred against Jews taken far more seriously than hatred of Blacks and other ethnic minorities. But Quentin Letts, the right-wing journalist who has been parliamentary sketch writer for the Heil and Thunderer, has said exactly the same in his book, Bog Standard Britain, without any accusations of anti-Semitism.
• Supporter of privatisation. Starmer has broken all the pledges he made when he was campaigning to be leader. He has rejected renationalisation. This is despite the fact that it has failed badly. Academy schools have had to be taken back into state management, the private water companies took the subsidies they were paid to keep our waterways clean and improve services, and spaffed them away on bloated dividends for shareholders and grossly inflated pay for directors. The railway companies are also cutting services and raising fares, and these companies too have had to be renationalised. Economists at the time these services were privatised knew they were going to fail. Vince Cable, the former head of the Lib Dems, says so in his Money and Power, and the Australian economist John Quiggin says the same in Zombie Economics. But these policies are popular with the financial sector and the political-media complex. The establishment wishes to keep them private, and Starmer is a loyal slave of the establishment.
• NHS privatisation. I’ve talked about how Blair went as far if not farther than the Tories in privatising the NHS in my previous videos about my pamphlets against NHS privatisation. Blair now wants more private healthcare in the NHS. Starmer says he wishes to use the spare capacity provided by private healthcare companies to clear the NHS backlog. But this is exactly what the Tories claim they wish to do. And when this policy was first introduced in New Zealand, it was going to be the prelude for full scale privatisation of state healthcare.
• Worker’s rights: Angela Rayner has declared Labour to be a ‘pro-business, pro-worker’ party. The last politician to make that claim was Mussolini, who in his La Dottrina del Fascismo declared that private enterprise was the foundation of the state, society and economy, but nevertheless was for the workers against the plutocracy. No, I don’t believe Starmer is a Fascist. But the workers come a very poor second in his priorities. As soon as someone announces a set of policies that may benefit or protect working people, Starmer immediately spins and retracts them. Starmer has pivoted towards industry and corporate donors and away from working people and the trade unions, whom the Labour party was set up to defend and represent.
• Poverty and inequality. These are caused by Tory policies, the same policies that Starmer will continue. Changing the faces of the people implementing them will change nothing.
• Authoritarian threat to democracy. Starmer is a strong supporter of the intelligence agencies and the police. When he was the Director of Public Prosecutions he did everything he could to secure the immunity of police accused of wrongdoing from prosecution while at the same time strongly supporting the prosecution of protesters. Despite objections, he worked with his American counterparts to secure the extradition to the US of Gary McKinnon, a young autistic man whose crime was to break into America’s security computer network looking for evidence that they had aliens and crashed spacecraft. Democracy in Britain is under threat. The Tories are passing legislation to make demonstrations more difficult, and Blair and Cameron both passed legislation providing for secret courts. These are special tribunals, set up for reasons of national security, in which the accused may not know his accuser or the evidence against him. This is exactly the same as the grotesque travesties of justice in Nazi Germany, when people vanished into ‘Nacht und Nebel’, Stalin’s Soviet Union and Fascist Italy. And it is exactly the same as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. This had four clauses in its criminal code, which it was an offence even to know about. And Starmer is also a threat to the Labour movement. It is alleged he is working with ‘industrial intelligence’ organisation Hakluyt, which was set up by ex-MI6 spooks. This infiltrates protest groups and, if I remember correctly, was set up to blacklist troublesome trade unionists.

If you are a left-winger in Starmer’s constituency, I strongly urge you to look and vote for an alternative candidate. Ideally, this is someone from another left-wing party, but if you can’t find one, then by all means vote for the Monster Raving Loony Party or one of the single issue parties. And you should also do this if you are a member of any of the constituencies with a right-wing Labour candidate.

Save Labour; Save Britain; Save the Working Class: Get Starmer out!

Green Party May Face Bankruptcy Due to Litigation from Gender Critical Activists

This little piece of news appeared on the Queens’ Speech podcast last Saturday. The Queens’ Speech team are two gender critical gay men, Clive Simpson and Dennis Kavanagh, who discuss the latest news regarding the gender and trans issues. I think they’re opposed to the gender ideology and Queer Theory for the same reasons as Barry Wall, the EDIJester. This is the fear that gender-nonconforming children, who may turn out to be gay, are being diagnosed as transgender and put on the pathway to medical transition as a form of conversion therapy. They are also deeply concerned about the abuse of diagnoses of transgenderism by predatory, biological men to enter women’s private spaces, including self-declared translesbians propositioning lesbian natal women.

The Green Party in England and Scotland has taken a strong stance supporting transgender identity and rights. This may now be leading the party towards a trio of very costly court cases as three of their activists are suing them for unfair dismissal or similar crimes. These three have gender critical beliefs, and believe they have lost their positions due to them. Although their beliefs are definitely not party policy, they are protected under the British legislation guaranteeing freedom of conscience. This has been proved in a series of trials. The costs of such trials and the penalties that may be awarded if they win threaten the Greens with insolvency. Or so I understand.

I’ve expressed my gender critical views on this blog several times, and have no wish to go over the issues again. And I definitely do not support the abuse and persecution of ordinary trans people. I was talking to friends last week about the issue, and they told me of the people they knew who had changed their sex and the horrendous abuse they had suffered for it. I have every sympathy for these people and very definitely do not approve of their maltreatment. I am worried about this development because, while I disagree with the Greens on this issue, they are standing up for the environment while the Tories and Starmer seem determined to carry on trashing it. And I very much want them to be there as an alternative to the Labour party, for people who don’t want to give their votes to a party that seems desperate to turn themselves into Tories Mark 2. So, chizz, chizz, chizz, as Molesworth would sa.

I hope this issue can be settled in a way that will not lead to the Green’s insolvency, and allow them to continue as a needed presence on the political left.

Is Netanyahu Really Preparing to Expel Africans from Israel?

That was a headline I caught this morning when I briefly glanced at the internet newsfeed this morning. This comes after rioting in Jerusalem between pro- and anti-government Eritreans. There was a piece of news yesterday that Netanyahu was planning to expel Eritreans from Jerusalem. And then it was followed by this headline this morning. The reports about these incidents state that Israel really isn’t keen on accepting asylum seekers. This comes from its determination to remain an ethnically Jewish state, and there have been reports of an extremely authoritarian and discriminatory attitude towards African migrants trying to pass through the country into Europe. There have also been reports of a strong current of anti-Black racism in the country, with Jews of Black African origin, such as those from Ethiopia, abused, threatened and assaulted.

I was told yesterday that the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, a newspaper with a proud future behind it, is writing a book, Israelophobia, in which he claims that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. I think he may well have his work cut out with Netanyahu’s regime. Not only is Israel an apartheid state with institutional discrimination against the Palestinians, but many ordinary Israelis are worried about the direction their country is taking. Netanyahu’s government has passed legislation curbing the freedom of the judiciary. An independent judiciary is a fundamental democratic institution. Israeli citizens have been concerned about this assault on one of their fundamental civic freedoms, and there have been demonstrations. One report profiled a family, who immediately after the Sabbath meal on Friday went out to demonstrate. Liberal and secular Israelis feel under threat because of the favouritism Netanyahu and his coalition partners show to the nationalists and right-wing settlers. Some of these extreme right-wing groups are exempt from national service, and so the burden of defending the country falls to liberal Jews. Many have been talking about emigrating. It’s been suggested that about a third of the population may leave, mainly middle class professionals in science, medicine and law. Well, if they do emigrate, we should be glad to have them to fill our skills shortage. And we could do with a few lawyers, keen to preserve democracy, to guard against the assaults on it in this country. The number of prospective emigrants might be exaggerated, as over the past few decades many people in Britain have said that they’re going to leave if a particular party get in, and then very conspicuously don’t. But even so, it shows the outrage of ordinary Israelis to Netanyahu’s creeping authoritarian.

And then there was this headline that he was considering expelling all Africans. If Netanyahu did say something like that, then I don’t see how anyone can reasonably claim that Israel is not turning into a Fascist state. This is, after all, ethnic cleansing of the type the NF wanted for Britain and Oswald Mosley wanted for British East Africa. He wanted the indigenous Black inhabitants to be expelled and the colonies developed as White states. Buddyhell, the left-wing blogger behind Guy DeBord’s Cat, in one of his pieces about Israel noted that in the 1920s the Jewish settlers in Palestine even had their own, proper, Fascist outfit, the Maximalist Legalists, who wanted to model the future Jewish state on Mussolini’s Italy. Well, Musso threw in his lot with Hitler, passing discriminatory race laws against Jews and Black Africans while the Nazis rounded up Jewish Italians for slaughter in the Holocaust.

But just as anti-racists and liberals are worried about the rise of the far right in Europe, it seems the spectre of genuine Fascism is also rising in Israel.

Starmer Preparing to Purge ‘Unacceptable’ MPs Ahead of Election

The Independent and several other newspapers have reported today the Keef Strangler is preparing to sack a dozen or so MPs, whose behaviour has been unacceptable, ahead of the next election so that it isn’t spoiled by their presence. The Indie article, written by Archie Mitchell, begins

‘Sir Keir Starmer is prepared to demonstrate his ruthless side with a purge of “problematic” Labour MPs before the next election.

The Labour leader is reportedly considering getting rid of up to a dozen MPs, including Liam Byrne, Khalid Mahmood and Neil Coyle.

As part of a crackdown to prepare Labour for government, Sir Keir is drawing up plans to drop MPs who could damage the party.

Decisions about who may be blocked from standing will be based on “behavioural, reputational issues,” according to reports.

A source told The Times “the party is preparing to clear the field” and will “take on some of the MPs it doesn’t want to stand at the next election”.

Another said: “We just can’t afford to f*** up a potentially historic majority with internal bulls***, it’s not worth it, and we need people who are actually competent to be able to do their jobs as an MP, including questioning their own conduct.”

A full list of those who may be banned has not been confirmed.

Mr Coyle had the Labour whip restored in May having been suspended for using “abusive language with racial overtones” in a drunken encounter on the parliamentary estate.

Mr Mahmood was last year found by a tribunal to have unfairly dismissed his aide and ex-girlfriend after she felt “marginalised and isolated” in the months leading up to her losing her job.

And Mr Byrne was suspended from the Commons for bullying a member of staff. He was also responsible for the infamous “no money” note, left in the Treasury after Labour lost the 2010 election.

It is still used by the Tories to attack Labour.’

As reported, the purging of those MPs seems fair enough. But I think some, probably most of the MPs who are going to be purged will be those from the left. And it’s really only them, people like Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler and so on, who are keeping me in the Labour party. If the Labour left is purged ahead of the election, then I’m afraid I feel I have no place in the Labour party and will reconsider my membership.