One of Tommy Robinson’s grotty Fascist tactics is to try to intimidate his critics and opponents into silence by turning up at their doorstep unannounced, mob-handed, and demanding a word. The crusader against Islam has done it to Mike Stuchbery, a teacher and academic, and to an unnamed lad in Luton. This was a student, who had angered the self-professed defender of truth and free speech, by putting clips out on the web showing instances where Robinson contradicted himself or was otherwise made to look stupid. He also made the point that, whatever he claimed to the contrary, Robinson was no longer quite the working class hero he claimed to be. He was living in a very expensive house, thank you very much, paid for by his followers’ donations. The lad showed the type of house Robinson was living in, but did not show Robinson’s own. Nevertheless, the islamophobic thug and jailbird decided to drive 300 miles up to the lad’s parents’ house in Cumbria in the company of two of his storm troopers. One of these was an Australian-Israeli bruiser, who claims to have shot an unarmed Palestinian when he was in the IDF. They turned up on the couple’s doorstep in the middle of the night, where they demanded to see them and generally behaved in a threatening manner. They also did this to Tim Fenton, the Sage of Crewe, who runs the excellent Zelo Street blog. And now that Robinson is banged up on a charge of contempt of court, many people are starting to wonder where Robinson got his information. Including Tim, who has posted an article about it.
He notes that when Robinson began his ‘Troll Watch’ programme for the Canadian far-right outfit, Rebel Media, he was usually assisted by Caolan Robertson and George Llewellyn John. In one edition, he turned up at the address of a paper, which had run a story about him. As Tim says, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to get the address of the paper. But he then turned up at Tim’s own because of a piece Tim had put on Zelo Street about the Spectator endorsing Robinson. And it would have been difficult for Robinson to get Tim’s address. Zelo Street doesn’t give out phone contact details, doesn’t appear on the electoral roll and doesn’t have a landline phone number look up. Someone would have had to have given Robinson Tim’s address. Tim believes that the prime suspect at the moment is Robertson, who might like to tell all about how Robinson selected his target now that he’s parted ways with the infamous bigot. Other suspects include Fraser Nelson, the Speccie’s editor, and the author of the article Tim blogged about, James Delingpole. Tim asks
So now that Caolan Robertson has split from Lennon, perhaps he would care to let everyone know how his former boss got hold of peoples’ addresses? Did Lennon, as I concluded at the time, get mine from a discredited former tabloid journalist who had managed to gain access to my NHS records? Or did the information come via those nice and highly principled people at the Spectator magazine?
He goes on to state that Robinson is right in one regard when he claims to be a journalist – he does use the same Dark Arts they do. It’s just a pity that his connection with our free and fearless press is an illegal one.
If the Spectator, or someone associated with it, did give Tim’s details to Tommy Robinson, it shows how even more of a low rag it has become. And perhaps it wouldn’t be surprising if it did give Robinson Tim’s address. It does, after all, have a very strong racist, Alt Right slant, as shown by its continuing publication of articles by the horrendous anti-Semite, Taki.
Yesterday’s I for Monday, 29th July 2019, carried an article by Brian Farmer on page 13 reporting that Lady Hale, the president of the Supreme Court, had made an appeal for donations to a charity for people, who can’t afford lawyers. This should resonate with everyone supporting Mike in his battle against the false libel claim against him by Riley and Oberman, and for the 17 other victims of their vindictive legal mendacity. The article ran
The UK’s most senior judge has appealed for people to give money to a charity whose volunteers support those embroiled in civil court cases who cannot afford a lawyer.
Lady Hale, president of the Supreme Court, asked for donations to the Personal Support Unit yesterday.
She made this week’s Radio 4 Appeal, a BBC programme in which well-known people ask for donations to charities.
“I know how intimidating the civil and family courts can be for people without legal knowledge of help,” Lady Hale, patron of the Personal Support Unit, told listeners. “Everyone deserves access to justice whether or not they can afford a lawyer.”
She told the story of a woman helped by the unit after becoming involved in a family court fight with a former partner. A year ago, the then most senior family court judge in England and Wales talked about problems caused by increasing numbers of people who found themselves without lawyers.
It seems from this that she was mostly concerned about disputes in the family courts, but it applies right across the board. This has been partly caused by the Tories slashing legal aid, which has made justice unaffordable for all too many poor and working and lower middle class Brits. And Mike’s case appears to be another example of a SLAPP lawsuit, in which the rich and powerful attempt to silence political opponents by punitive legal action, which they hope their victims won’t be able to afford to challenge or defend themselves against. Mike, for example, has been forced to go to crowdfunding to ask for donations for his own defence against Riley and Oberman. He’s also been lucky to have the support of so many people reading his site, like Damo from Cornwall. People who’ve never met him, but enjoy and appreciate his site and the hard work he has put in trying to defend the disabled and their carers against a vicious, persecutory Tory and Lib Dem regime. I know that their contributions to Mike’s fund are greatly appreciated. But he’s not the only one to hit with legal suits he can’t afford to challenge without the support of charity.
This has to end. Legal aid should be restored to proper levels. And the libel laws should be reformed so that the rich and vindictive cannot use them to silence reasonable, truthful criticism. And legislation is definitely needed to prohibit SLAPP lawsuits by the corporate rich and political right. Only then can the poor really expect justice.
How stupid, moronic and just plain offensive can the Brexit party get before the British public wake up and realise that they’re a bunch of Fascist buffoons turning Britain into a laughing stock. A few days we had Nigel Farage himself going full Nuremberg at a rally, which began with the sound of air raid sirens. You know, to evoke the spirit of the Blitz, because Britain leaving Europe is exactly like that time in the Second World War when Britain stood alone against the might of Nazi Germany. Except that, er, we didn’t. We had the resources of the entire British Empire, as well as the members of the free forces of occupied Europe to help us. Like the Poles, who served in the RAF, and who shot down more Nazi planes than the bryl-creem public school boys. Zelo Street was particularly offended, posting up an article about the real horror of the Blitz, and the carnage Britain suffered, especially in area vital to the war effort, like Liverpool. Of course Brexit isn’t remotely like the horrendous death and destruction Britons suffered during the War, and to make the comparison trivialises it.
The at the opening of the European parliament, they all turned their backs as the EU’s anthem, Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ play. Despite their bluster and protestations, this is exactly what the Nazis did in the Reichstag, and similar shows the Brexit party’s Fascistic psychology. Especially as Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ looks forward to peace and harmony amongst the world’s peoples.
And now the woman one gay Christian I know refers to as ‘the Widdy bigot’ position of her attitude to gays has also joint the ultra-patriotic orgy of crass stupidity, and compared Brexit to slaves’ and serfs’ uprisings and colonial revolts.
After first stating her objects to what she considered the unelected status of particular EU officials, Widdecombe declared
“There is a pattern throughout history of oppressed people turning against their oppressors. Slaves against their owners, the peasantry against the feudal barons”.
To which she added her comment about ‘colonies rising against their empires’.
She’s wrong about the various officials and leaders of the European Union being unelected, as Zelo Street has pointed out in this article here:
Black politico and activist David Lammy was particularly offended by her comparison to slavery. He tweeted
Anne Widdecombe just compared Britain leaving the EU to “slaves” rising up “against their owners”.
It is impossible to explain how offensive and ahistorical it is for you to equate my ancestors tearing off their chains with your small-minded nationalist project. Shame on you.
Exactly. To show how grossly offensive Widdecombe’s statement is, let’s consider the status of Black chattel slavery in the British Empire.
There have been different types of slavery throughout history, some types milder than others. But Black chattel slavery – which is the closest in history, and whose effects are still being felt – was particularly horrific. In this form slavery, which Mr Lammy’s ancestors suffered along with millions of others, slaves have zero rights. None. Nada. Zilch. They are property.
They have no political rights. They cannot vote in elections, nor stand for election to parliament or some other representative assembly. They cannot act in any official capacity whatsoever.
They have no legal protection under the law. They cannot serve on juries, nor can crimes committed by slaves be decided in a court of law. They have absolutely no right to due process or legal protection.
They may not claim equality or associate themselves with Whites.
As property, they have no property rights. Any property they hold is that of their master.
They have no right to family life. Families can be split up at their master’s pleasure. Slave women may be separated and sold apart from their men. Slave children may be separated from their parents and sold.
Their masters may feed, clothe and work them how they wish. Some colonies passed legislation providing that their masters had to provide some clothing for them. This was a shift – petticoat – for women, and drawers – underpants – for men. That’s it, provided once a year. Visitors to the West Indies described slaves frequently working naked in the fields.
They are absolutely and completely at their master’s mercy. Their owners may treat them how they wish, as they are property, not legal persons. Punishments for slaves include gagging in horrific iron masks, flogging, castration, amputation and being dissected alive. Along with other punishment too disgusting to be described here.
The status of European serfs during the Middle Ages is similar, but less severe. Serfs differ from slaves in that they are bound to the soil, while slaves are the property of individuals. European serfs also had some property and legal rights. However, they were still considered property themselves.
Serfs are not free but the property of the lord of the manor. Crimes between serfs are decided in the manor court.
They have families, but these are referred to in law as sequelae – broods.
They have their own land to work, but must work several days a week for their lord. They are subject to a beadle, an overseer, who presides over them with a whip as a mark of his authority. Like the slave drivers in later chattel slavery.
Women are not free to marry as they wish. Apart from being under their father’s authority, they are also considered property of the lord. Thus, if a serf’s daughter wishes to marry, then her father has to pay the lord compensation, called a merchet.
At a serf’s death, any property he holds from the lord immediately escheats back to him, and the parish priest may take his ‘best beast’. Widows have to plead in the courts, and follow various ceremonies in order to be granted their former husbands’ land and property.
Widdecombe’s stupid speech recalls the reasons why the great Black anti-slavery activist, Frederick Douglas, once attacked White American patriotic celebrations of independence in his speech ‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July?’ Douglas pointed out the complete irony of White Americans claiming to have thrown off the yoke of British slavery, when their Black brothers and sisters were still very much in chains.
American independence did not free all Americans from slavery. And Brexit isn’t remotely like any slave revolt or uprising. And it’s massively offensive and ahistorical, as Lammy says, for Widdecombe to claim it is.
The rabid Eurosceptics of UKIP, the Leave campaign and various other groups frequently claim that the EU is the product of Nazism. James Goddard, the noxious, racist leader of the British ‘Yellow Vest’ movement, was filmed last week screaming ‘Nazi’ at Anna Soubry for her support of the Remain vote and a second referendum. He’s one of those, who believe that the EU really does owe its origin to the Nazis, and screamed this at Soubry as he subjected her to abuse. Well, Soubry is far right, but because of her contemptible attitude to the poor and refusal to hold a bye-election along with the other members of the Independent group. But she’s not a Nazi for supporting the EU, and Goddard and others, who believe that the EU was somehow spawned by Hitler and his thugs are simply wrong.
I was taught at school when we studied the EU that it had its origins in a series of economic arrangements creating free trade zones between France and Germany, and then Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which were intended to stop the rise of such destructive nationalism and prevent further European wars. And the idea of a European parliament or federation to preserve peace long predates that. The Quaker William Penn in the 17th century wrote a pamphlet recommending a European parliament as a means of securing peace after the horrors of the 16th and 17th century wars of religion, including the Thirty Years’ War, in which 1/5 of the German population starved to death. In the 18th century, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote his The Peace of Europe, recommending a European federation, again as a means of stopping war. In the 19th century, the Italian revolutionary Mazzini also believed in a European federation as a means of guaranteeing peace.
Germany, with France, is one of the two mainstays of the EU. And while the EU has allowed Germany to dominate Europe economically, to the disadvantage of other nations, like the Greeks, that’s not why the German people support the EU. They support it because they genuinely believe it is needed to prevent the resurgence of militant nationalism, like that of the Nazis.
It also seems to me that some of this attitude goes back to the wartime Kreisau Circle, a movement of socialist and bourgeois intellectuals and anti-Nazi clergy, who met on the estate of the nobleman, Count Helmuth James Moltke in Kreisau in Silesia. They were determined to find a way to end the Nazi dictatorship and create a more just European order which would prevent such tyrannies ever returning. And this included a united, federal Europe. The German historian, Karl Dietrich Bracher, discusses the group’s ideas in his book, The German Dictatorship (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970). Their ideas of a federal Europe are described on pages 544 -45. He writes
At the centre of the discussions of this multifaceted group were the internal reforms, the basis of the new post-Hitler order. The approach to foreign policy mentioned earlier points up the unique qualities but also the limitations of the Kreisau Circle: the break with nationalism; the movement towards a European internationalism rejecting both the French hegemony of Versailles and the old and new ideas on German hegemony; German-French and German-Polish understanding in the place of disputed territorial demands. These ideas were largely the work of the Socialists (Haubach, Leber and Reichwein); Leber had consistently maintained that the principles of economic cooperation and democratic domestic policy must also govern international relations. But Moltke and his friends, also departing from the historico-political traditional ideas of their class, spoke of the Europeanisation of political thought and of the need for revising the idea of the state as an end in itself. The problem of East German and East European nationality policies gave rise to the idea of a supranational, federalist solution. Moltke quite early had devoted himself to the problem of the minorities. This formed the basis on which cooperation with exponents of Socialist, internationalist concepts could be worked out. In some respects Moltke went even further by raising the seemingly utopian idea of the division of Germany and Europe into small, self-administered bodies. This type of radical federalism, which invoked the sovereignty of a European federation, meant a revolutionary break with nineteenth- and twentieth-century modes of thought, according to which the defence against ‘particularlism’ and support for the national unitary state was the highest law.
The practical proposals of the Kreisau Circle lagged far behind such radical models. But even more ‘realistic’ supporters of a moderate national idea like Trott zu Solz made the preservation of the existing states dependent on a restricted sovereignty in favour of a European federation. While Moltke represented the most consistent moral and legalistic position and was highly critical of appeasement and its disregard of international principles of law in favour of national revisionism. Trott believed that concessions to the traditional national principle were indispensable. But in 1938 he, too, unlike Goerdeler, came out for the 1933 borders and against territorial claims; central to his idea of Europe was German-British cooperation. Beyond that, Trott expressly stressed the role of the working class, in which ‘a strong tradition of international cooperation and rational politics’ still lived on. Apparently he had in mind in particular the example of the United States, and he visualised a unified Europe with a common economic policy and citizenship, a ‘joint highest court’, and possibly also a European army. Leaving aside the question of whether or not some of the visionary details were realistic, the basic idea of a non-nationalist Europe in which neither a strong France nor a strong Germany would tip the scales offered a more constructive vision of the future and also more persuasive alternative to Hitler than the regressive ideas of Goerdeler. (My emphasis.)
This, I think, is where some of the origins of the EU lie. And definitely not in Nazi propaganda about a European union of states under German domination to fight communism. When Goddard, the Kippers and the other anti-EU fanatics spout that the EU was created by the Nazis, they’re flat out wrong. And revealing their own poisonous ultra-nationalism in the process.
I caught the headline in the I today, stating that Vince Cable has decided to go into a ‘non-aggression pact’ with the so-called ‘Independents’. This means that the two parties won’t put up candidates against each other.
Apart from reminding me of the Liberal-SDP Alliance in the 1980s, it also shows Cable’s absolute contempt for democracy, and how far his party has fallen from the ideals of John Stuart Mill. Mill’s book, On Liberty, is one of the great philosophical examinations of freedom and democracy. It’s also the foundational text of political Liberalism. Until very recently, every leader of the Liberal party received a copy of it at his election to office.
However, when the Lib-Dems were part of the coalition with Dave Cameron’s Tories, they fully supported the legislation providing for secret courts. These were special courts, where cases would be tried in camera for reasons of ‘national security’. This meant that the press and public would be excluded, the identity of witnesses could be concealed, and evidence withheld from the defendant and their lawyers.
It’s the classic kangaroo court system Kafka described in his novels The Trial and The Castle, where the accused is arrested and tried without knowing what in fact he’s being charged with. It’s the judicial system every tyrant and despot has used since the days of the Roman emperors, and which returned in the 20th century with the horrors of the Nazi and Stalinist judicial systems.
And then there’s the anti-democratic nature of the Independents themselves. This is a group, who have incorporated themselves as a company rather than a political party. They have done this in order to avoid the electoral law that demands that political parties reveal who their donors are. It also allows them to evade the laws limiting expenditure on election campaigns.
Additionally, the group is determined not to call bye-elections, despite no longer being members of the parties that got them elected in the first place. Arguably, their constituents voted for them as members of the Labour or Tory parties, and should be given the choice of whether they want to re-elect them as Independents or choose someone else to represent them from their former parties instead. But despite all the sweet-sounding stuff about respecting democracy and parliament as the best method for representing the will of the British people, the Independents definitely do not want to hold bye-elections. For the simple reason that they’d lose.
We therefore have a party that supported anti-democratic secret courts, going into a ‘non-aggression pact’ – which sounds very much like the pact Nazi Germany signed with Stalin’s Russia before they invaded the latter – with a party that withholds the identity of its donors and refuses to hold bye-elections that would give the voters their opportunity to say whether they still want them in parliament or not.
This is an ominous warning. If these two parties are starting off together with such an open contempt for democracy, what would they be capable of doing if they were to get any kind of government?
Okay, let’s have some fun at the expense of the Kippers and the extreme right-wingers Gerard Batten has brought into the party. Right-wingers like Count Dankula, Tommy Robinson and Sargon of Akkad.
Sargon, Dankula, Tommy Robinson and UKIP
Count Dankula is the idiot, who taught his girlfriend’s dog to do the Nazi salute when he said ‘Sieg Heil!’ and ‘Gas the Jews’. He put it on YouTube, and then, unsurprisingly, got prosecuted for hate speech. I don’t think he’s actually a Nazi, just a prat, who thinks really tasteless, offensive ‘jokes’ are hilarious. Tommy Robinson is the founder of the EDL, and has been briefly involved with that other Islamophobic organization, PEGIDA UK. He used to belong to the BNP and has a string of criminal convictions behind him. These included a number for contempt of court after he was caught giving his very biased very of the proceedings outside the court building during the trial of groups of Pakistani men accused of being rape gangs. Technically, Robinson isn’t a formal member of the party. It’s constitution bars anyone, who has been a member of the racist right from joining it, which rules him out. But he has become a special advisor on Islam and prison reform to Batten.
Sargon of Akkad, whose real name is Carl Benjamin, is another YouTube personality and ‘Sceptic’. I think he used to be one of the atheist ranters on YouTube at the time when the New Atheism was on the rise with the publication of Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. Then a number of them, Sargon included, appear to have become tired of arguing for atheism and naturalism, and started talking about politics. This was from an extreme right-wing perspective, attacking feminism, Social Justice Warriors, anti-racism, immigration and socialism. Many of them appear to be Libertarians, or see themselves as ‘Classical Liberals’. This means their liberals only in the early 19th century sense of standing for absolute free trade and the total removal of the welfare state. Sargon’s one of these, although bizarrely he also describes himself as ‘centre left’. Which only makes sense to some of the equally bizarre individuals out there, who rant about how Barack Obama was a Communist.
The presence of these three characters at a recent UKIP conference was discussed in an article by the anti-racist, anti-religious extremism organization Hope Not Hate as proof that under Batten UKIP had very definitely moved to the Far Right. And Nigel Farage was apparently so concerned with this move a few days ago that he very publicly resigned from the party. And this naturally upset many long-time Kippers. One of them was a YouTube vlogger, whose channel is called People’s Populist Press. He posted this video four days ago on his channel bitterly attacking Sargon and the others he describes as ‘YouTube Nazi punks’ for ruining the party.
Kipper Official Tries to Dissuade Sargon from Joining
It seems, however, that some members of UKIP didn’t want Sargon to join. Not because they objected to his opinions, but because they were afraid that he and his followers wouldn’t take the party seriously. The Ralph Retort YouTube channel played a recording of a conversation between Sargon, his mate Vee, and an anonymous UKIP official arguing about whether or not Sargon should be allowed to join the party. I’m not putting this up, because I’m unsure of the Ralph Retort channel’s political orientation. Sargon’s not only upset left-wing YouTube controversialists like Kevin Logan, but also members of the extreme right, including the Nazi fanboys of Richard Spencer. The argument was also played by Oof Curator on his channel, about whom I have the same caveats.
From the conversation, it appears that the Kippers didn’t really want Benjamin in the party, because they wanted committed activists. Benjamin had said that he wanted to join the party simply to show his support and not to take a more active role. They were also concerned that his followers also weren’t taking politics seriously. The Kipper believed that most of Sargon’s followers on YouTube were people in the teens and early twenties. Sargon told him that the average age of his audience is 34. The Kipper accepted this, but stuck to his point that Benjamin’s followers don’t take it seriously. This included an incident when some of Sargon’s followers got drunk in a pub and started shouting ‘Free Kekistan’ at passing cars. Kekistan and Pepe the Frog are memes taken over by the Alt Right. They were originally the creation of a Latin American cartoonist, with absolutely no racist element. But they’ve been appropriated by the Nazi right, to the dismay of the cartoon’s creator, who now wants nothing to do with it. The Kipper contrasted the flippancy of Sargon’s followers with those of Tommy Robinson, who he believed would take UKIP seriously.
UKIP Factions
The argument also gave an insight into the deep divisions and delicate internal politics in UKIP. The Kipper official stated that UKIP’s made up of three different political groupings. There are Christian Social Conservatives. These are political Conservatives with traditional views on social morality, emphasizing the traditional family and condemning promiscuity and particularly homosexuality and gay rights. Then there are the Libertarians, who also free market Tories, but with liberal attitudes towards drug taking and sexuality, although some of these have moved away and become more traditional in the moral attitudes. And then there are the Social Democrats. This means Old Labour, standing for the nationalization of utilities but rejecting immigration, feminism, and gay rights. There are clearly strong divisions between the three groups, and the Kipper did not want this delicate balance disrupted by the mass influx of new members with very strong factional views. This was one of the Kipper’s concerns when Sargon tried to argue that he’d be an asset to the Kippers as when he, Dankula and another YouTuber joined, the party’s organization rose by 10,000. The Kipper responded to that by stating that raises the question of ‘brigading’, presumably meaning attempts to take over the party through the mass influx of supporters.
Sargon and Philosophical First Principles
The argument was also interesting for what it showed about the real depth of Sargon’s own political knowledge: actually quite shallow. Sargon’s despised by his opponents on both the Left and the Right for his intellectual arrogance. He’s been ridiculed for commonly responding to any of his opponent’s points by saying ‘That’s preposterous!’ and asking them if they’ve read John Locke or Immanuel Kant. The Kipper was impressed by Sargon’s support of property rights and popular sovereignty, which he had in common with the rest of the party, but was concerned about how Sargon derived his views of them. He asked him about first principles. Sargon replied that he got them from John Locke and the 18th century Swiss political theorist, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although the latter was ‘too continental’ for him. The Kipper responded by asking about the specific derivation of his support for natural rights, as argued by Locke. Sargon responded by saying that they’d been put there by the Creator. The Kipper then replied ‘Ah! You’re a theist!’ To which Sargon replied that he wasn’t, because ‘We don’t know who the Creator is.’ This is the line taken by the Intelligent Design crowd, who argue that evolution isn’t the product of Neo-Darwinian random mutation and natural selection, but the result of planned, intelligent intervention by a Creator. Sargon’s response is strange coming from an atheist, as for many Sceptics, Intelligent Design is simply another form of Creationism. ‘Creationism in a cheap tuxedo’, as one critic called it.
Sargon objected to the question about how he derived his support for natural rights on the ground that it didn’t matter. And I think he’s got a point. I’ve no doubt that the majority of people in the mass political parties probably don’t have a very deep understanding of the fundamental basis of the ideologies they hold. I doubt very many ordinary members of the Tory party, for example, have read Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France or the works of the 20th century Tory ideologue, Trevor Oakeshott. It’s probably particularly true of the Tories, as Roger Scruton, the Tory philosopher, said in his book on Conservatism in the 1980s that Tory ideology was largely silent, consisting of the unspoken emphasis on traditional views and attitudes. But clearly, the people at the top levels and some of the real activists in the political parties, including UKIP, do have a very profound understanding of the philosophical basis of their party and its views. And Sargon didn’t.
In fact, Sargon’s ignorance has become increasingly clear in recent months. There’s a notorious clip of him shouting down his opponent, Richard Carrier, in a debate on ‘SJWs’ or something like that at an atheist convention in America, Mythcon. Sargon is shown screaming at Carrier ‘No! No! Shut up! Just f***ing shut up!’ That went viral around the Net.
Racism and Views on Child Abuse
He’s also got some other, deeply offensive views. Sargon considers himself a civic, rather than ethno-nationalist. Which means he stands for his country’s independence but does not believe, contra the BNP, that only members of a specific ethnic group can really be its citizens. He appears to hold a very low view of Blacks, however. There’s a clip of him telling his extreme right-wing opponents to ‘Stop behaving like a bunch of N****rs!’ Quite.
There’s another clip of Sargon going around the Net of him apparently supporting paedophile. He was talking another YouTuber, who believed that underage sex was fine, and that the age of consent should be lowered to 12 or 14. When asked about the morality of adults having sex with underage children, Sargon responded ‘It depends on the child’. Which has naturally upset and outraged very many people.
Conclusions: Robinson and Sargon Will Damage and Radicalise UKIP
There are therefore a number of very good reasons why decent, anti-racist members of UKIP wouldn’t want him in their party. Sargon’s own popularity also appears to be declining, so that it’s now a very good question of how many people he will bring with him into UKIP. Furthermore, a number of people are going to leave with the departure of Farage, though he isn’t the non-racist figure he claims to be. The association of Tommy Robinson with Batten is going to drive people away, so that the party will become even more right-wing and much nastier.
The conversation between the Kipper and Sargon also shows that the party is in a very delicate position at the moment, with a very precarious balance of power between the various factions. As the Kipper official himself said, the only thing they have uniting them is Brexit. If that balance is upset, or the unifying factor of Brexit removed, the whole thing could well collapse in a mass of splits and infighting, like the various overtly Fascist groups have imploded over the years. It also shows that while some people on the extreme right have probably a far too high opinion of themselves and their intelligence, others, like the Kipper official, are genuinely bright and very well read and informed. Even in a party like UKIP, those people shouldn’t be underestimated.
One of the major news stories this week was the trial in Huddersfield of yet another Asian paedophile gang. From what I gather – I haven’t really followed the story – this was a group of taxi drivers, some of whom were of Pakistani descent, and the case was very similar to the Rotherham and other paedophile gangs. Including the reaction of the authorities to the exploitation of the female victims. The girls – now young women – have said that they have only now come forward because when the abuse was occurring they were not believed. The reporter discussing the case on the Beeb’s News at Six described how the authorities in this and the other cases didn’t act because they were afraid of disrupting ‘community cohesion’. In the case of Rotherham, one of the local authority officials or senior police officers, who could have stopped, stated that they were afraid of it starting riots. As a result, nothing was done for years, and the abuse continued until eventually these thugs were brought to trial.
This issue is delicate, as we’ve seen how the various surviving Nazis and Islamophobes are trying to capitalize on it. The EDL and the racist hooligans of the Football Lads’ Alliance have been goose-stepping up and down, pushing the idea that this is how Islam, and all Muslims, see those outside their faith: inferior beings, whom they can exploit freely without any pang of conscience. I’ve got a feeling that it was this case in particular in Huddersfield that Tommy Robinson was commenting on outside the courthouse when he was arrested and banged up for contempt of court. His followers then declared that it was a free speech issue, and their leader had been unfairly silenced by the pro-Muslim dhimmis of the establishment. It was nothing like that, of course. There are strict regulations covering the reporting of court cases affecting everyone. They’re designed to stop a miscarriage of justice by reporters spreading biased or mistaken information. Robinson violated them, not least with his antics shouting angry questions at the men was they were being taken into court, questions and comments which assumed their guilt. If let unchecked, this could have resulted in them being acquitted or the case collapsing following a motion by their lawyers that the reporting was preventing them from getting a fair trial.
And the Islamophobes of the EDL, FLA, DFLA, and Pegida UK, etc., aren’t interested in protesting against paedophiles per se. There are plenty of cases of the prosecution of Whites for the same offences, at which they haven’t shown their faces. They are only interested in these cases because the perpetrators are Brown, and they can use them to work up hatred against Muslims and the wider Asian community.
And let’s deal with another canard the islamophobes have been repeating about the case: that this shows essential Muslim attitudes towards non-Muslims. If the crew in Huddersfield are like the other Asian grooming gangs, such as Rotherham, then they say absolutely nothing about Islam in this regard. Again, from what I gather, the Rotherham gang were Muslims in name only. They weren’t practicing Muslims and never attended the mosque. Or if they did, it was once in a very, very long time.
But nevertheless, there are racial aspects of this case that do need investigation, discussion and comment. The gangs’ victims were White, and it’s because they were that the issue was ignored. As has been said, the authorities were afraid that if they acted, it would provoke race riots. It’s a gift to the Far Right, who can honestly say that in these cases, the authorities weren’t interested in combating anti-White racism and exploitation. Now I have spoken to Whites, who believe that they have been racially abused and insulted, but that when they tried to raise it with social workers, they were refused help. One man said that the social workers flatly refused to believe him, and said ‘Oh, they’re not like that.’ I’m sure most BAME people aren’t. But some are, just like some Whites. And for a brief moment at the start of this century, round about the time of the Oldham race riots, there was more anti-White racial crime than against Black or Asians. I’m fairly certain that this situation has been reversed following 9/11 and the abuse and violence against Muslims that unleashed, and the immigration crisis.
Paedophiles and those who enslave and sexually exploit children and women exist in all levels of society, and in all colours. The Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches have been rocked through similar scandals with White clergy, whose crimes were also disgustingly covered up and their perpetrators were protected, in order to avoid a scandal. Paedophiles are also manipulative and enter professions where they can prey on the vulnerable, like teaching. Which is why that profession has very strict regulations about dealing with their charges, as well as reporting and dealing with possible incidents of sexual abuse that they may uncover amongst their students and pupils.
But historically, as well as exploiting those of their own race, nations and ethnic groups across the world have also exploited other races. White racists see Blacks as more sexual and promiscuous than Whites and ethnic groups. But this is a prejudice created through the slave trade. White Europeans and Americans trading and travelling in Africa actually reported that Black African women were very chaste, more so than their own people. What altered this image was the sexual exploitation of enslaved women by White men in the plantations of the New World. And where it did not involve rape, it frequently consisted of prostitution, with the White man giving the woman a few coins for her services. Which may also have been unwilling. And some of this sexual exploitation may have been directed against Blacks partly because White women, or at least of those of respectable status, were protected and the chastity jealously guarded. Which is also not an excuse for the men not controlling themselves and raping and exploiting their slaves instead.
And it does look to me like something similar is going on here. That the men in these gangs, like the Whites who sexually exploit Black women, are doing so because they do consider White women less worthy than their own. Yasmin Alibhai-Browne in the Independent and then the I has written many times about anti-White racism amongst BAME communities as well as ordinary White racism. And she has described how some Asians view White women’s sexual freedom with horror, as promiscuity and a lack of ‘respect’. And so I do wonder if the Asian men in these gangs had the same attitude White planters had to their Black slaves: they could abuse them freely, not just because they were in their power, but because they believed their race also to be more promiscuous than their own women, and so their rape and abuse didn’t matter. They were ‘tarts’, and so deserved it.
I am certainly not suggesting that all or most Muslims or Asians in this country approve of or share the attitudes of these Asian rape gangs. Just as I don’t believe that the majority of Whites in this country think that Black women deserve rape or sexual exploitation. But I am saying that these men’s attitude does show a racial as well as sexual contempt for their victims. And that this needs to be recognized and discussed alongside other forms of racism.
I also think there’s an issue with the racial elements of prostitution and sexual exploitation in this country generally that isn’t being discussed, and of which these cases are a part. For example, one Asian commenter on a similar case complained that there was sexual abuse within the Asian community, which was being hushed up. I’ve also heard of White men using the services of Muslim prostitutes. And way back in the 1980s I can remember a Black friend from St. Paul’s here in Bristol complaining that the Black community there had a reputation for prostitution, but the girls themselves were Whites from Hartcliffe.
Racism and racial exploitation has no colour. People of all races can be prejudiced, abusive, violent and exploitative towards others. And this seems to have happened in the case of these Asian grooming gangs, who are not representative of Asian Britain as a whole. And I’m sure that racism is also an element in other forms of rape and sexual exploitation committed and suffered by people of other ethnic groups. And this needs to be recognized, discussed and acted upon. Rather than swept under the carpet and angrily denied in case it cause further racial friction.
This is a very short piece from RT, which suggests that British justice in this case has been much less than impartial. The video reports that the parents of judge Altham, who jailed three anti-fracking activists, are the directors of J.C. Altham & Sons, which is reportedly in the same supply chain as Centrica. Centrica has invested tens of millions of pounds in fracking. The Altham’s company also backed a letter lobbying Lancashire council to permit fracking. The report also states that the three men are supposed to be the first eco-protesters jailed as a public nuisance since 1932.
The report shows the men clambering on to the trucks during their protest, and a tweet from The Left Wing UK revealing the judge’s connections to the fracking industry.
This clearly casts grave doubts over the judge’s impartiality and the justice of his decision. I am surprised that the judge was allowed to preside over this case, as I would have thought the men’s defence lawyer would have raised an objection against him. Perhaps they did, but it was overruled by the judicial authorities. In which case, it raises wider questions about the entire impartiality of the system in this case.
This is another video from the conference ‘Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?’, organized by the American Educational Trust, which publishes the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; and Middle Eastern Policy, Inc. The speaker in this piece is Maria LaHood, a deputy legal director at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, who works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian civil rights activists in the US. In this clip she describes some of the cases she’s worked on defending Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists from legal attack by the Israel lobby. These includes the case of the Olympia Co-op, Professor Stephen Salaita, and filing Freedom of Information Act Requests to obtain government documents about Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The speaker also says she works on the Right to Heal Initiative, helping Iraqi civil society and veterans seeking accountability for the damage to Iraqis’ health from the last war. She’s also challenged the American government over the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and Caterpillar over its sale of the bulldozer used to kill Rachel Corey to Israel. Before joining the Centre, she also worked campaigning for affordable housing in the Bay area of San Francisco.
She begins by talking about attempts to harass, prosecute and suppress pro-Palestinian students and professors at US universities.
The first case she talks about is Professor Stephen Salaita, an esteemed Palestinian-American lecturer, who had a tenured position at Virginia Tech University. He was offered a position at the University of Illinois, Urban Champagne on its Native American Studies programme, which he accepted. He was due to begin his new job at the University of Illinois in the summer of 2014. During that summer he watched, horrified, Israel’s devastation of Gaza and tweeted about it. Two weeks before he was due to take up his post, he received an email from the Chancellor telling him not to bother because he would not be accepted by the Board of Trustees. The professor and his family were thus left without jobs, an income, health insurance and a home.
Salaita lost his job due to a self-declared Zionist, who’d been following his tweets. These were published on the right-wing blog, Legal Insurrection. Professor Salaita was also targeted by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Jewish Federation and the Anti-Defamation League. Also, wealthy donors to the uni threatened to withdraw their money. The Chancellor and the Board later stated that they withdrew his job offer based on those tweets, which they considered uncivil, and anti-Semitic. LaHood states that accusations of anti-Semitism is commonly used to silence criticism of Israel. Christopher Kennedy, who led the Board’s rejection of Salaita, was later given an award by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
CCR sued the university, the trustees and top administrators. The court found in his favour, and the Chancellor resigned a few hours later the next day, and the Provost resigned a few weeks later. LaHood states that last autumn (2015) Salaita became the Edward Said Chair at the American University of Beirut, and settled his case for $875,000 against the university. LaHood paid tribute to the immense grassroots support for Salaita, with thousands signing petitions, five thousand professors boycotted the university, and 16 U of I departments voted ‘no confidence’ in the administration. The American Association of Professors also censured the university. Salaita went on to talk about his experience to more than 50 unis, and his works on Israel and settler colonialism are more popular than ever.
The Olympia Food Co-op is a local food co-op in Olympia, Washington; a non-profit organization, it has been very involved in social work and political self-determination. It has adopted a number of boycotts, and in 2010 the board voted by consensus to boycott Israeli goods. Five of the co-op’s 22,000 members voted to prosecute the 16 board members, who’d passed the vote, over a year later. Six months before the lawsuit was filed, the Israeli consul general to the Pacific northwest, based in San Francisco, travelled to Olympia to meet the co-chairs of Stand With Us Northwest, the lawyer representing those suing, and some Olympia activists. Stand With Us is a non-profit organization supporting Israel around the world. It is one of the groups trying to suppress free speech on Israel in the US. It maintains dossiers on Palestinian rights activists. The five issued a letter to the board members telling them to rescind the boycott or else they would be sued and held personally accountable. They were accused of violating the co-op’s governing principles, and the board asked their accusers how they had done this, and invited them to put their proposal to a membership vote, according to the co-op’s bye-laws. The accusers refused to do so, and went ahead and filed the suit. After they did so, Stand With Us put it out on their website that they had brought the suit in partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spearheaded by the Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Alon. Alon admitted that the Israelis were behind the lawsuit, and using it to amplify their power.
CCR then sued, using an anti-SLAPP motion. SLAPP stands for ‘Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Half the states in America have legislation to deter the abuse of laws to chill free speech. The trial court dismissed the case as a SLAPP, held the Board had the authority to initiate the boycott, and awarded them each $10,000. The accusers launched an appeal, this was turned down, and they then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Washington Supreme Court turned down the anti-SLAPP motion, and referred the case back to the trial court. The CCR’s motion to dismiss the case again was denied. The case goes on, and the board members, most of whom are no longer in their post, have been subject to discovery and intimidation. The boycott of Israeli foods continues, however.
LaHood states that these are not isolated incidents, but only two of numerous cases where those, who speak out on Palestine are attacked. In September 2015 the CCR and their partner, Palestine Legal, issued a report, The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in US, documenting the increasing attempts in the US to silence and punish advocacy in favour of Palestine and speech on Israel, including BDS. The report details to the tactics and many cases studies, and is available on both of the organisations’ websites. In 2015 Palestine legal dealt with 240 cases of suppression, including false accusations of terrorism and anti-Semitism. 80% of those incidents were against students and professors at 75 campuses, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. She talks about some of these tactics and cases, such as that of the Irvine 11, who were criminally prosecuted for walking out of a speech by the-then Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren. Several schools have been given complaints by the Zionist Organisation of America, claiming that advocacy on campus for Palestinian rights creates a pro-anti-Semitism atmosphere on campus. Even though these complaints are unconstitutional, universities respond by investigating those accused and cracking down on speech.
These complaints are not only brought by the Z of A, but also the Brandeis Centre, the Ampline Centre, Sheriat Hedin, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Anti-Defamation League amongst others. Netanyahu has launched a full attack on BDS, which Israel has declared to be the biggest threat it faces. Movements to divest from Israel across America have been accused of being anti-Semitic. The American Studies Association was received death threats when they voted to endorse the call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Sheriat Hedin, the Israeli law centre, threatened to sue them if they didn’t end the boycott. Sheriat Hedin admits that it takes advice on which cases to pursue from Mossad and Israel’s National Security Council. Also in response to the ASA’s decision, legislatures around the country voted on bills to withhold state funding from colleges that used any state aid to fund academic organisations advocating a boycott of Israel. Mobilisation of public opinion prevented these bills from being passed, but now 15 states have introduced anti-boycott legislation. Some states have also passed non-binding resolutions against the BDS, but those have no legal effect. Last year (2015) Illinois passed a law demanding a black list of foreign companies that boycott Israel and compelled the state pension fund to divest from those companies. Florida passed a similar bill in 2016, which also outlaws state contracts with such companies for amounts over a million dollars. New York has even worse legislation pending.
The US Congress has introduced legislation to protect these state laws from federal pre-emption challenges, but these cannot prevent challenges under the First Amendment. Anti-Boycott provisions were introduced into the Federal Trade Promotions Authority Law, making it a priority to discourage BDS from Israel and the Occupied Territories. More information can be found about anti-BDS legislation at righttoboycott.org. Anti-BDS isn’t confined to the US. Israel has anti-boycott damages legislation and France has criminalized BDS. And people have been arrested for wearing BDS T-shirts.
She states that these laws are an extension of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. They have no defence, so they attempt to stop the debate. Free speech and free inquiry is essential to the functioning of democracy, especially at universities, and open debate helps shape public attitudes. Campus opposition helped turn the tide against the Vietnam War, Apartheid in South Africa and will eventually do the same against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. The mounting opposition to people working against the occupation and other violations of international law shows how strong the pro-Palestinian movement is, and how it will eventually win.
Last month, on the 27th August 2018, Tony Greenstein posted a piece on his blog criticizing the I newspaper for its anti-Semitism smears against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. The newspaper had published articles by two of its columnists, Simon Kelner and Ian Birrell. In one of them, Kelner attacked Labour for being anti-Semitic because it hadn’t then adopted the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism in its entirety. The other article, written by Birrell, declared that Corbyn was ‘unfit for office’ because of his presence at the anti-Zionist meeting where Hajo Meyer made his speech comparing Israel to the Nazis. Which in actual fact, wasn’t anti-Semitic.
Birrell, apart from writing for the Groaniad, Independent and the Heil, used to be a speechwriter for ‘Dodgy’ David Cameron. Greenstein describes his article as just one long ad hominem. As for Kelner, he tried to justify his recommendation of the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism by claiming that the Jewish community supported it, it was the commonly held definition, and that it seemed to him, a Jew, to be an uncontroversial document.
Greenstein points out in his article that the Jewish community has never spoken with a single, monolithic voice, that it has also been accepted by genuine anti-Semites like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Michal Kaminski and the anti-Semitic Law and Justice Party of Poland.
He also points out that the definition has also been attacked by the Director of the Sears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism, Professor David Feldman, Hugh Tomlinson, QC, and the retired appeals court judge, Sir Stephen Sedley, who is himself Jewish.
Greenstein was so outraged by these articles, that he wrote several messages of protest to the I’s editor, Oliver Duff. But surprise, surprise!, he didn’t get an answer.
Greenstein states that he has always found Kelner a superficial writer. I seem to remember that way back in the 1990s he regularly used to appear in Private Eye’s ‘Street of Shame’ column under the monicker, Simon ‘Pussy’ Kelner. No explanation was given for this soubriquet, but I do wonder whether it was because of a misogynist remark he may have made. Or perhaps it’s simply because he liked cats.
Regardless of this, his argument for demanding Labour adopts the I.H.R.A. definition simply boiled down to ‘All Jews demand it, and I’m Jewish, so I know what’s anti-Semitic’. It’s an easy argument to refute as not all Jews by any means demanded, being a member of a particular ethnic group does not necessarily give someone a privileged insight into what is or isn’t a racist slur or action against them.
It’s also extremely hypocritical for the Tories to use that argument. I can remember when the McPherson rules were first proposed, that a crime should be categorized as racist if the victim, a member of an ethnic minority, said it, the Tory papers went berserk. The Mail published articles attacking the very notion, fearing that White Brits would be smeared as racists simply on the say-so of Blacks and Asians.
In fact, as Mike has repeatedly pointed out in his article, the McPherson rules actually say no such thing. They state that if the victim believes they were racially abused or assaulted, then that is how it should be registered by the police. But the crime still has to be investigated the usual way, and it still needs to be shown that the crime was racially motivated.
In the case of the Tories’, Blairites’ and lamestream media’s attacks on Corbyn and the Labour party for anti-Semitism, absolutely none of this appears to have been done. And indeed, their is active resistance to it being done. You’re angrily smeared as an anti-Semite by the baying Zionist mob if you even dare ask for proof, as Pete Willetts did.
Although Greenstein published his article about three weeks ago, it’s still very relevant because Kelner was riding the same hobby horse again in his column this week. It’s headline proclaimed that he didn’t know he was a Jew, and was accompanied by a picture of an angry crowd all bearing placards accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism. I didn’t bother reading on. I don’t think I needed to. The headline and photo said it all. And no doubt Kelner will continue going on saying the same smears and spurious arguments for as long as the Tories believe Labour’s a threat.
Which I hope will be a very long time indeed. I look forward to Corbyn, the most anti-racist politico, getting into No. 10 to the squawking fury of Kelner, Birrell, Duff and their readers. Assuming that they still have any by then.
