We Own It Letter Writing Campaign to MPs Against NHS Privatisation

I got this message earlier this morning from anti-privatisation, pro-NHS group We Own It, requesting me and their other supporters to send a form letter to our local MPs calling for an end to the privatisation of the NHS. I’ve had absolutely no problem doing so, and it’s actually very easy. The letter is already written and all you need to do is add your name, address and a ‘Yours sincerely’ at the end. As I’ve said before, my local MP is Karin Smyth, who became a Labour politician because she so despised what the Tories are doing to the Health Service. However, she is also a Starmerite and I honestly don’t know what she will do if he continues the Blairite privatisation of the NHS. I sent her an email a little while ago offering her one of my self-published books against NHS privatisation, and haven’t received a reply. I don’t know if that’s significant. If you’re as worried and angry at the destruction of the Health Service as I am, please respond to We Own It’s message and send a letter of your own.

Here’s their email, giving their very strong reasons for opposing privatisation. Not least is the fact that it kills.

‘Dear David,

What an incredible action on Saturday!

Hundreds of people like you sent a powerful message in the heart of Westminster: NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.

Now you can increase the impact of that message all around the UK by sending a message to your MP.

Regardless of which party your MP is from, or whether they support or oppose NHS privatisation – they need to know you that you are saying “NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS”.

Take just 3 minutes to make sure your MP gets the message

You’ve already had an impact in your fight against NHS privatisation:

• Pictures and videos from Saturday’s action as well as your pictures of taking action at home with the hashtag #NHSPrivatisationKills have been seen almost a million times across social media
• Your action made it onto the front pages of the Morning Star
• We went on GB News and LBC Radio to talk about your action and make the case to an audience who would normally not hear that message
• Stephen Fry’s message in support of your action received coverage in over 100 local and national press outlets before Saturday.
• Our new polling has shown that two-thirds of the public are WITH YOU in being concerned by NHS privatisation and wanting the NHS reinstated as a fully public service
• Because of your action, we have now established an open line of communication with the office of the Shadow Health Secretary, which will allow us to put the case to him that opposing NHS privatisation is popular with voters, cheaper and safer for patients

Now let’s take that impact even further by making sure our MPs get the message.

It doesn’t matter whether your MP is Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, SNP, Plaid or independent. They need to hear about this action and know that you are saying that NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.

Send your MP the email now

Saturday’s powerful action was only the first step in our game plan.

We’ve known for years that NHS privatisation is wasteful, costly, inefficient and bad for patients.

But now with the Oxford University study that links NHS privatisation to 557 preventable deaths between 2013 and 2020, you’re raising the stakes and showing that NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.

Getting the message that NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS out there will put politicians that support NHS privatisation on the defensive.

They will have to explain to the public why they continue to push for privatisation when they know that it leads to deaths.

And we all know that there are no good reasons to privatise services in our NHS.

The key is to make sure your MP – whatever their party and wherever you are in the UK – knows that you are saying NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.

Send your MP the email and let them know

You have consistently stood up for our NHS and opposed NHS privatisation. We simply can’t thank you enough!

Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, Michael – the We Own It team’

Striking Teachers Describe Lack of Resources and Underfunding

Last week Britain’s teachers joined the other workers in taking strike action over decades of poor pay and increasingly deteriorating conditions. And naturally, the right-wing media and YouTubers sneered and complained. One berk who phoned up Mike Graham on LBC radio claimed to have been married to a teacher, but that they were actually well-paid with plenty of spare time and holidays. This was pounced on immediately by various left-wing YouTubers, who pointed out that teachers don’t have plenty of spare time, because they’re still required to work after the official end of the school day, on things like sports and so on. Plus they have to take the kids’ schoolwork home for marking. This means that in practice they’re working much longer than their official hours. I know, as my mother was one. Another pratt appeared on GB News or some other right-wing internet news channel to claim that they were being selfish and should put up with low wages like others were doing. But, he said, he would have been prepared to support them if they had been striking over the poor conditions and state of Britain’s schools. Michael Walker of Novara Media pulled that one to shreds, stating that teachers couldn’t actually do that by law. Current British legislation states that workers can only strike over pay and conditions, not over anything else.

But the state of Britain’s schools has always been a major concern to teachers aside from their own personal interests. It was one of the reasons behind the teachers’ strike when Thatcher was in power in the 1980s, and it’s a major cause of their discontent now. I also found a video on YouTube, in which they describe how underfunded schools are and the shortages of necessary teaching equipment and resources this causes. I can’t put it up here, as I’ve since lost it unfortunately, but I hope you’ll accept what I’m saying.

Schools have been underfunded and teachers poorly paid for a very long time, because Thatcherite ideology doesn’t like state education. Hence the transition of schools from the state sector, run by the local authority, to academies, managed by private companies. The companies owning them are often in tax havens, and these schools are frequently no better than the state management they replace. In fact many were so dreadful themselves that the chains running them collapsed and they had to be taken back into state management. But this hasn’t deterred the Tories. A few years ago, mad-eyed Nikki Morgan wanted to bring back grammar schools and but that was quashed. The idea is still out there, however, floating around on the right.

The point here is that teachers aren’t just striking for themselves, but because they are acutely aware of how poorly the state education sector is being treated by decades of Thatcherite mismanagement, cuts and underfunding. They aren’t striking because they want to harm the education of the children they teach by stopping work, but to force the government into treating schools fairly.

There’s also a class element there as well. Private school fees have rocketed while funding of state schools has remained level. This means that the rich are receiving a much more expensive, and presumably better education, than state pupils. This may allow them to position themselves as in a natural position to take up top jobs and social positions than all those pesky state students.

So when you hear the Tories whinge about teachers, remember: they want state schools and their staff to be poor, so that their pupils will always remain, compared to them, at the back of the class in terms of jobs and prospects.

My Letter to Councillors Lake and Craig About their Slavery Reparations Motion

Last week Bristol city council passed a motion supporting the payment of reparations for slavery to Black Britons. The motion was brought by Cleo Lake, a Green councillor for Cotham, and seconded by Asher Craig, the city’s deputy mayor and head of equality. Lake stated that it was to include everyone of ‘Afrikan’ descent as shown by her preferred spelling of the word with a K. She claimed this was the original spelling of the continent before it was changed by White Europeans. The reparations themselves would not be a handout, but instead funding for schemes to improve conditions for the Black community to put them in a position of equality with the rest of society. The schemes were to be guided and informed by the Black communities themselves.

This is all well and good, and certainly comes from the best of motives. But it raises a number of issues that rather complicate matters. Apart from her eccentric spelling, which looks to me like Afrocentric pseudohistory, there is the matter of who should be the proper recipient of these payments. Arguably, it should not include as Africans, as it was African kingdoms and chiefs who actually did the dirty business of raiding for slaves and selling them to European and American merchants.

Then there is the fact that the payment of reparations for slavery in the instance also sets a general principle that states that every nation that has engaged in slaving should pay reparations to its victims. So, are the Arab countries and India also going to pay reparations for their enslavement of Black Africans, which predates the European slave trade? Are Morocco and Algeria, the home countries of the Barbary pirates, going to pay reparations for the 2 1/2 million White Europeans they carried off into slavery?

And what about contemporary slavery today? Real slavery has returned in Africa with slave markets being opened by Islamists in their areas of Libya and in Uganda. What steps are being taken to counter this, or is the city council just interested in historic European slavery? And what measures are being taken by the council to protect modern migrants from enslavement? A few years ago a Gloucestershire farmer was prosecuted for enslaving migrant labourers, as have other employers across the UK. And then there is the problem of sex trafficking and the sexual enslavement of migrant women across the world, who are frequently lured into it with the lie that they will be taken to Europe and given proper, decent employment. What steps is the council taking to protect them?

I also don’t like the undercurrent of anti-White racism in the motion. By including Africans, Lake and Craig are attempting to build up and promote a unified Black British community by presenting the enslavement of Black Africans as something that was only done by Whites. This is not only historically wrong, but it promotes racism against Whites. I’ve heard Black Bristolians on the bus talking to their White friends about other Whites they know in the Black majority parts of Bristol, who are suffering racist abuse. Sasha Johnson, the leader of Black Lives Matter in Oxford, was thrown off Twitter for advocating the enslavement of Whites. Lake’s and Craig’s motion, while well meant, seems dangerous in that it has the potential to increase Black racism towards Whites, not lessen it.

I therefore sent the following letter to councillors Lake and Craig yesterday. So far the only answer I’ve received is an automatic one from Asher Craig. This simply states that she’s receiving a large amount of messages recently and so it may take some time before she answers it. She also says she won’t respond to any message in which she’s been copied. As I’ve sent the email to both her and Lake, it wouldn’t surprise me if this means that I don’t get a reply at all from her. Councillor Lake hasn’t sent me any reply at all. Perhaps she’s too busy.

I do wonder if, by writing this letter, I’m setting myself up for more condescension and gibes about my race and gender by Craig and Lake. When I Craig a letter expressing my concerns about the comments she made about Bristol and slavery on the Beeb, which I believed were flatly untrue, I did get a reply. This simply asserted that I wouldn’t make such comments if I had heard the whole interview, but gave no further information. It ended by telling me that their One Bristol schools curriculum would promote Black Bristolians, both Caribbean and African. They would be inclusive, ‘which hasn’t always happened with White men, I’m afraid’. So no facts, no proper answers, just evasions and the implication that I was somehow being racist and sexist, because I’m a White man.

Nevertheless, I believe very strongly that these a real issues that need to be challenged, rather than ignored or simply gone along with for the sake of a quiet life, or the desire to be seen to be doing the right thing.

I blogged about this a few days ago, and will write something further about any reply I receive, or the absence of one. As I said, I feel I’m setting myself up for patronising sneers and evasions from them, but it will be interesting to read what they have to say.

Dear Madam Councillors,

Congratulations on the passage of your motion last week calling for the payment of reparations for slavery to the Black British community. I am writing to you not to take issue with the question of paying reparations and certainly not with your aim of creating a sustainable process, led and guided by Black communities themselves, to improve conditions for the Black British community. What I wish to dispute here is the inclusion of Black Africans as equal victims of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as other issues raised by your motion.. Black Africans were not just victims of transatlantic slavery..  They were also trading partners, both of ourselves and the other nations and ethnicities involved in the abominable trade.

I’d first like to question Councillor Lake’s assertion that Africa was originally spelt with a ‘K’ and that Europeans changed it to a ‘C’. We use the Latin alphabet, which the Romans developed from the Etruscans, both of which cultures were majority White European. I am not aware of any African culture using the Latin alphabet before the Roman conquest of north Africa. The ancient Egyptians and Nubians used hieroglyphs, the Berber peoples have their own ancient script, Tufinaq, while Ge’ez and Amharic, the languages of Christian Ethiopia, also have their own alphabet. The Coptic language, which is the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language, uses the Greek alphabet with some characters taken from Demotic Egyptian. And the Arabic script and language was used by the Muslim African cultures before the European conquest of the continent. I am therefore at a loss to know where the assertion that Africans originally spelt the name of themselves and their continent with a ‘K’.

Regarding the issue of Africans receiving reparations for slavery, it existed in the continent long before the development of the transatlantic slave trade in the 15^th century. For example, in the early Middle Ages West African kingdoms were using slaves in a form of plantation agriculture to grow cotton and foodstuffs. Black Africans were also enslaved by the Arabs and Berbers of North Africa, and the first Black slaves imported into Europe were taken to al-Andalus, Muslim Spain. And when the European transatlantic slave trade arose, it was carried on not just by Europeans but also by powerful African states such as Dahomey, Whydah, Badagry and others in West Africa. These states were responsible for enslaving the surrounding peoples and selling them to European and later American slave merchants. There were occasional slave raids by Europeans themselves, as was done by Jack Hawkins. But mostly the European slave traders were confined to specific quarters in the West African city states, which were sufficiently strong to prevent European expansion inland.

The British mostly took their slaves from West Africa. In eastern Africa the slave trade was conducted by the Arabs, Portuguese and the Dutch, who transported them to their colonies further east in what is now Indonesia. There was also a trade in African slaves in the 19^th century by merchants from India. It was also carried out by east African peoples such as the Ngoni, Yao, Balowoka, Swahili and Marganja. These peoples strongly resisted British efforts to suppress the slave trade. In the late 1820s one of the west African slaving nations attacked a British trading post with the aim of forcing the British to resume the trade. In the 1850s the British fought a war against King Guezo of Dahomey with the intention of stamping out slaving by this west African state. In the 1870s the British soldier, Samuel Baker, was employed by the Khedive Ismail of Egypt to suppress Arab slaving in what is now the Sudan and parts of Uganda. The campaign to suppress the slave trade through military force formed part of the rationale for the British invasion of the continent in the Scramble for Africa. But it was also to protect their newly acquired territories in the Sudan and Uganda from slave-raiding by the Abyssinians that the British also launched a punitive expedition into that nation. And the Mahdi’s rebellion in the Sudan, in which General Gordon was killed, was partly caused by the British authorities’ attempts to ban the slave trade and slavery there.

In addition to the use of force, the British also attempted to stamp it out through negotiations. Talks were opened and treaties made with African kings as well as the Imam of Muscat, the suzerain of the east African slave depots and city states, including Zanzibar and Pemba. Subsidies were also paid to some African rulers in order to pay them off from slaving.

I am sure you are aware of all of this. But regrettably none of it seems to have been mentioned in the motion, and this greatly complicates the issue of reparations for slavery. Firstly, there is the general question of whether any Africans should receive compensation for slavery because of the active complicity of African states. So great has this historic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade been that one commenter said that when it came to reparations, it should be Africans compensating western Blacks. Even if it’s conceded that reparations should be paid to Africans for slavery, this, it could be argued, should only apply to some Africans. Those African nations from which we never acquired our slaves should not be compensated, as we were not responsible for their enslavement or the enslavement of other Africans.

When it comes to improving conditions and achieving equality for Bristol and Britain’s Black communities, I do appreciate that Africans may be as underprivileged and as subject to racism as Afro-Caribbeans. I don’t dispute here either that they should also receive official aid and assistance. What is questionable is including them in reparations for slavery. It should be done instead, in my view, with a package of affirmative action programmes, of which reparations for slavery for people of West Indian heritage is one component. This would mixed amongst other aid policies that equally cover all sections of the Black community. I am not trying to create division here, only suggest ways in which the issue of reparations should in accordance with the actual historical roles of the individual peoples involved in the slave trade.

And this is another matter that concerns me about this motion. It seeks to simplify the African slave trade into White Europeans preying upon Black Africans. It appears to be an attempt to promote a united Black community by placing all the blame for slavery and the slave trade on Whites. This is completely ahistorical and, I believe, dangerous. It allows those states that were involved to cover up their involvement in the slave trade and creates hostility against White British. The Conservative journalist Peter Hitchens, speaking on LBC radio a few weeks ago, described how an Ethiopian taxi driver told him that he hated the British, because we were responsible for slavery. He was completely unaware of his own cultures participation in slavery and the enslavement of other African peoples. I’m sure you are also aware that Sasha Johnson, the leader of Black Lives Matter Oxford and the founder of the Taking the Initiative Party, was thrown off Twitter for a tweet advocating the enslavement of Whites: ‘The White man will not be our equal. He will be our slave. History is changing’. I am also concerned about possible prejudice being generated against White members of majority Black communities. I have heard Black Bristolians telling their White friends about the abuse other White people they know get in some  majority Black or Asian parts of Bristol because of their colour. I appreciate the need to protect Black Bristolians from prejudice and abuse, but feel that this also needs to be extended to Whites. Racism can be found in people of all colours.

The lack of discussion of African involvement in the slave trade also concerns me just as a matter of general education. Councillor Craig said in an interview on BBC television during the BLM protests that she would like a museum of slavery in Bristol, just as there is in Liverpool and Nantes. I feel very strongly that any such museum should put it in its proper, global context. White Europeans enslaved Black Africans, yes, but slavery was never exclusive to White Europeans. Other nations and races throughout the world were also involved.

The question of reparations also brings up the issue of possible payments for White enslavement and the question of measures to suppress the resurgence of slavery in Africa. As you are no doubt aware, White Europeans also suffered enslavement by north African pirates from Morocco and Algeria. It is believed about 2 ½ million Europeans were thus carried off. This includes people from Bristol and the West Country. If Britain should pay compensation to Blacks for enslaving them, then by the same logic these nations should pay White Britons reparations for their enslavement. Would you therefore support such a motion? And do you also agree that the Muslim nations, that also enslaved Black Africans, such as Egypt and the Ottoman Turkish Empire, as well as Morocco, should also pay reparations to the descendants of the people they enslaved?

Apart from Britain’s historic role in the slave trade, there is also the matter of the resurgence of slavery in Africa today. Slave markets have been opened in Islamist-held Libya and Uganda. I feel it would be unjust to concentrate on the historic victims of slavery to the exclusion of its modern, recent victims, and hope you agree. What steps should Bristol take to help suppress it today, and support asylum seekers, who may have come to the city fleeing such enslavement?

This also applies to the resurgence of slavery in Britain. There have been cases of migrant labourers being enslaved by their employers in Gloucestershire, as well as the problem of sex trafficking. What steps is the city taking to protect vulnerable workers and immigrants here?

I hope you will appreciate the need for proper education in Bristol about the city’s role in the slave trade and the involvement of other nations, one that does not lead to a simplistic blaming of all of it on White Europeans, as well as the question the issue of reparations raises about the culpability of other nations, who may also be responsible for paying their share.

Yours faithfully,

Mysterious Vanishing Tories – An Import from Australia

Okay, this is just hearsay, but it suggests what and who’s responsible for the Tory strategy of running away from interviews. And that person is their election strategist, Linton Crosby.

Thursday evening I put up a little piece commenting on the very low profile adopted by Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Tories had been keeping him well away from the cameras and the microphones after he had massively put his foot in his mouth about the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire on LBC radio. Mogg was due to appear at a hustings in Midsomer Norton, but considering his record of not appearing in public, there was speculation that he wouldn’t.

Of course, Mogg isn’t alone in his reluctance to talk to the media. Trev, one of the great commenters on this blog, posted a couple of remarks about other Tory candidates also running away. Like the one for Colne Valley, who apparently declared that he avoids meetings with a left-wing bias. The site reporting this is

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/jason-mccartney-explains-hasnt-attended-17364450.

But be warned! It’s behind a paywall.

And the Sidmouth Herald also reported that a Tory down there had also pulled out of a hustings.

https://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/conservative-candidate-pulls-out-of-hustings-1-6406694

And last Wednesday Mike also reported how the Tory candidate for Peterborough, Paul Bristow, ran away from Channel 4. They wanted to ask him about a possible threat from Brexit, but this was obviously too much for the Tory’s delicate constitution.

Terrified Tories are running from media scrutiny

The Russians say that a fish rots from the head down, and that’s certainly true of the Tories. They only seem to be following the lead of their chief, our unfunny comedy prime minister, Boorish Boris Johnson. Johnson runs away from interviews at a rate of knots. he has signally failed to turn up to be mauled by Andrew Neil and ducked out of Channel 4’s climate debate. And to think that the Tories had the gall to accuse Jeremy Corbyn of being chicken.

I was talking to a friend about this, and he remarked that it’s how the parties campaign in Australia. They don’t give interviews, just keep their heads down and smear each other. I don’t know if it’s correct, but if it is, it’s something that the Tories have decided to import over here. And the person most likely to be responsible for it is Linton Crosby. Before he become the Tories’ electoral strategist under Tweezer, he was one of the major electoral strategists for their equivalent Down Under. Now it seems that after destroying proper democratic debate there, he’s importing the same policy of silence and smear here.

But what does it say about the Tories’ style of government, that they just lie and smear their opponents from running away from real scrutiny and honest debate themselves? Would you trust such dishonest cowards in government?

Jacob Rees-Mogg Denies Endorsing Far Right Alternative Fuer Deutschland

From the Israeli far Right to the British sort. Jacob Rees-Mogg was in the I today, 2nd April 2019, denying that he had endorsed Germany’s far right Alternative Fuer Deutschland. Mogg had yesterday reposted one of their videos stating that it was no wonder Britain saw bad faith behind every move from Brussels. The article in the I, entitled ‘Rees-Mogg denies far-right support’, runs

Jacob Rees-Mogg has denied supporting a German far-right party after he was criticised for sharing a speech by its leader.

The MP said that the address by Alice Weidel of the Alternative for German (sic) (AfD) party was “of real importance” because it showed a “German view of Brexit”. He shared a clip of the speech on social media. Labour MP David Lammy accused him of “promoting Germany’s overtly racist AfD party”.

Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC radio: “I’m not supporting the AfD, but this is a speech made in the Bundestag of real importance because it shows a German view.” (p. 7).

Zelo Street covered this story when it broke yesterday. In the Sage of Crewe’s account, one of those stating that Mogg had indeed endorsed the far right outfit was Jeremy Cliffe, of the Economist, who described the AfD as ‘racist’. This statement might carry more weight for Tories, as the Economist is the magazine of right-wing free market orthodoxy. The article in Zelo Street also drew on a feature from last September’s Suddeutscher Zeitung to show precisely what kind of party the AfD was. Bjorn Hocke, the leader of the AfD in the Bundestag, was at a demonstration in Chemnitz with Lutz Bachmann, the founder of the rabidly islamophobic movement, Pegida. And that February, Pegida chiefs had visited a convention of the Saxon branch of the AfD in Hoyerswerda. The newly elected state chairman, Jorg Urban, had declared that the two organisations had similar goals, and that AfD state organisations should decide independently whether to work with Pegida.

Musa Okwongo also posted comments on Twitter stating that the AfD has also asked for the reintroduction of Nazi terminology to political discourse, and made speeches that one political commentator in the Bundesrepublik called ‘full-on neo-Nazi’. I’m not remotely surprised. A few months ago I put up a piece about an article in the American radical magazine and website, Counterpunch, on the Alternative fuer Deutschland. That article presented very extensive evidence that the AfD was viciously racist with Nazi connections. Some of its financial backers, who live outside Germany, have connections going back to Nazi Germany. Not only does the party hate and vilify Muslims and other immigrants, it has demanded the return of reichsburgerschaft. This is the Nazi doctrine that only White, ethnic Germans should be citizens, somewhat similar to the NF/BNP doctrine of racial nationalism. Leading members of the AfD have also attacked Germany’s Holocaust memorial as ‘a national shame’, and one has gone so far as saying that if they get into power, they would open ‘underground trains to Auschwitz’. Which sounds very much like they’d like a return of the Holocaust.

Zelo Street’s article also reports that Pegida also has connections to Tommy Robinson. Well, I think Robinson did found, or at least try to get into, Pegida UK. Lutz Bachmann has been friends with Robinson ever since the two met in Tenerife, where Robinson was having a holiday with his family and Bachmann has a holiday home.

Zelo Street also points out that this isn’t the first time Mogg has had connections with the far Right. Way back in 2013, when the Observer embarrassed him by reporting that he had been guest of honour at the annual dinner of the Traditional Britain Group. They’re a far-right, anti-immigrant outfit in the Tory party, whose leaders also have an unpleasant fixation with the Nazis. Mogg had been warned not to attended, but he dismissed the warnings as a smear. He claimed that he checked with Tory HQ, who told him they had nothing on them. Zelo Street comments that this is no excuse, as enough was known about the TBG at the time for Mogg to have known to keep well away. But he didn’t, and so it’s no surprise that he’s now again genuflecting before the far right.

The article concludes

Jacob Rees Mogg gave Traditional Britain Group, a deeply unpleasant convocation of racists and xenophobes, a legitimacy it did not, and does not, merit. He’s now begun to flirt with a group linked directly to the far-right both in its native Germany, and here in the UK.

Yet he remains an ostensibly mainstream Tory MP, is talked of as a candidate for high office, and his views are eagerly sought by media outlets. I’ll just leave that one there.

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/04/rees-mogg-endorses-racists-again.html

The situation becomes much worse when you consider that Mogg is a member of the European Research Group, along with Boris Johnson, who were reported a few days ago as calling themselves ‘Grand Wizards’. As any fule kno, this is one of the grades in the Ku Klux Klan. Laura Kuenssberg, who reported this, then tried to backtrack after it sparked understandable outrage. First she said that the information came from only two sources, and then that the ERG didn’t realise the Fascist connotations of the term when they thought of it. Which I frankly don’t believe. The Tories have a very long history of right-wing individuals dressing up as or behaving like Nazis, even when they don’t have real links to the far right. Like back in the 1980s when the Union of Conservative Students was singing ‘We Don’t Want No Blacks or Asians’ and ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ and demanding the introduction of racial nationalism as official Tory policy. And then there were the various members of the aristocracy and Tory party, who formed pro-Nazi organisations just prior to the Second World War like the Link and the Anglo-German Fellowship.

If this had been done by someone in the Labour party, there would have been no question that they would have been attacked as a racist and their expulsion demanded. Corbyn did the most of all the party leaders to campaign for remaining in the EU, but he was still pilloried for supposedly not giving his absolute support to the Remain campaign. At the same time, the Right and the Israel lobby are still trying to oust him from the Labour leadership by claiming that he is not doing enough to combat the nonexistent wave of anti-Semitism in the Labour party.

But as Zelo Street has pointed out, Mogg has been now caught several times in connection with the far right, first with the TBG and now with the AfD. But he’s still being considered as a respectable Tory ready for high office, and a suitable subject for media interviews.

This shows exactly the alarming double standards about Fascism and racism in both the Tories and the media. 

No, Hodge, It Is Violence Against the Left that Is Increasing!

Yesterday, the Beeb covered the story that the Met police are now investigating accusations of anti-Semitism against members of the Labour party. The investigation is based on a dossier of such incidents, which was leaked to LBC Radio, who have now passed it on to police commissioner Cressida Dick. Mike wrote a piece about it yesterday welcoming the move, as it means that these accusations will have to be investigated according to proper police procedure and law. This means that while such incidents will be registered as a hate crime, they will still have to be investigated and held to the same standard of proof as any other criminal investigation. An action cannot be considered anti-Semitic solely because a Jewish person says it is.

And Mike also draws attention to the way he was smeared by someone leaking information to the press from within the Labour party. And that he has spent the last nine months trying to defend his good name. He is now due to appear before a hearing, and is also appealing to people to contribute to his crowdfunding campaign, so that he can afford to sue those responsible for libel.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/11/02/met-police-investigation-into-alleged-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-in-the-labour-party-is-a-welcome-move/

The Beeb, which has shown itself to be committed to repeating the anti-Semitism smears against the Labour party sent in walrus-moustached John Pienaar to report on the story. Pienaar’s also shown himself all-too willing to repeat the smears uncritically. This time he interviewed Margaret Hodge, who had slithered out from whatever hole she’d been hiding in after she got a drubbing the last time she smeared Corbyn.

Hodge told Pienaar that there was a problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour party, and Jews like her now lived in fear of their lives. This was the woman, who managed to outrage Jews, people of Jewish descent, and gentiles, who had experienced persecution by the Nazis, or had relatives who had. Hodge, remember, had called Corbyn a ‘F***ing anti-Semite’ in parliament, a disciplinary offence. When she was threatened with it, which was later dropped, Hodge showed herself to be a massive self-pitying narcissist by declaring that she felt like the Jews in Nazi Germany did waiting for a knock on the door from the Gestapo.

Utter, utter, offensive, mendacious rubbish.

As the people on Twitter reminded everyone, including Tom London and the blogger Tom Pride, her experience was NOTHING like the terror the Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution felt and experienced.

Way back in September, Martin Odoni wrote in his blog, the Critique Archives, a piece about how in fact violence against the Left was growing. Martin’s a friend of Mike’s blog, and a critic of Israel’s vile maltreatment of the Palestinians. He, like very many other critics of Israel, is Jewish. Which makes him a special target of the Israel lobby, who have an especial hatred of anti-Zionist or Israel-critical Jews.

Martin reported how a screening of the film about Jackie Walker’s suspension from the Labour party for anti-Semitism, and her attempts to clear her name at a fringe event at the Labour conference in Liverpool had to be called off due to a bomb scare. Later that week, he was in The Caledonian pub in the same city, discussing Israel and Palestine with other Labour party members and supporters, when this meeting too was subjected to another bomb scare. They reasoned that it was another false one, however, and carried on with their evening.

He then moves on to a far more serious case in which a young woman, Jade Unal, and her mother were abused and attacked in a pub in Wakefield, west Yorkshire. Unal is an activist and local campaign manager for Young Labour. She and her mother were drinking quietly when a group of people came up and assaulted them. Jade was called “a posh c*nt in politics, that’s stuck up your own a*se” and a paedophile. Her head was then smashed against the bar, raising a lump and leaving a gash that required hospital treatment. The gang also followed her and her mother home, and threatened to torch their house. Martin shows the photographs of the wounds, with a warning about how grim they are.

Martin goes on to make the point that she was attacked because she was a Labour Leftist, but has received precious little help from the authorities. The police took her complaint, but have done anything further to help her or find her assailants. Jade also tried to get the help of social services, as her attackers had children with them. But she didn’t get any help there, either. And the Labour party itself has done nothing to help her, beyond the support she is receiving from her circle of friends.

Martin compares this with the massive attention given to the Blairites, who have claimed that they have suffered threats of attack. He writes

In short, while I do not wish to sound over-dramatic, the British Left is currently facing growing aggression and threatening behaviour from other parts of the political spectrum. That aggression is largely being overlooked or misrepresented. When Labour centrists complain about ‘bullying’ and ‘victimisation’, as I have pointed out before, they seem highly selective over which victims they care about. Hence, an almighty ker-fuffle is made over the very obviously faked and theatrical ‘bodyguard’ requirements of Luciana Berger this week. But there is a muted reaction, or no reaction at all, when a young woman in the party is actually beaten up for her political persuasion, and when party meetings are threatened with bomb attacks.

I am not in any doubt that there are some violent, over-aggressive leftists out there. But the Left is not the aggressor here. It is the target. And it is time that it was made clear to the public at large just how dangerous the aggression is getting.

And in addendum to his piece, Martin also talks about the criticism he has received for using an image of far-right violence in Germany as a link to the article on Twitter and Facebook. His detractors believe it is inappropriate. Martin explains it is all too appropriate, because far right violence is growing. He himself was threatened with murder on social media by one of Tommy Robinson’s supporters. Tommy Robinson is the monicker of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the infamous Islamophobe and founder of the EDL, who was banged up for contempt of court.

Martin concludes

Okay, maybe I should have been more explicit, but my point was, if people are bothered about political violence, why are so many of them looking for it on the left, when all of this is happening on the right?

Sounds perfectly consistent with what is in this article? I would say so.

Absolutely. But the lamestream media does not want to talk at all about the real and rising violence against the left, preferring to indulge the fantasies and posturing of people like Hodge. It’s just another example of the completely corrupt nature of the Beeb and the rest of the media, who are determined to slander Corbyn supporters as anti-Semites. And in their way, they are responsible for promoting and inciting this violence against the left.

UKIP’s Alliance with the Extreme Right in the European Parliament

I reblogged earlier today Mike’s piece on Farage’s grilling by LBC radio’s James O’Brien, in which he was asked some uncomfortable questions about racism and homophobia within the party, and Farage’s own comments about feeling uncomfortable in a railway carriage in which the was the person speaking English. He was also asked another awkward question about the party’s association with the parties of extreme Right, despite UKIP itself boasting of being a non-racist, non-sectarian party, which refuses to admit members of the BNP. Mike wrote

There was an implication that Farage, who has banned former members of the BNP from joining UKIP in an effort to protect the party from adverse publicity, has himself associated with the far-right organisation; and a question over the far-right parties with which UKIP sits in the European Parliament. Farage said UKIP would not sit with people who didn’t have a reasonable point of view but O’Brien flagged up a member of the group who had said the ideas of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, Islamophobe, Anti-Semite and anti-feminist, were “in defence of Western civilisation”.

Farage’s paper-thin defence was that the European political discourse was very different to the UK, (again) an admission that his party had encountered problems with “one or two members”, and a reference to problems in other parties (the Conservatives, on this occasion)

O’Brien leapt on this: “Your defence so far is that you’re no different from any other political party and yet your unique selling point … is that you are different.”

One of Mike’s commenters, HStorm, pointed out the hypocrisy in Farage’s attitude:

‘Farage’s paper-thin defence was that the European political discourse was very different to the UK, (again) an admission that his party had encountered problems with “one or two members”, and a reference to problems in other parties (the Conservatives, on this occasion)’

I find it amusing that an anti-European separatist, who is uncomfortable sitting on a train on which people dare to speak in other languages, should pontificate in the name of how political discourse is carried out in other parts of Europe. Surely if he prefers the notion that freedom-of-speech-equals-no-consequences-for-irresponsible-speech then he should live in precisely those countries that, he says, practise that manner of discourse. And yet he wants the UK to distance itself from them?

Why do so few people spot this enormous paradox in his position?

Farage’s comments about political discourse being different in other parts of Europe, thus allowing his party to join the same bloc as extreme Nationalist parties like the Danish People’s Party and the True Finns is also wrong and weak. It’s true to say that many of the other European countries don’t have the same culture of political correctness that there is in Britain. A Danish friend of mine told me that in Scandinavia non-Whites are regarded with a suspicion and hostility that he felt didn’t exist to the same extent in Britain. The Independent’s Yasmin Alibhai-Brown ten years ago described in her column the personal hostility she encountered as an Asian when she and her family went on holiday in France. I’ve also heard from others how the shops in some areas, like the south of France, will refuse to serve Arabs. Having said that, Alibhai-Brown has also written about how she and her family were treated well with no hint of racism when they went on another holiday across La Manche. And in the 1980s there was a national anti-racist movement amongst the young, when White youths showed solidarity with the Arab compatriots under a slogan, which translated as ‘Don’t Touch My Buddy’. This was initially directed against nightclubs, which refused to admit Arabs.

Yet even in those countries, where it has been alleged that racism is more widespread than in Britain, the extreme Right is still very definitely not respectable. The Financial Times also described in one of its columns how the Germans also don’t share the Anglo-American culture of political correctness. Nevertheless, there are naturally very strong laws in Germany against Nazism. At least one Neo-Nazi party, the NPD, was banned for a time in the 1970s under the Basic Law as an anti-democratic force for an article it published in its newspaper celebrating Hitler’s birthday. One of the more amusing ways Germans have taken to express their very strong hatred of the new, extreme Right is through mass demonstrations taking the mick out of them. Paul Merton covered one of these in his travel programme a few years ago journeying through the land of Kant, Goethe, and Wagner.

This is the anti-apple movement, the members of which were shown gathering outside one of the Neo-Nazi parties’ HQs in Berlin. There the protestors held up placards showing apples with the ‘banned’ symbol stamped across them, and shouted slogans about deporting apples, like ‘Sudfruchte Raus!’ – ‘Southern Fruits Out!’. The protest was organised by the politics professor at the University, who was very definitely no kind of Nazi. I found out later that the head of one of the Neo-Nazi organisations named had the element, ‘Apfel’, ‘apple’, and I have the impression that foreign immigrants of African ancestry are referred to as ‘southerners’. Hence the slogans about southern fruit. It’s a way of parodying the Neo-Nazis own racism and xenophobia, while turning into a very pointed attack on their Fuhrer.

Put simply, the growing popularity on the continent of parties like the True Finns, the Danish People’s Party, or the Front National in France doesn’t make them any more respectable in their countries, let alone over here. As an ostensibly anti-racist party, UKIP certainly is under no obligation to sit with them or form blocs with them in the European parliament.