A far right bingo card: Freedom of speech

One of the biggest ironies to come out of the modern far right is their claim to support the principles of freedom of speech. Of course, these modern incarnations of Nazi and fascist bully boys have no interest in freedom of speech at all. They only want freedom for their own speech. This is a far cry from the lofty ideal attributed to Voltaire (but never actually written by him)…

“I disagree with what you have to say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.”

On the contrary these snowflakes are so frightened of other peoples’ words they’re actually prepared to fight to the death to remove their right to say it. That’s not freedom of speech – that’s the key stepping stone on the way to authoritarianism, totalitarianism and dictatorship.

It’s no coincidence that in George Orwell’s fictional, fascist Britain, ‘1984’ control of the people began with control of the language and with the topics that could be discussed. That’s how fascism progresses.

If you really care about Freedom of speech, stop clamouring for the death penalty for those who disagree with you and who dare to say so out loud. Have a look at the short video linked to this post. Then you might understand why so many of us on the left are so tired of your snowflakery and your constant attempt to turn UK into a giant ‘safe-space’ where nobody disagrees with you.

https://youtu.be/6G3CiqI2UY0

I’m English and no traitor?

I love the England I was born into. I’ve lived here all my life and lived and/or worked in every county in England and Scotland. I know my country and its people well.

And I’m sick and tired of people who want to destroy this great culture claiming that I’m the traitor.

If you have to lie…

If you have to lie to make your point, your point isn’t worth making!

It’s late October and the next seasonal slight against British Muslims is making the rounds again. Year after year, from Facebook to Breitbart the same old crap is posited in Memes and articles. And year after year those of us with more than a handful of cranial axons to work with find ourselves responding.

Like Canute before the ocean we strive to hold back the growing Tsunami of deceit and discrimination as wave after wave of far right bollocks finds its way into our ‘news’ feeds. This is no mere paddling pool of right wing bollocks – this is a full blown flood complete with alt-right lies that really ought to be easy for even the least well-informed citizen to disprove. Unless, of course, they want it to be true.

The Royal British Legion is gearing up its annual poppy appeal, a yearly fundraising drive that will reach its zenith at cenotaphs across the nation at the striking of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. A moment of reflection when we remember and feel gratitude for the sacrifices of so many who gave their lives first in the Great war and then 20 years later in the struggle against totalitarian fascism. It’s the moment when we recall the great price paid by men and women of every race and creed to safeguard our democracy, our liberty and our right to survive.

And as we remember that sacrifice we owe it to those brave heroes to remember that diversity. In particular, given the toxic lies currently circulating on social media, we need to remember the many Muslim martyrs who lost their lives defending our freedom, our liberal democracy. They gave their lives so that we might be free.

So remember – when your auntie Mabel shares a meme claiming that Muslims are offended by the poppy or the flag to put her right. When some bloke at the social club holds court about ungrateful Muzzies not liking to be reminded of the proud Brits who fought for this country, when the loudmouthed dickhead Gammon in the beer garden makes speeches about deporting unpatriotic Moose limbs who disrespect our war dead let them know loud and clear.

Many of the war dead they revere so much were themselves Muslims. Indeed, without Muslim and Indian sepoys we might well have lost – twice! Many British Muslim families will be remembering their own British war dead this November. So make sure you speak out and let the Gammony bigots know just how ridiculous they sound when they claim that Muslims are offended by the Poppy.

It’s their poppy too, for fuck’s sake!

Fixing Fash fatigue

It’s a common phenomenon. Sick and tired of hearing far right tropes at work, in the pub, on social media and pretty much everywhere else, decent people, armed with only a sense of justice and the best of intentions eventually decide that is enough is enough and decide to give the Fash a piece of their mind. And then the trouble starts.

Like trench warfare but without the guns, like the German assault on Verdun or General Winter’s relentless destruction of Napoleon’s forces in Russia, the war of attrition begins. Anyone daring to suggest that desperate refugees might need some help or who has the temerity to suggest that Nigel Farage might not have the best interests of the working class at heart is instantly depicted as (tick as appropriate)

ÿ A traitor

ÿ A paedophile

ÿ A closet Muslim

ÿ A race traitor

ÿ A cuck

ÿ Anti-British

ÿ Anti-white

ÿ Communist

ÿ Fascist

Such people are apparently deserving of (tick as appropriate)

ÿ Death by hanging

ÿ Gang rape

ÿ Deportation

ÿ Torture

ÿ Life imprisonment (without parole)

ÿ Death by firing squad

ÿ Death by various other creative but ultimately highly impractical alternative methods.

Understandably enough, when faced with these daily tirades from relatives and former friends, as well as complete strangers our intrepid heroes aren’t always as indefatigable as they might have hoped. It’s easy to become despondent in the face of so much undeserved abuse for the crime of showing a little compassion and understanding. The decent people grow tired. They develop Fash Fatigue.

But take heart. This little article is intended to help lift the spirits of the decent folk. The ordinary people who know intuitively that so much bitterness and hatred is the wrong way to go. Those who can see the need for a little compassion in the world, who aren’t frightened of the fact that not everyone enjoys Jellied eels and Melton Mowbray pork pies, who are quite able to walk past a Mosque or a Synagogue without feeling the need to set it alight.

If you don’t see brown people as the enemy. If you understand how ludicrous the idea of miscegenation and race replacement is. If you can’t stop laughing whenever anyone seriously suggests that white genocide is a thing then this is for you.

Keep your chin up, keep plodding on and have faith in the fact that British society, despite having lost its way for a brief moment in time, is better than all that.


We’ve come a long way in the last 100 years. Yes, it’s true that racism and fascism is rearing its ugly head again within these islands but it’s only a blip. It’s only ever a blip when this happens. Hold your nerve. Another few years will see the current batch of racist, fascist bully boys fade into the same insignificance their predecessors of the National Front, the British National Party, the English Defence League and the New British Union of Fascists currently ‘enjoy’.

Far right parties never last here. We gave Mosley and his Black-shirts short shrift in the 1930s, we laughed the NF and the BNP into obscurity in the 70s, 80s and 90s and we’ll ridicule UKIP and the Brexit Party into oblivion too.Not that this is a Brexit issue per se.

There are many non-racist, non-fascist Brits who want us to leave Europe and that’s OK. That’s democracy. But I have never met a single fash who didn’t want us out of Europe. I’ve never met a single UKIP or Brexit Party leader who cared about anyone but himself and I never heard of a UKIP or Brexit party leader whose political career isn’t smeared with the foul-smelling defecant of racism and far right bigotry.

So when you get despondent and exhausted by Fash fatigue, take heart. The journey is never as long as it seems and most of the ordinary Brits screaming abuse at you aren’t really the hard-core Fash they appear to be. They’re our brothers and sisters who, duped by a sustained and deceitful media campaign have come to believe that the only way to ‘save’ UK is to close our borders, to leave the EU and to vote tory. But they’re not the enemy. They’re ‘us’. They’re our friends and neighbours and they will come to their senses soon enough.

Even now, for the most part they genuinely want what’s best for everyone. They’re not usually racist and they’re not usually fascist. But they are for the moment sitting on a tiresome, abusive bandwagon because they haven’t yet sussed where it’s heading. They’ll jump back off it soon enough. When that happens it’ll be up to us to rebuild the bridges that are currently burning. It’ll be up to us to realise that only a small minority of the apparent Fash really are Fash. The rest are decent people who’ve been swept up in the storm. If the UK is ever to get beyond this conflict, this divisive, bloodthirsty civil cold war it’ll be up to us, the decent people to make the first move.

One day, in the not too distant future, we will need to reunite our nation or lose the rights our ancestors fought and died to win for us. The people of Britain, especially the working class cannot survive if we remain divided.

So don’t worry about your Fash fatigue. Take a break – do something enjoyable and calming. Read a book and then, when you can, come on back and keep on arguing for peace, for compassion and for good sense to prevail.

United we stand – divided we fall.

The Gammon wranglers part 2

I worry that the Gammon, the sweaty, self-satisfied, self-important but ultimately ignorant footsoldiers of this nationalistic rise, themselves working class Britons, are blissfully unaware of the wholesale oppression that their violence could bring about – not only upon those whom they mistakenly think of as ‘the enemy’ but upon themselves and their families.

The current nationalistic, racist fervour is the thin end of a very large wedge. It’s a slippery slope that threatens to devour working people of all colours, creeds and backgrounds. Even the gammon – although maybe, just maybe they actually deserve it.

I worry that our working class youth is being hijacked into supporting the very same people who kept their ancestors downtrodden in the past. The divisions being created by right wing opportunists, aided and abetted (however unintentionally) by the alienated, the downtrodden and the disenchanted threaten us all.

There’s a warning to heed

The Gammon wranglers part 1

Apparently my time will come when all the real Brits, the ones with bald or nearly bald heads and pink, gammony cheeks will rise up, their sweaty little heads glistening in the sunlight and hang me in the street. How gleefully they’ll chant as they winch me aloft and watch me writhing and choking for daring to disagree with them, the self-styled guardians of free speech who want to kill anyone who dares to say things they don’t want to hear. Snowflakes!

If you’re angry at the way working people have been treated by this callous government and its wealthy supporters – So am I. I hate how my society has been torn apart in the interests of corporate profit and the rich. If you want things to change for the better – so do I.

But if you want to scapegoat the innocent Muslims and immigrants who live around the corner just because the Gammon-wranglers, the bastard bankers, corrupt cabinet ministers and multinational company directors are out of your reach then I will oppose you and your stupid, shiny-headed, gammony hatred in every way that I can.