Tommy Robinson – EU Elections

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or even speak about Tommy Robinson on my site until the results of the election came in. The more oxygen he is given the more he claimed he is being silenced but somehow we all got to know what was happening with him over the past few weeks.

Milkshakes placed to one side for a moment I wanted to comment on his campaigning. He made many claims and counter claims which usually turned out to be false. He started his campaign not surprisingly asking for donations for a bus. In a video laughing like a demented hyena he claimed, “I just know the the reaction when this (the bus) rocks up in your city centres … I’m going to tell you about what’s going on in your cities … I am going to tell about what’s happening in your cities I am going to tell you about the corruption in your cities … I am going to name shame show people up with this new weapon.”

Tommy then goes on to explain that one donor has already given ten thousand pounds towards buying the vehicle and another that had donate half this amount. He explains that he wants to create ‘The Tommy Robinson Show’ where he will interview guests in this ‘mobile TV studio’ and people will be able to watch this from the outside on a large screen attached to the side of the bus.

We didn’t see this bus unfortunately throughout his campaign we saw a hired van with a screen on it but there was no sign of his bus. I might be wrong and unlike his supporters I don’t mind accepting if I got the information wrong. In this clip below we see the sheer bravado and arrogance of the man. ‘I am going to be your MEP’ as he bounces up and down like a petulant child. If you notice his body language he blocks the man who says ‘That’s not going to happy Stephen’ by turning his back towards him therefore unofficially cutting off his communication with the man he obviously doesn’t want to listen to or accept what he is saying.

Out of a possible 7.2m people who had voting right in the north west Tommy Robinson got a laughable 38k. After all the campaigning and complaining that he has been ‘deplatformed’ (in other words removed from three social media platforms). He is still on youtube but not able to make any money out of it and still has access to his website and emails sending out to people beginning for money.

The overall message that Tommy tried to bring to the north west was widely and rightly rejected. There is no place in any normal functioning democracy. We could even say that his sort of ideology has ‘no place in western society or culture’ a phrase he has used numerous times to claim about Islam.

People now should think long and hard about parting with their money to fund the politics of hatred.

 

Milkshakes – Farage and the far-right

Tomorrow people will vote in European Elections something we shouldn’t have been a part of due to the UK supposedly leaving the European Union. 

In the previous few weeks of campaigning we have seen high profile incidents where MEP candidates have had milkshakes thrown at them. Some have seen as a childish pranks and others have classified it as ‘domestic terrorism’. What ever your views on this doesn’t take away the real issue people should be talking about. Why are they people being covered in fast food drinks?

Far-right commentators are quick to blame ‘militant far-left agitators’ and see it as a divisional argument where two sides of a political debate are waring for attention and support. This divisive tactic for me makes people believe that there are competing enemies ready to defend their beliefs and use varying methods of protest. I think there is a simpler point that’s being made.

People are utterly fed up of hearing hatred and vilification of various communities and minorities. Conspiracy theories are now so engrained in some that they have become part and parcel of everyday life. In a blog post last year I wrote about how the conspiracy theory is the new religion. We have accepted revisionist history lessons as if they were fact. Happy to embrace far-right tropes such as ‘Islam isn’t a race therefore it’s not racist to criticise it’ (or demonise an entire religion).

As I explained about confirmation bias we look for possible information to back up our own beliefs without actually thinking rationally about a situation or event. We are constantly on the search for material that panders to our own fears and prejudices. For example, say I am afraid of spiders I see a story about a man who was hospitalised due to a bite from a spider on holiday and we confirm in our minds the reasons that we hate spiders, and don’t read the rest of the story that explains the man was hospitalised due to the wound being infected, rather than the actual spider bite. The danger doesn’t come from the spider but the infection that is caused and could have happened in any other way in which skin is broken and allowed germs breed and spread.

I try to look at a situation rationally and objectively. See the reasons behind someone’s actions. I don’t follow any religions and dismiss conspiracies and theories not facts. The recent increase in measles is without a doubt down to parents listening to lies that vaccines cause autism. They don’t. There is no proof just one discredited medic with an opinion.

These theories that can spread quickly over social media and they become irrational when parents are willing to endanger their own children but not getting them vaccinated against deadly but treatable diseases. Rational thought is dismissed and science thrown away. If make this rational statement on social media I can guarantee within a few minutes I will have someone popping up on my timeline to argue the case that the ‘conspiracy’ is true and vaccines are bad for the world.

For me Farage is the arse-end of politics. He has used the theory of leaving the EU as a basis of political debate and whether you agree with him or not, it is clear the far-right xenophobes have latched on to believing that if the UK does eventually leave then the freedom of people to come in to the country will some how be immediately stopped – it won’t.

I know all those who voted to leave the EU aren’t racist but all the racists voted to leave.

2019

As you get older the years seem to go faster. I remember 1982-83 and thinking that they went on and on. But what is in store for 2019 and will it be a great year that people hope it will be.

The current climate as we have witnessed over the past few days seems like we can scream and shout whatever we want as long as we are heard. The MP Anna Soubry has had to endure appalling abuse by far-right thugs who harassed her in the most dreadful way while trying to get into the Houses of Parliament.

Majority of people in this country are law abiding decent citizens who are appalled at this sort of mindless behaviour which show a lack of respect for someone else’s opinions and beliefs. When we become abusive and using terminology which is offensive that’s when we lost the argument.

I explained in a post back in 2017 the differences between free speech and hate speech. There is a line that shouldn’t be crossed but the emboldenment of the far-right and other hate groups has somehow legitimised the use of people making threats to others. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) has complained for years about not being able to say what he thinks about Muslims and the religion of Islam while saying what he believes about Muslims and Islam.

Another thug appearing on the scene is someone called James Goddard who has fallen for the conspiracy that somehow Muslims are looking to take over the world and if we don’t so something about it we will be living under their rule in a few years time. Echoing the horrific anti-semitic mood that poisoned the minds of some during the 1930s when Jews were vilified not only in the press but through carefully constructed propaganda of the Nazis.

It a sad situation that this country faces. Brexit for some means that we should be allowed to say what we like to people regardless of how offensive some of that speech is. Well we can’t. There are, rightly so, laws protecting all of us from suffering under the hands of mindless uneducated thugs.

My honest belief that the will get worse before it gets better and others make a stand that we cannot continue as a nation while other abuse those who are in power and who are democratically elected to represent us on a governmental level.