To recap: first, Suella Braverman told us “vulnerable white girls are being targeted by British Pakistani grooming gangs”:
Home Secretary @SuellaBraverman says 'vulnerable white girls are being targeted by British Pakistani grooming gangs', and people have been 'turning a blind eye out of political correctness'.#Ridgehttps://t.co/ZoMhCmTrtv
— Sophy Ridge on Sunday & The Take (@RidgeOnSunday) April 2, 2023
She was proved wrong by government statistics (most grooming gangs are composed of white English men), as I showed here.
As if to hammer the point home, a gang of 21 white English people have been convicted of child sex offences, as reported yesterday (April 5, 2023).
But the damage has been done. British Pakistani people are being targeted for hate – including broadcaster Adil Ray, as he made clear on Good Morning Britain:
Adil Ray on #GMB this morning talking about the racist abuse directed at him since Suella Bravermans comments.
As journalist @jennykleeman says at the end: "A cynical person would say that this is a deliberate ploy to keep people divided [to] win votes" pic.twitter.com/FjYAUsUJQJ
This Site has already commented on possible hate crime in a Jewish Chronicle article containing words that appeared likely to incite hate against particular groups – and seem to have done so.
There seems to be a strong case that Braverman has committed exactly the same crime – speaking of a particular group in a way not only likely to incite hate against it but that appears actually to have done so.
Mr Ray should file a complaint with the police – as should any other British Pakistani people who have been similarly maligned since Braverman spoke.
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Facepalm: one can imagine Jeremy Corbyn’s shocked ‘not in my name’ response to what’s going on here – if he’s ever asked about it.
I suppose it was inevitable that the people who have been screaming about Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism wouldn’t know when to stop – but they’ve really shot their feet off this time, let alone their mouths.
After an attack piece against Jeremy Corbyn led to a complaint of hate crime because it featured these words…
Corbynism has multiple weird parallels with Christianity – they share a saviour concept, and an enemy in Jews
… I published a piece suggesting that the words of the author, one Tanya Gold, as published in a newspaper, may not only be a hate crime as defined by the Equalities Act 2010, but may also be incitement to others to commit such crimes.
Within less than a day, this already seems to have come true:
Former Ed Balls special advisor says hatred of Jews is “literally the point of Christianity”.
How is this not inciting religious hatred? What a reprehensible thing to write. pic.twitter.com/PhXcjSrkgE
The comment is clearly wrong because it proceeds from a false premise: the original claim was that Jews were the enemies of Christians (it was Jews who were actively opposed to Christians) and not the other way around.
I am reminded of one of the pillars of Christianity, which is the phrase, “Turn the other cheek.” It advocates pacifism.
In this particular case, though, it seems clear that such a course will not deter the aggressor, so I certainly recommend recourse to a legal solution.
In other words, let’s make sure the bigot referenced above, along with anyone else suggesting that either Christians hate Jews or (as Ms Gold suggested) Jews hate Christians, is reported to the police for hate crime, and for inciting it in others.
It’s the only way to stop them.
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Jeremy Corbyn: he doesn’t talk about his own religious beliefs, describing them as “personal”, but he does say there is a Jewish element in his ancestry – probably from Germany. So why is a Jewish Chronicle writer apparently using him to incite hatred by Jews against Christians?
An article in the Jewish Chronicle attacking Jeremy Corbyn has been reported to the police as a religious hate crime.
Here’s the offending passage, re-presented for us by Aaron Bastani of Novara Media:
What an appalling paragraph to publish. Christians don't view Jewish people as their 'enemy' in this country – why incite religious division like this?
It was reported to the police by Simon Maginn, whose It Was A Scam hashtag about the anti-Semitism hysteria whipped up against Mr Corbyn generated considerable hatred towards him personally.
He tweeted:
I've reported this (Gold says in it 'Christianity [has] an enemy in Jews') as a religious hate crime. 'Religion and belief' are protected characteristics under the 2010 Equalities Act: Gold's statement is plainly hateful towards Christians *as a group*. https://t.co/WVfVqrdR2L
Then he had a short dialogue with the article’s author…
Hi @TanyaGold1 I've reported your @JewishChron piece (below) as a religious hate crime. You say 'Christianty' has 'an enemy in Jews': that's hate speech directed against Christians. Just thought you should know. You'll be kept informed of developments. https://t.co/G0GzaDFcyQ
Do you think I'm wrong? Would you care to explain what you mean by 'Christianity [has] an enemy in Jews' that isn't overtly hateful towards the entire Christian community?
Oh but I have. So you stand by your claim that billions of good, decent Christian people are Jew-haters? And *John's Gospel* is your legal defence? Interesting case.
I see @TanyaGold1 has now blocked me. Apparently, her legal defence against religious hate crime is going to be 'the Gospel of John', and I for one wish her every possible success with that innovative and obviously bombproof legal strategy. What could possibly go wrong…? pic.twitter.com/7V9vn0XSmH
Personally, I think any claim that Jews are enemies of Christians, that is based on words in the Bible, would need to be justified in a modern context.
Of course, if Ms Gold is stating that Jewish people – as a group – actively consider themselves to be enemies of Christians, and is able to justify that statement in the way I have described, then the Jewish people she mentions are definitely in breach of the Equalities Act 2010 and should be punished under UK law.
If the matter goes to law, my instinct tells me only Ms Gold will be found to have infringed the law – but her words, published in a newspaper, may be considered incitement.
Put it all together and I can see the JC picking up yet another judgment against it.
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Flames: a blaze caused by the petrol bomb attack at Dover were doused and nobody was injured.
A researcher from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, has been looking into the history of the man who petrol-bombed a migrant concentration camp in Dover, then took his own life.
Do you even remember this incident? Rajan Basra reckons you might have forgotten it already. I reported it, briefly, here.
Mr Basra’s Twitter thread is illuminating and I present it unedited and without further comment:
On October 30th, a man threw petrol bombs at an immigration centre in Dover, injuring two. Minutes later he killed himself.
Three days on, the attack has been largely forgotten.
But it's worth taking a closer look at what he posted online, and what it says about radicalisation: pic.twitter.com/jGs8hboTWq
His response was, ironically, exactly what ISIS wanted: to (further) polarise European societies, provoke a backlash, and force Muslims to decide “us or them”.
ISIS wanted to destroy, in their words, "the grey zone" and reduce the world to black and white choices.
He said: "Facebook has committed treason on the British people. They have blocked Facebook and Instagram because of the vote" pic.twitter.com/ss3ce435nX
Those questions are tough to answer. But when you put all of this together, we can see a complex mix of racism and xenophobia, conspiratorial thinking, and what appear to be mental health issues. I wouldn't be surprised if there was drug/alcohol misuse too.
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Members of one House of Parliament have shown that they are capable of listening to the public, and have voted to block a plan by the Tory government to outlaw “noisy” and/or “disruptive” organised protests.
The decision to erase this part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has come after a weekend of “noisy” and/or “disruptive” organised protests against this government policy.
And it followed a debate that was punctuated by the noise of a demonstration against the Bill outside the Lords Chamber, to which peers did not object at all.
Home Office minister Baroness Williams tried to persuade peers that police would only use the proposed new powers where “necessary” and “appropriate” – but it seems nobody believed her on that. Once the law is passed, police will be allowed to adhere to its letter, not whatever meaning is being applied to it now. That means they’ll be able to do what they like – and that’s not acceptable in a democratic society.
Baroness Williams tried to gather support by saying the noisy protest outside would not be stopped – which is odd, as part of the Bill would have banned protest from Parliament Square.
Instead, she said noisy anti-vaccination protests outside a school or nursing home were a different matter – and that police should have the powers to intervene if necessary. But such protests are unique to the Covid-19 crisis; they don’t need a permanent law.
So it seems Priti Patel’s Bill is intended to address only current, short-term issues – but will then leave the measures to address them on the statute books in order to oppress people who would otherwise be described as entirely law-abiding exercisers of their democratic rights.
Again: not acceptable in a democratic society.
The Lords also voted to make misogyny a hate crime in England and Wales, in spite of the government’s policy not to.
Baroness Williams reckoned any evidence that a crime was misogynistic would be entirely subjective, and police would get tied up in reporting and monitoring statistics and data which are unlikely to be reliable.
Well, This Writer is not convinced. Misogyny is quantifiable and I’m sure people who investigate crimes will know how to do that. Perhaps Priti Patel could try talking with police sometime, instead of talking at them.
The Bill cannot be passed into law until both Houses have agreed on what it should be – so it will go back to the Commons, where the Tory majority will undoubtedly reverse these changes, along with several others agreed by the Lords.
They won’t think about it; they’ll just nod the stupidity back in.
And so the long year begins.
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Homicidal hate: Priti Patel has already tried to stop lifeboat crews from rescuing refugees with planned legislation. Now, hate-filled racists are apparently lining up on beaches to make sure that innocent people drown in the Channel.
Hate-filled xenophobes blocked a lifeboat crew from launching to save refugees in danger of drowning in the Channel, it has been confirmed.
Everybody involved in the obstruction is guilty of a criminal offence punishable with an unlimited fine – it has been an explicit crimes since 2006. But will they face justice?
The lifeboat was able to launch, but crews had to call on police to end the obstruction.
The incident came to national attention last week when a caller on James O’Brien’s LBC radio show told him she had witnessed the group blocking the lifeboat, shouting: “don’t bring any more of those home, we’re full up, that’s why we stopped our donations, and that kind of really horrible stuff.” She added: “It was really upsetting, and you could hear the hatred in their voice.”
Evil, hate-filled man recorded shouting at Hastings lifeboat crew urging them not to rescue asylum seekers. https://t.co/hdVht4NQOT
She said as the “lifeboat crew pulled the boat out and were going to go into the water”, a group of people “stood directly in the line of the boat so the boat couldn’t be put in the water.”
Sussex Police confirmed the incident to LBC:
The RNLI has confirmed a Hastings lifeboat was blocked from rescuing migrants after an LBC caller witnessed fishermen shouting angry abuse.https://t.co/pyDpJ64MtG
In a statement, Sussex Police said: “Just after 4pm on Saturday, November 20, police were made aware of reports of a disturbance near to the Hastings RNLI Lifeboat Station.
“A police officer attended the scene while also being supported by colleagues monitoring the situation on CCTV.
“No arrests were made.”
So it seems nobody will be punished for the crime – this time.
But will it embolden others to do the same – or worse?
And what does it say about the United Kingdom, that people here are willing to stand in the way of rescuers in order to ensure that other people drown in the Channel?
The incident has sparked outrage in many people – but not everyone.
Liam Thorp tweeted: “It must take a special level of hate in a person’s heart to try and block a lifeboat from saving people from drowning. This is despicable.”
His views are representative of many.
And Labour MP Nadia Whittome added her support to the RNLI volunteers:
Lifeboat crews are volunteers who put themselves at risk to save others.
It’s shameful that people are abusing them and trying to stop their boats launching. This abuse is fuelled by sections of the media that have vilified refugees and the RNLI.
I won’t publish the bile that has emerged from the haters.
The fact that racists feel emboldened to physically try to stop a life-saving rescue from taking place shows just how low the Conservative government has dragged the country.
It shows that everybody in the Tory government, from Boris Johnson to Priti Patel, down to the lowest-level civil servant pushing through her policies of hate, is also a racist who wants innocent people to die.
And it shows that everybody working in the media organisations that promote this hatred is a homicidal racist too.
Is that you?
If so, This Writer would like to know how you justify yourself – and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
How do these people sleep at night, knowing that they have tried to ensure that another person – who has done them no harm at all – will die?
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Inferno: the exploding Land Rover damaged the gates beyond repair.
At a time of worldwide animal extinctions and potentially irreparable damage to the ecosystem, what kind of psychopath firebombs the house of a conservationist who campaigns to save our wildlife?
Shockingly, masked intruders parked a Land Rover outside a Hampshire house belonging to TV naturalist Chris Packham last weekend and set fire to it. This was the day before he was due to deliver a 100,000-signature petition to Buckingham Palace, calling for the Royal Family to conserve nature on Crown estates and to reintroduce species like beavers and wild boar.
Mr Packham himself has attributed the attack to online trolls:
Here is one of the good souls on this ailing planet doing his utmost to protect the life in it and on it and yet has to deal with this hate.He needs as much support as we can all give. https://t.co/byNNlxHWpn
He said: “These people are angry at some of the things that I campaign against.” He campaigns against the wilful destruction of our natural environment! How can anybody be angry about that?
Sadly, This Writer can understand and sympathise with much of his experience with online trolls.
It is very easy to whip up extreme hatred on (for example) Twitter. I’m currently fighting a court case against another TV personality, who claims that her own behaviour on that platform didn’t encourage her Twitter followers to bully and intimidate a teenage girl with mental health problems. My question is simple: if she didn’t focus her followers on that girl, who does she say did?
Mr Packham says the social media companies have done nothing to enable justice or prevent hatred from being whipped up, and I am (again) inclined to agree.
But the Tory government is (allegedly) putting legislation through Parliament to change that. The Online Harms Bill will propose penalties for such behaviour.
I am eagerly awaiting it. Depending on what measures are finally imposed, it may be the best thing this Tory government does.
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“He has no idea what he’s doing”: Raab blocked anti-Brexit groups after they broadcast this image while he was Brexit secretary – but it is just as valid today as it was then.
Dominic Raab rejected the idea that misogyny should be a hate crime – on a TV interview in which he then demonstrated ample proof that he didn’t even know what it means.
BBC Breakfast presenter Sally Nugent had to read a dictionary definition of the word to him after he said, “Misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man”.
Misogyny is hatred aimed specifically by men against women.
Hatred by women against men is misandry.
And Dominic Raab is so illiterate, he did not know the difference. Couldn’t he even be bothered to get a briefing from someone in the know?
… Ah. Well, I think we all know the answer to that. After all, he didn’t understand the importance of the Dover-Calais crossing when he was Brexit secretary.
Oh no biggie, but our main Brexit negotiator has just admitted he didn’t realise how dependent we are on the Calais-Dover crossing pic.twitter.com/F7H6VwwP72
That’s why one commenter tweeted that he wasn’t surprised Raab didn’t know the meaning of ‘Misogyny’: “I am surprised that he didn’t think Misogyny was a place just south of Calais.”
Raab also demonstrated his ignorance of ‘taking the knee’.
We all know it’s a symbolic gesture against racism, in protest against the lack of attention given to issues of racial inequality and police brutality. Right?
And this is what passes for Cabinet-level expertise in Boris Johnson’s government?
I know Raab has been demoted from Foreign Secretary but it is clear that he is still being asked to perform far beyond his capabilities and the UK will suffer as a result.
EXTRA: This response is too good to leave on Twitter:
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Priti Patel: stoking dislike of the foreigner – and anybody who helps them – is a NAZI trait.
Ultimate responsibility for this lies with Priti Patel, of course.
Patel set herself up for a confrontation with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution after launching legislation saying anybody rescuing illegal immigrants from the sea could be jailed for life.
The RNLI do nothing but rescue people from the sea, and they don’t care about the immigration status of the people they pick up.
Furthermore, the service will keep rescuing people under those conditions, no matter what Patel says, because they have a Royal Charter – the Queen supports what they do.
Sadly, the publicity given to our brave lifeboat people has attracted the attention of the kind of people who support Patel. You know the type – thugs and headbangers who take any opportunity to attack others.
So we’re starting to see incidents like this:
We are shocked and saddened to report some of our volunteer crew were verbally assaulted due to their role when reporting for duty tonight. This behaviour will not be tolerated. Thank you @metpoliceuk for your support.
Take note: these personnel were verbally attacked “due to their role” – because they rescue people from drowning in UK waters.
The incident happened in central London – Tower RNLI operates from Lifeboat Pier just under Waterloo Bridge and serves the Thames in central London 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Suppose one of the dimwits who thought it was clever to abuse these volunteers perhaps got drunk and fell into the river. How would they feel, as they went down for the third time, if there was no lifeboat service there because the people running it had been put off by their own violence?
Pretty stupid, I expect – which is what they are, of course.
But ultimately the blame lies with Patel and all the goose-stepping morons like her who get a perverse kick out of feeding hate for no reason.
She isn’t only attacking a Great British institution – she is attacking the humanitarianism and fairness that is in the fabric of Britishness itself.
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This casts a huge shadow over the UK’s police services – not only because of the crimes admitted by PC Wayne Couzens but because of the way police across the country tried to suppress public protest.
Couzens, of Deal, has admitted kidnapping and raping Sarah Everard in a hearing at the Old Bailey (although he appeared by video link from Belmarsh Prison).
He also accepted responsibility for her death but did not enter a plea on the charge of murder.
Ms Everard, 33, went missing while walking home in Clapham, south London, on March 3. She was reported missing by her boyfriend on March 4 and her body was discovered hidden in an area of woodland near Ashford, Kent, on March 10.
Couzens…
pleaded guilty to kidnapping Ms Everard “unlawfully and by force or fraud” on 3 March.
He also pleaded guilty to a second charge of rape between 2 and 10 March.
So now we know that the man who murdered Ms Everard was indeed a police officer.
This fact raises serious questions about the trust we place in our police services – as does the way police across the UK handled the public reaction to this crime.
Remember the Clapham Common vigil that police officers deliberately escalated into a full-on confrontation? They kettled peaceful attendees – most, or all, of whom were women – provoked a violent confrontation and arrested them when they protested.
They were transmitting a very clear message to all of us:
Women in the United Kingdom should fear the police. Officers are able to kidnap, rape and murder them and when this causes protest, the protesters will be arrested.
That is what the police service now represents, and while the Conservative government may not be said to be directly responsible for the criminal behaviour of these uniformed thugs, it is certainly clear that the politicians in charge have done nothing to prevent it and everything to suppress protest against it.
It stated that the force “was justified in adopting the view that the risks of transmitting COVID-19 at the vigil were too great to ignore” and that it was therefore perfectly reasonable for burly uniformed policemen to inflict violence on defenceless women.
On March 14, a further public event – this time a protest demonstration against the policing of the Sarah Everard vigil – attracted a much more low-key police response but even then the officers attending could not hide their priorities.
They clustered around a statue of Winston Churchill that they had (allegedly) been told to protect “at any cost”:
Police have come back into the crowd to stand around the Winston Churchill statue. Heard from a legal observer that a commanding officer told his colleagues “protect Churchill at all costs”. Chants of “protect women not statues”. pic.twitter.com/WJlVr18sfK
We were told that it was believed the “inappropriate graphic” contained offensive comments about her death.
The family of Ms Everard were informed of the incident but we were not told whether they had received the grovelling apology that they deserved.
The incident also served as a reminder that only last year, two policemen caused a scandal when it was revealed that they had taken selfies of themselves with the bodies of two murdered women and shared them on WhatsApp.
While we were all told at the time that “lessons have been learned” it became crystal clear that this was not true and that all women could be sure of getting from the police was contempt.
Four days later – March 20 – a serving police officer who assaulted a woman while she was walking home late at night (a direct parallel with what happened to Sarah Everard) using police techniques walked free after magistrates let him off with a fine and a curfew. He was excused community service because his lawyer said it would be hard for him to work with criminals, even though he is now a criminal himself.
The first thing Warwickshire police had done on receiving the victim’s complaint was to ignore it.
The victim then had to undergo an uphill struggle to get that police service to take her seriously, and it is unlikely that she would have had any justice at all if she had not been able to find CCTV footage of the assault.
It showed that Oliver Banfield, 25, hurled a stream of misogynistic abuse at Emma Holmer, 11 years his senior, as he tried to employ techniques he learned from police training to drag her to the ground and put her in a headlock.
I stated at the time: “Apparently this has been described as an ‘unlawful arrest’. I’m sure you can think of a much better description for what is clearly a hate attack against a woman.
“And let’s remind ourselves that Sarah Everard was ‘just walking home’ (the words have been used as a slogan ever since the incident) when she was attacked” by another serving policeman.
I added: “Two incidents cannot suggest that such behaviour is epidemic in the UK’s police. But they are enough to instil fear in every woman who has to walk home in the dark because they know they cannot automatically rely on the police to keep them safe.
“When a trust is betrayed, it can be extremely difficult to win back. Sometimes it is impossible. It seems clear that the police – and the justice system – isn’t even bothering to try.”
It is clear that we can no longer trust the police to uphold the law and protect us against crime. That contract has been broken by the police themselves.
Today, the police are able to commit crimes against us with impunity, with protests silenced by heavy-handed colleagues and suppression by both individual police services and the government, and their actions whitewashed by so-called watchdogs.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
This corruption must be purged. But how can it be done when nobody who is in a position to do it can be trusted to?
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