Paul Collier: does his appointment make Michael Gove’s ‘Levelling Up’ project racist?
Is this an admission that Boris Johnson’s Tory government intends to treat non-white citizens as second-class (or worse)?
It seems so.
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up (as if that title means anything), has appointed Paul Collier to advise him on his plan for the nation.
The development economist at Oxford University is infamous for having claimed that immigration has made indigenous British people a “minority” in London.
He also said nobody born in the UK but with even one parent who was an immigrant should consider themselves indigenous, and that people born of immigrants who had been here longer may only call themselves indigenous if they have integrated into society.
And this is the man Gove wants to advise on the 12 points of his “Levelling Up” plan, including schemes to improve everything from pay, jobs, research and development spending and transport connectivity in struggling areas, to “restoring local pride”.
Does this mean the only people who’ll receive “Levelling Up” help are those who can trace their ancestry back to Alfred the Great? I think even the Queen might have a problem with that.
It certainly seems geared to exclude large numbers of the population on the basis of race.
And this would fit with the Johnson government’s fascism, as it would identify ethnic minorities as enemies who may deprive areas of “Levelling Up” funding, in a bid to unify Collier’s “indigenous” people against them.
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Yes, UK, you have a fascist government: check out the last item on the list – “fraudulent elections”.
So much for the Tories not wanting a “papers please” society!
After making a huge fuss about Covid passports, because they don’t want UK citizens to have to prove their identity or be deprived of their rights, earlier this week Conservative MPs overwhelmingly passed a Bill to demand that UK citizens must prove their identity in a specific way before being allowed to vote.
There is no justification for this law. The claim is that it will prevent impersonation of other voters at the ballot box, as though there has been an epidemic of this electoral crime.
But there was only one case of election fraud by “personation” in 2019. One.
The Bill was supported by 327 Conservative MPs – that’s 326 more people than committed the crime it’s supposed to protect against.
We must therefore conclude that Boris Johnson’s government is lying again – and ask what real reason the Tories could have for imposing this unnecessary restriction on the UK’s electorate.
The answer is simple: it will ensure that between one million and 3.5 million people will not be able to vote at elections.
And it’s not a random two million people, either. This is a targeted attack:
BREAKING: The Tories have passed their voter ID law, ensuring that 1 million poor people, who would never vote Tory, won't vote for anyone now x
And the effect will be recordable because only general elections and elections in England will be affected by the new law.
You will need to show voter ID at a UK General Election but not for Scottish or Welsh Government elections because neither of those nations are run by actual fascists.
See, This Site and others have been warning you about the fact that your Conservative government’s political position is full-on fascist, for years; fraudulent elections constitute the 14th of the 14 signs of fascism.
And even now, Tory “useful idiots” will scream at you that it’s all a lie, they’re not rigging elections and there’s a real need to save you from a nonexistent threat.
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It asked, “Which of the policies that were announced and/or confirmed at this years party conference are either Tory or Fascist.” As if that would settle the matter.
Do you like the wording – the attempt to restrict me to policies from the party conference? I did.
Of course it was setting up a false argument because none of those policies matter one whit.
Keir Starmer lied his way into the Labour Party leadership and he has been lying ever since.
He was elected on 10 pledges that he has since abandoned in their entirety and I have absolutely no doubt that he will also abandon any policy he has announced since then – whether at the party conference or not – as soon as they become inconvenient to him.
Here’s a tweet, in response to a similar Starmerite, if anybody needs clarification of this point:
Just a quick shout out, Keir Starmer literally won the leadership claiming to be a completely different person with a completely different set of objectives and values. pic.twitter.com/kK1xuN8kL1
Starmer’s words mean nothing at all. Those of us who criticise him aren’t paying any attention to his empty words – because we are watching what he is actually doing.
This evidence reveals that he has spent the whole of his time as leader conducting a protracted persecution of his own party members – particularly left-wing Jews, making this an anti-Semitic attack as well – with false accusations of anti-Semitism that carry absolutely no weight in the real world – at the behest of his apparent masters at the Israeli Embassy.
It shows that he has supported Boris Johnson’s Conservative government when it has inflicted dazzlingly stupid and genocidal policies on us, such as almost every measure to do with Covid-19 that has been inflicted on us.
It shows that he can’t win elections because people see him as a pale blue Tory. The two mentioned by Howard Beckett, below, are just the latest in a long line:
Keir Starmer has never offered a word of solidarity to Zarah Sultana. Not after she broke down in tears in Parliament describing the Islamophobia she’s faced. Not after she was told to “go back to your country” whilst on bereavement leave. Never. Why? https://t.co/bPM8SG7xpT
Because he’s a sexist, a racist and an Islamophobe, that’s why.
I’ve discussed Starmer’s treatment of Ms Sultana in a previous article as follows:
Now, that race hate and intolerance are making themselves clear within the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party, as it seems Starmer is planning to deselect four sitting MPs – for the crime of being black:
It seems the claim is that some in local party groups are stirring up unrest on the basis that some of the named black women were selected as supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, rather than as representatives of the people in the constituencies.
Among those facing deselection is Zarah Sultana, who is widely accepted to have been one of the most effective MPs in a Labour Party that has been rendered toothless by Starmer’s leadership:
She recently highlighted the racist abuse she receives from members of the public, posting on Twitter an email she received on her return from bereavement leave after the death of her grandmother:
What has Starmer done to support his MP in the face of this racism?
Nothing.
I’ll say it again:
He has done nothing.
He supports genocidal racists and he undermines people of colour in his own organisation – while pretending to be pious for the cameras.
What a verminous, racist hypocrite.
My words are supported by the evidence from Ms Sultana herself. She has given an interview to LabourList that is searing in comparison with that website’s usual deference to Starmer:
“You expect support and solidarity from people in your party.
“I haven’t had a single word of solidarity from the current leadership,” she says. “Angela Rayner, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Louise Haigh, Kim Leadbeater, all of those guys got in touch – and I didn’t get anything from the leadership at all.” In fact, she adds: “I’ve never spoken to Keir.” Asking questions at parliamentary party meetings is the closest they have had to a conversation, the Labour MP says.
Sultana believes that, as a young Muslim woman, she is treated differently not only by those who send abusive emails and letters, but also by her colleagues. “I learnt this lesson very early on,” she says. Sultana points out that her maiden speech referring to “40 years of Thatcherism” caused uproar, yet nobody blinked an eye when Lisa Nandy talked about “40 years of economic decline” during the leadership election and said “the consensus that Thatcher built lasted all the way through the New Labour years”. Sultana was told that senior MPs were advising other 2019 newcomers: “you don’t want to do what Zarah did with her maiden speech”.
Only a handful of Labour MPs have been reported as being particularly under threat of deselection, yet two of this small number are Muslim women. “To me, if we’re just talking about optics – and it shouldn’t just be about the optics, it should be about the people who are affected – that just doesn’t look very good,” Sultana observes. Asked about the chances of her being triggered, she says: “I have no sense that I’m more under threat than anyone else… I’m really hopeful that I will have [members’] support.”
“The people providing those quotes [for articles about her potential deselection] were citing things like Prevent, and they were citing things like Palestine… as though it’s not a normal concern to have,” she says. “I was really shocked because someone’s obviously given a green light to this.”
Yes indeed – and the buck stops with Keir Starmer.
So, judging Starmer by his actions, we see that he himself is a Tory supporter/enabler – that demonstrates the Tory aspect of his behaviour.
And for the fascism, look no further than the sexism, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and persecution that has characterised his attitude towards his own party members.
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One rule for him: remember, Dominic Raab is the Tory minister who couldn’t be bothered to return to work from holiday when Kabul fell. He breaks government rules habitually yet presumes to lecture us on the law.
Remember: this is what the UK voted for:
In a move designed to strengthen authoritarianism, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said today that an overhaul of the U.K.’s Human Rights Act would include a “mechanism” to “correct” rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. We live in dangerous times as fascism looms large.
Dominic Raab has decided that if human rights judges in the UK make decisions that he doesn’t like, he will override them in blatant disregard of the rule of law.
This is what the UK voted for.
In a blatant rhetorical reversal of what actually happens, he has said that he would stop “judicial legislation” – that is, judges making UK law. But they don’t; they never have. They simply apply the law of the land to individual cases. Stopping this would be breaking the law.
You see, so-called “case law” – legal precedents set by judges – are only examples of the way the law should be interpreted when applied to particular situations, to be followed if such situations arise again in order to avoid contradiction and confusion. They are not situations in which judges take legislative power for themselves and Raab is lying by suggesting that.
But this is what the UK voted for.
He said he wanted to stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from dictating law to the UK, but…
1 The Human Rights Act is British law, enforced by British Judges in British Courts 2 If our Parliament doesn’t like a judgment, then it has a mechanism to override it, it’s called Legislation 3 Blaming foreigners for it is dishonest 4 Challenging Govt is the basis of democracy pic.twitter.com/yH8YIDdPig
Human rights lawyer Jessica Simor QC said that Raab’s plan would have an effect opposite to what he was suggesting, because it would mean
more complaints going to Strasbourg and more rulings against the UK, unless the government intended to pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights altogether, which would be “a step into a dark place for this country and the world”
But if that happened, it’s what the UK voted for.
The former head of the government’s legal service, Jonathan Jones, said:
As parliament is already able to legislate to correct flaws in the law, it appeared Mr Raab was trying to use a new mechanism to allow ministers to take this step without obtaining MPs’ approval.
In other words: dictatorship.
It’s what the UK voted for.
Cambridge professor of public law Mark Elliott pointed to a recent Supreme Court ruling, saying that allowing a minister to overrule a decision of the judiciary simply because he did not agree with it would cut across “principles that are fundamental components of the rule of law”.
It’s what the UK voted for.
“If that is what is in contemplation, then that is profoundly problematic,” said Prof Elliott. “Indeed it turns constitutional principle on its head.
“Ministerial power to do this would itself be deeply troubling. It would reassign a basic judicial role – interpreting the law – to ministers.
“Ultimately, this all strikes me as part of a project to enhance executive supremacy by treating courts, whether foreign or domestic, as unwelcome interlopers.
“And yet all of this masquerades as an attempt to protect parliament. The reality of this executive power project, as we might call it, is that it will be the executive that is the principal beneficiary of such changes, and the loser will be basic standards of good governance.”
It’s what the UK voted for.
You don't really expect better from Raab do you – it was only recently that he discovered he lived on an island, we know he is illiterate in Geography & maths so he's bound to be just as illiterate in comprehension & law is way too complicated for him. https://t.co/xuYPVP4uJF
Did anybody know? This Writer made clear what was going to happen in articles published before the 2019 election but I don’t have the reach of the mass media organisations who were screaming at everyone to vote Tory or else face a future of horrific Communism under Jeremy Corbyn.
It seems that, faced with such an onslaught, many people voted without thinking.
And isn’t that exactly how the Hitlers and Mussolinis of the 20th century took power?
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Tim Wills: fascist entryist into the Tory Party? [Image courtesy of Tony Hardwick on Twitter.]
It’s why the Conservatives are the Nasty Party – they offer a home to the nastiest people with the nastiest politics, and they don’t care.
Last week we learned that Worthing Tory Councillor Tim Wills is a supporter of a far-right group that pushes an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Here are the details:
📢 Worthing Tory Councillor Tim Wills exposed as an active supporter of far right group Patriotic Alternative!!
This is a man who, it seems, actively supports anti-Semitism – for real, as opposed to all the trumped-up charges that have been thrown at Labour Party members lately.
And what did the Tories do? They suspended him as a member.
We’ve seen this behaviour from Tories before. They say, “Look – we’ve suspended this person!” and then when attention shifts away, they quietly reinstate the offenders.
The will of the people seems clear: not this time.
Labour councillors are leading the calls for him to be removed as a councillor and expelled from the Tories…
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This is a Nazi-style bid to turn our newspapers into propaganda sheets.
(And let’s be honest – most of them are more than halfway there already.)
The big surprise about the story is that it has been broken by the Daily Heil!
According to that rag, Priti Patel – for it is her again – has been consulting on a plan to change the Official Secrets Act in order to remove protections for reporters who are handed leaked documents that may embarrass the Tory government.
The Act’s provisions are intended to protect the UK against agents of foreign governments. Attacking UK-based journalists is clearly a perversion of such legislation but Patel won’t be worried about that.
The Mail‘s story states:
Under a consultation run by Priti Patel’s Home Office, which closes later this week, reporters who handle leaked documents would not have a defence if charged under new laws designed to clamp down on foreign agents.
There’s been a consultation? And it closes in a matter of days? This must be one of those fake consultations that the Tories do all the time – they claim to have been consulting while deliberately not telling anybody about it.
Human rights organisations and the Law Commission, which drew up the proposals, say there should be a ‘public interest defence’ included to prevent the prosecution of journalists who receive leaked documents.
But in a paper released for the consultation, the Home Office said such a move would ‘undermine our efforts to prevent damaging unauthorised disclosures, which would not be in the public interest’.
Who says what’s in the public interest and what isn’t? Usually it’s the courts, in cases of serious disagreement – but the power of the courts is being curbed in new Tory legislation so Patel is effectively giving the Tories ultimate power over the press.
This Writer won’t be affected, though. I may comment on what it means when the contents of leaked documents are published but I don’t receive those documents so I can’t publish them.
Tough luck, Patel! You might turn your supporters in the mainstream media against you but you won’t get critics like Vox Political.
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Yes: the attack on a statue by police fulfils at least two of the 14 signs of fascism: protection of corporate power, and disdain for intellectuals and the arts.
It seems attacking statues is only bad if it represents something the Conservatives support – like slavery.
A statue that was adopted by Extinction Rebellion in the campaign group’s protest and blockading of printing plants owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media organisations last Autumn is fair game, it seems –
– even when it is displayed as part of an arts charity’s competition.
The police were called in – and more than 40 personnel broke into the building where the statue had been installed.
Here’s artist Damien Meade with the story:
You get 10 years in prison for protest of historical statues, but someone erects something subversive and the full muscle of the state comes knocking.
The building was ransacked and three people were arrested, but released without charge the following day.
The structure was designed by the collective @probunnyrabbit who submitted it for the annual @antepavilion annual architectural open competition, and it is installed on the roof as part of that competition.
XR were planning further protests against Murdoch last weekend. The police intended to remove it (but failed). It takes a certain skill-set to erect it, and anyone with such skills would have been a target of the raid.
The Police were simply operating as stooges for Murdoch.
When the owner of docks came to complain about the raid on our premises, he was promptly arrested and charged with "attempted assault" and "dangerous driving". He was not be released till 5am the next morning! #PoliceBrutality#art#hackneycanal#canalartpic.twitter.com/BRghc4T8fL
All this happened at the beginning of the month but This Writer didn’t hear about it until today.
It remains well worth reporting because of the Tory hypocrisy evident in the raid, and the suggestion that both the police and the Conservative government were acting for a media corporation rather than upholding any law.
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Benjamin Netanyahu: in this image he’s wearing a smile very similar to Boris Johnson’s ‘duper’s delight’. Who had he just fooled? The Israeli electorate?
Israel’s hardline, far-right prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be out of a job and heading towards prison by tomorrow (June 2).
But it’s unlikely to mean any loosening of the (metaphorical) noose that his government is tightening around the necks of every Palestinian, as it involves a coalition between the equally hardline Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. Both have previously worked with Netanyahu.
But it could signal the end of Netanyahu’s 12-year rule of Israel – and if so, it wouldn’t happen a day too soon.
The Associated Press – apparently still bruised from the bombing of its Gaza office – explains:
Netanyahu has become a polarizing figure since he was indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in late 2019. Each of the past four elections was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s fitness to rule, and each ended in deadlock.
Netanyahu is desperate to stay in power while he is on trial. He has used his office as a stage to rally his base and lash out against police, prosecutors and the media.
It says much about the state of Israeli politics that
Netanyahu even attempted to court a small Islamist Arab party but was thwarted by a small ultranationalist party with a racist anti-Arab agenda.
What hypocrisy! Netanyahu’s anti-Arab position is evident in his policy towards Palestine, and never mind all his efforts to court favour with neighbours like Saudi Arabia.
It seems clear that – for him – retaining power is everything. Boris Johnson may well be a keen student of his politics.
If he is ejected from the premiership, he may devote his time as Opposition leader to undermining the new government by exploiting the deep ideological differences among the parties forming the coalition.
But his ability to disrupt his own trial will be hugely diminished.
It would be ironic if the first major blow against the corruption that is sweeping the political world was landed by a hard-right-winger, against someone with equally extreme views.
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Violence: after far-right Israelis marched through Jerusalem shouting ‘Death to Arabs’ it didn’t take long for violence to happen. Who do you think suffered the most harm as a result?
This is what happens when a country’s government demands that anybody not belonging to a particular ethnic/religious group must be second-class citizens.
The right-wing government of Israel has enacted laws to put Jewish citizens above anybody else who lives there – and has actually walled off Palestinian settlements (until such time as Jewish settlers can turf out the residents and take their homes).
It was only a small step from there to the scenes we witnessed in Jerusalem’s Old City, when hundreds of far-right activists took to the streets, shouting “Death to Arabs”.
It is an insult against their own history. After the Nazi Holocaust, Jewish people should be on the side of the oppressed, never that of the oppressors.
But it does conform to a very sad social phenomenon – that a proportion of people who suffer abuse go on to become abusers themselves. It is well-documented among individuals; now we see a society going the same way.
Let’s see some of the evidence. I present it with comments from Twitter users who provided it:
Hundreds of right-wing Israeli Jews are roaming the streets of Jerusalem tonight, chanting "Death to Arabs" and searching for Palestinians to assault. Their actions echo the racist and violent rhetoric of Israeli government officials:pic.twitter.com/Ag9hHGAhNs
Horrific. Over a 100 people injured by a bunch of far right thugs chanting "death to Arabs". No surprise things like this happen when there's already Israeli state sponsored violence against Palestinians occurring on a regular basis.#FreePalestinehttps://t.co/xHUfVgy7D9
The obvious response to the young woman in the last clip is that her sentiment was shared by people in Berlin in the 1930s and 40s – but they were referring to Jews.
In fairness, this was just one gang of far-right racists. Other Israelis have been lining up to condemn what happened.
But the only reason it happened at all is because their government created the conditions that allowed it.
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Brian Cox: This Site doesn’t always agree with him but he’s right about people who use phrases like “the will of the people”. There’s no such thing, and people who speak in such absolute terms are fascists.
The Daily Express‘s attack on Professor Brian Cox isn’t part of Boris Johnson’s “war on ‘woke'” – it’s an endorsement of the Johnson government’s fascism.
Normally This Writer wouldn’t leap to defend Prof Cox; he knows the score on the social media and he’s big enough to stand up for himself – but this non-story by a right-wing rag demonstrates an important topical point.
It refers to the broadcaster’s response after Priti Patel said – way back in August last year – that denying refugees access to the UK was the will of the British people.
It isn’t – it isn’t even the will of the majority. And even the minority who support Johnsons fascists might be divided after learning how Patel treats people who manage to get here.
We’ve all heard the horror stories about the concentration camp that turned into a Covid-19 breeding ground, and last week we learned that she had tried to deport a witness to a death in another Home Office facility, in an attempt to undermine an investigation that would show that the government had contributed to the death.
But there it was in black and white. Patel stated: “We need the cooperation of the French to intercept boats and return migrants back to France. I know that when the British people say they want to take back control of our borders – this is exactly what they mean.”
Professor Cox responded: “I’m so sick of this ‘the British people’ nonsense.
“It’s inflammatory and divisive and also errant vacuous nonsense with no meaning in a multi-party democracy.
“The phrase should be banned from political discourse.”
There is a valid criticism to be made about these words – and it is that they do not address exactly why those words are problematic.
Fortunately, he followed up with a further comment, in order to remove any doubt:
“The point is that invoking ‘the will of the people’ or derivatives in promoting policy is a well-rehearsed propaganda technique and has no place in our democratic dialogue.”
(Here’s the proof of what he said)
#ImWithBrian Brian Cox is quite right. Evoking 'the British People' is shallow nationalism, along with 'the will of the people' meaning 'a sake dear majority of folk'. Not in my name, Home Secretary. https://t.co/DflafrvI7H
But because the Express dredged up this moment in a current news story, suddenly he has been on the receiving end of a huge gammon-flavoured dogpile by the kind of “British people” who think that their far-right views are shared by everybody.
Wetlipped permagrinner Brian Cox wants to erase the term "British people" from political discourse (although happily uses the term "European citizens"). British people – I see you. I hear you. You are valid. You are loved.
— Leo Kearse – political comedian/comedic politician (@LeoKearse) April 16, 2021
That’s not what “right-thinking” really means, folks.
Fortunately, plenty of genuinely right-thinking people have stood up to defend Professor Cox, and to point out that the Express article is built around a misinterpretation of his words that is no more or less than a lie.
The fash are out for Brian Cox today as he criticises Patel's illegal immigration and refugee strategy.
The people of Wales, Scotland and NI did not vote for the Tories, so how can Patel claim 'what the British people want'?
Sorry to the those that disagree with the *take* Brian Cox has on the term British People, because he's correct in this context. As a British person I'm sure I've got far more in common with the poor buggers trying to cross the channel that with Priti Patel!
— Politically Homeless #ShockDoctrine #NHSPay15 (@respeak_uk) April 16, 2021
I want to know why the article’s writers and editors of the Express were trying to distract us with this dead cat. What have the Tories done that needs this to take our minds off it?
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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