We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
As the i reported, Emily Darlington, Labour MP for Milton Keynes Central, âis seeking to make the Electoral Commission recommend enhanced DBS checks for candidates and then publish whether or not parties have agreed to the vetting. The aim is to ensure political parties justify whether their candidates are fit for office and name and shame those who refuse to participate.â
This is troubling when one considers that DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks include not just criminal history but ânon-crime hate incidentsâ, which may even appear on the records of people who havenât been contacted by police. These highly-political charges are far more likely to be directed at those with Right-wing opinions.
When western European countries do things like this, I try to gauge whether this is normal by asking the question: what if Hungary did this? In most of these cases, I imagine the assessment would be that it was an assault on liberalism and democratic norms. In which case, what if Britain is undergoing the sort of âdemocratic backslidingâ usually levelled at central European countries with conservative governments? What if Keir Starmer is actually one of these illiberal âstrongmenâ we read about, just not a very effective one.
– Ed West
Nick Timothy writes in the Telegraph:
It was last summer when Aston Villa drew Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League. Immediately, the local, âGaza Independentâ MP Ayoub Khan launched a campaign to cancel the match. His petition demanded the match be cancelled because Aston is, in his words, a âpredominantly Muslim communityâ.
After police planning started for the match, due to be played on November 6, officers met Birmingham councillors and officials at the Safety Advisory Group meeting on October 7. Two local councillors present said the âcommunity want it stoppedâ. They met behind closed doors, but the minutes now show the truth. Even in the âabsence of intelligenceâ the âplanning assumptionâ of the police was that no away fans would attend the match.
The chairman of the Safety Advisory Group contacted the police two days later asking for a âmore clear rationaleâ. A position had been reached, but the police were asked retrospectively to drum up a justification. The chairman warned the police to make sure the decision did not look like âanti-Jewish sentimentâ.
When the committee met again on October 16, the police magicked their âsignificant intelligenceâ about the supposed violence of the Maccabi fans.
The police thought they could get away with it. Instead, their case has utterly collapsed. The âintelligenceâ, which the Chief Constable said had âchanged the assessmentâ, focused on disorder in Amsterdam in 2024. It said the Maccabi fans were âlinked to the Israel Defence Forceâ and targeted Muslim areas, throwing people into the river. Their report claimed the Dutch police sent 5,000 officers to tackle the violence. But none of it was true.
The fabricated âintelligenceâ supposedly came from an unminuted meeting between West Midlands Police and Dutch commanders on 1 October. This meeting was held six days before the meeting when the police said there was an âabsence of intelligenceâ.
Amsterdamâs mayor, local police chief, and chief public prosecutor have all contradicted the âintelligenceâ â even calling it ânonsensicalâ. The disorder in Amsterdam was in fact violence against the Maccabi fans, which was described as a âJew huntâ. It was an Israeli who was pushed into the river. Only 1,200 officers were deployed.
And it gets worse. West Midlands Police received intelligence on September 5, before the Safety Advisory Group meetings, saying local Islamists planned to âarm themselvesâ and attack Maccabi fans. But this information was suppressed, seemingly because the police did not want to admit that the true source of the threat lay closer to home. Instead of confronting the mob, the police gave in and banned the Israelis.
In modern times, the British social contract was meant to be that we, the people, give up the right to use force to protect ourselves in exchange for the police protecting us. Cue Libertarian grumbling “I do not recall signing this contract”, but that is the Britain we used to live in. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t bad either. It was one of the better societies that have ever existed.
The social contract relied on the idea that the only people permitted to arm themselves were servants of the state such as police officers or soldiers. If the state got wind that members of any other group – a white nationalist militia for example – were preparing to arm themselves in order to attack their enemies, an armed response unit would be kicking down their doors faster than you can say “Terrorism Act 2000”.
Now that some sections of the police have acquiesced in other groups taking the right to arm themselves, and, worse yet, have covered up their shame by portraying the aggressors as victims and vice versa, what reason do we have to continue to grant them special status as the sole holders of the right and responsibility to bear arms? Without the majestic aura of the law around them, the police are just another gang. They are not even the dominant gang.
Keir Starmer is mulling a ban on X, formerly Twitter. This would be a shocking, draconian move, bringing the UK into line with states as authoritarian as Russia, China and North Korea. Yet the only real surprise here is that he hasnât tried it sooner. As I argue today on spiked, the PMâs claim that this is about protecting children from X-generated AI deepfakes is incredibly weak sauce. Every man and his AI companion knows that X and its owner, Elon Musk, have been a constant thorn in the side of this loathsome Labour government. Starmer holds X responsible for reviving interest in the grooming gangs and even stoking the Southport riots. We should take his threat to ban it incredibly seriously.
– Fraser Myers
The last 48 hours have witnessed a veritable epidemic of FDS, a collective meltdown that would be comical if it werenât so pathetically predictable. It all stems from a recent poll by Merlin Strategy, a fresh-faced polling outfit helmed by Scarlet Maguire, a former BBC and ITV politics producer whoâs built a reputation for sharp, no-nonsense analysis – most recently in a valuable piece in the New Statesman, looking at the way that young women are swinging leftwards.. Their latest survey, commissioned for The Telegraph and dated just before the new year, dropped a bombshell: on balance, Reform UK is more trusted than any other party to run the economy. Yes, you read that right. Not Labourâs hapless crew, still fumbling with their socialist spreadsheets. Not the Tories, whose economic stewardship resembles a drunkard at a casino. But Reform UK, the upstarts led by that perennial thorn in the establishmentâs side, Nigel Farage. The numbers, buried in that Excel file of raw data, paint a picture of public disillusionment with the status quo, Reform edging out the competition in net trust scores on economic management.
For the FDS sufferers, this was intolerable. Their brains, already addled by years of wishing Farage into obscurity, short-circuited spectacularly.
– Gawain Towler
The establishment never sleeps, does it? At the beginning of last year Channel 4, came up with a glossy report dressed up as concern for the youth. âGen Z: Trends, Truth and Trust,â they called it, a title that drips with the sort of paternalistic sanctimony youâd expect from a broadcaster thatâs long been the darling of the liberal elite. Delivered in a keynote speech that was part TED Talk, part sermon, then CEO, and recently gonged Alex Mahon CBE painted a picture of Britainâs young people as lost souls adrift in a sea of misinformation, desperately in need of rescue by surprise, surprise. the very institutions that have spent decades alienating them. What is concerning is that some of her predictions are coming to pass.
But letâs not kid ourselves. This isnât a fair-minded attempt to help Gen Z navigate the news. Itâs a brazen power grab, a sly manoeuvre by the modern establishment to control what young people read, watch, and believe. Through a highly sceptical lens, one that sees through the veneer of altruism, this report reeks of desperation. The old guard is panicking because Gen Z isnât buying their narrative anymore. And why should they? These kids have grown up in a world stacked against them, jobs vanishing to AI, a housing market thatâs a sick joke, student debts piled high by a system that promises opportunity but delivers chains. Theyâre not falling for âfake newsâ; theyâre spotting the real biases in the so-called trusted sources. Mahonâs call? Rein in the wild west of the internet, slap labels on âreliableâ content, and let the state play gatekeeper.
Freedom of speech? Thatâs so last century.
– Gawain Towler
“Aborting baby girls proves Britainâs multiculturalism experiment has failed”, writes ex-Guardian writer Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph:
“…there are those who so value sons over daughters that they pressurise the women in their communities to abort female foetuses. This grim practice is called sex-selective abortion, and while most might assume that it only happens in the likes of China and India, it is in fact taking place in Britain too, among both first and second-generation immigrants whose roots lie in the Indian subcontinent.
It is rarely spoken about, but has come to light of late after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which provides abortions to more than 100,000 women across the UK annually, was criticised for suggesting that termination on the grounds of âfoetal sexâ was not illegal.
Official advice, however, begs to differ. âThis Governmentâs position is unequivocal: sex-selective abortion is illegal in England and Wales and will not be tolerated,â the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said this week. âSex is not a lawful ground for termination of pregnancy, and it is a criminal offence for any practitioner to carry out an abortion for that reason alone.â
Later in the article she gives her own view:
I may believe in a womanâs right to choose but this is not about choice. This is about maintaining âtraditionsâ which dictate that sons are prized breadwinners and girls are to be married off.
I do not see any good reason for the scare quotes Suzanne Moore put around the word “tradition”. A tradition of which Suzanne Moore disapproves is still a tradition. Nor do I see any good reason for her saying “this is not about choice”. It quite obviously is about choice. Unlike Ms Moore, I am closer to being “pro-life” than “pro-choice”. Here’s an old post of mine that talks about that. I do not agree with the view that the question is simply one of a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body; there is another life involved. The exact weight to give the competing rights of the foetus depend on a lot of factors, primarily how developed – how far from being a clump of cells and how near to being unquestionably a baby – the foetus is, but also including other factors such as the risk to the mother and whether the foetus is developing normally. However if one grants that a woman’s right to choose abortion does override the foetus’s right to life in particular circumstances, then the nature of a right to do something is that the person with that right does not need the approval of others to do that thing.
Putting it another way, how can it be justified that a female foetus that is solemnly decreed not to have a right to life suddenly gains that right if the woman wants to abort because of sexist tradition? Does that still work if the foetus is male and the woman wants to abort it because she’s a radical feminist?
Starmerâs commitment to universal human rights â which necessarily implies open borders â is now a threat to national security and, paradoxically, the human rights of the British people. By welcoming el-Fattah, a virulent anti-Semite, Starmer has violated the right of our Jewish community to feel secure in their own land. His refusal to police the pro-Palestinian, anti-Semitic hate marchers since October 2023 has also trampled on the security of British Jews and infringed upon their liberty â Central London has become a no-go zone.
– Joe Baron
Our speech laws are bad enough. But at least they can, in theory, be repealed and amended by members of parliament. NCHIs, by contrast, just bubbled up out of the policing quangocracy. No law was ever passed instructing the police to waste their time like this. But on and on theyâve gone, for more than a decade now.
– Tom Slater
When details of its launch leaked, the Financial Times branded it a âReform UK think tankâ. It is easy to understand this assumption: it is led by Jonathan Brown, a former Foreign Office diplomat who went on to serve as Reformâs Chief Operating Officer. But the reality is more nuanced. Non party-political, CFABB is part of a broader network that is sympathetic to Reformâs aims but not an adjunct of it.
Nimbleness is one contrast with traditional approaches. As James Orr, the chairman of CFABBâs advisory board, told me, Reform is not just disrupting Westminster with their politics, but also their speed of action. âAs a start-up, they operate at a much faster pace than the conventional parties; Farage makes decisions on policies in minutes, rather than months. Westminsterâs methodical think-tank cycle â commissioning research, editing reports, convening panels, publishing white papers â simply cannot keep up with leaders who decide policy positions as quickly as Reform.â
– Tom Jones
In what might come as a surprise to some, and I would suggest is a counter to a broad narrative, an Employment Tribunal (a form of Labour Court) in England has upheld the principle that criticism of ‘unreformed’ Islam is legally protected. The Tribunal considered a preliminary point as to whether or not the Claimant (Plaintiff in old, sound [ đ ] money) could in principle bring a claim on the basis that he held a belief that had sufficient cogency as to be worthy of respect in a democratic society. As far as can be discerned from the judgment, there was an issue (which is very much now an issue for a determination on the merits at a later hearing) as to whether the employer was taking action against the Claimant (the circumstances of which we know nothing) because of his manifestation of his belief, (which is permissible) rather than because he simply held those beliefs, which is not permissible; e.g. a nurse who is a devout Christian being sacked for being a Christian rather than specifically, sacked for e.g. saying to a seriously-ill patient ‘Convert or face Hell-fire soon!‘ which could well be a manifestation of a belief at which offence might be taken.
The issue that the Tribunal considered is set out in the judgment (linked above) as follows:
âThe belief that Islam, particularly in a traditional form â rather than a reformed, modernised, moderate and Westernised form â is problematic and deserving of criticism in so far as it fails:
(i) To recognise a separation between religion (sacred) and politics (secular) and/or the Church and state,
(ii) To value and respect fundamental human rights such as:
⢠freedom of conscience and of speech,
⢠to eschew and condemn violence in the name of religion (Islam),
⢠to treat and respect women and girls equally when compared to men and boys.â
The Claimant appears to have been ‘hauled up’ by his employer over his Twitter/X usage, there is reference to a file of 141 pages showing his Twitter feed, which the employer sought (at this stage) to use to argue that his belief in the need for a ‘reformation’ of ‘unreformed Islam’ was not genuinely held, i.e. that he was using this ‘belief’ as a shield for views that would not be protected. That is yet to be determined, if it is continued with by the employer.
The main points of the Claimant’s case were the following which he considered problematic were noted at paragraph 13 in the judgment:
‘In his witness statement [C/14], the Claimant has cited the following
âtraditional and unreformed Islamic belief[s]â that are that are incompatible with âWestern valuesâ in that they:
(i) advocate or justify violence against non-believers or apostates;
(ii) promote unequal legal status for women;
(iii) call for the death penalty for apostasy, blasphemy or homosexuality;
(iv) reject the separation of religion and state, and seek to impose religious law;
(v) promote antisemitism or hatred towards groups including reformed Muslims;
(vi) condone child marriage;
(vii) permit forms of slavery or indentured servitude;
(viii) justify domestic violence, including wife-beating and female genital mutilation (âFGMâ).’
It is important to note here that the Claimant’s belief isn’t about hostility towards Muslims as such, but to the holding and promotion of the ‘unreformed’ version of Islam that he is objecting to.
The issue for the Tribunal hearing the final case is summed up at paragraph 17:
‘The degree to which the Claimant will be able to establish that these tweets were a manifestation of the pleaded belief or that the Respondent will be able to show that these were inappropriate manifestations of, or otherwise separable from, the belief, are matters which fall to be decided at the final hearing.’
I.e. was the Claimant criticism of the ‘unreformed’ Islam that he weighs in against inappropriate, which takes into account the position that he held in the employer that he worked or works for.
There is nothing in this judgment that surprises me, it seems to be a legally-sound decision that the principle of criticising a belief on the basis of its incompatibility with ‘Western values’ (whatever they might be) is one where not only is it lawful, but an employer who acts against an employee for doing so (unless the manifestation is inappropriate) is itself acting unlawfully. Clearly, given that Courts are holding that such expression is legally-protected in principle, any notion that such comments are criminally unlawful are unfounded so any police action arising from those Tweets would be wholly unlawful.
And what we, the people, need to worry about is therefore that this is merely the start of Project Stop Fascism. Labour were only elected 18 months ago, and they have already reached a position at which they think it sensible to delay elections, mostly abolish jury trials, and begin edging back towards EU member status. What might they do in a yearâs time? Two yearsâ time? Three?
Delaying the next General Election would require primary legislation, and one reassures oneself by thinking that they surely couldnât go that far. But Iâm by no means the only person who has had the thought crossing his mind, and the fact that senior Labour figures are being forced to dismiss the idea publicly – a dismissal which is about as reassuring as your boss telling you that there are âcurrently no plans for compulsory redundanciesâ – itself would have been unthinkable two years ago.
– David McGrogan
There are also no prizes for guessing why Sir Keir is behaving in such an anti-democratic fashion. âIf there is a Conservative government, I can sleep at night,â he said. âIf there was a Right-wing government in the United Kingdom, that would be a different proposition.â He couldnât have summarised the phenomenon of the uniparty any better if heâd tried.
Labour and the Conservatives, in this conception, are competitors: Reform is an enemy: an existential threat to a consensus both parties have played their role in promoting.
– Sam Ashworth-Hayes (ÂŁ)
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, âPorcupinesâ, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty FrĂŠdĂŠric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
