Freedom of Speech

The first response in so many instances when people start to talk in revolutionary terms is to flatten their speech. This, as has always been the case ignores the core reason for the discontents to be outraged in the first place.

The current heavy government jackboot is coming down hard, not only on many “enough is enough” rioters which is understandable, but on social media commentators too, seen as agitators and amplifiers of violence.

No one is condoning the violence, the criminal damage, the assaults on police officers, the looting for god’s sake! What has a tray of Greggs sausage rolls, a Lush bath bomb or a pair of fake Crocs got to do with protesting against the rapid cultural change we have seen in recent years in our society, our culture, our values? Those who engage in looting and violence should be ashamed of themselves for devaluing the peaceful protests.

Two Tier Kier was quick out of the blocks to label all protestors as “far-right” but in doing so devalued his own response. With many thousands of people online immediately proclaiming themselves under the hashtag #farrightthugsunite the governments weak attempt at shaming everyone standing against mass, uncontrolled migration failed spectacularly, with those same masses embracing the epithet.

The government has now pivoted from calling us “far right” to calling us “clearly racist”.

Do Not Speak Out

Again, our Lord Protector has very much missed the point of these anti-immigration protests. While the cultural change in communities has been profound in recent decades, these protests aren’t about race or racism, they are about too many people chasing too few homes, too few doctors, too few dentists, too few hospital beds, too few services. These protests were about fairness, about the two tier society that has manifested itself.

For the native British, who are constantly being told that Britain was built on immigration (it wasn’t, prior to 1951 immigration had been next to non-existent for a 1000 years), our high streets, our communities, our towns and cities have been permanently changed into multicultural wastelands containing siloed communities that don’t integrate, that don’t embrace British values & in many cases don’t contribute economically to our economy.

We have a welfare system that hands out taxpayers hard earned cash like dolly mixtures, that spends many millions translating signs and forms into umpteen different languages. Where else in the world do they do that? By negating the need to learn English, by negating the need to embrace British values the government magnifies the silo effect. It embeds dependence rather than fostering independence.

The protestors can see their communities declining in real time, they can see their streets changing, the direction that they can see their towns heading in and they are uncomfortable about those changes. That doesn’t make them racist or haters, it makes them worried parents who are in many cases witnessing a rapid increase in violence on their streets, streets that are not safe after dark.

Their children live with a greater threat of violence, stabbings are an almost daily occurrence and many of those stabbings are not carried out by the native community.

We have seen mass immigration in recent years mostly by single men. If you are running from a war, violence or terror then you take your family with you when you leave. If you are running to war then just the men leave.

Native Britons face a massive change in their communities all the while being told that diversity is their strength. At the same time they are told that men can be women if they choose to be so, that shoplifting isn’t theft if it is for less than £200, that paedo’s are “Minor Attracted People”, that illegal migrants are “irregular migrants”, that up is down, that left is right, that the biggest threat in the UK is from the “far right” despite all of the statistical evidence and the evidence of peoples own eyes and experiences telling them otherwise.

Social Media

Social media channels have for the first time in history given normal people a platform, a voice. For the first time in the history of mankind we can at the click of a button communicate with thousands, millions of other people. Governments around the world do not like this. They have, fo many decades been able to control the narative, to control the news, the output, the conversation.

Today many of the tools of that control have been bypassed and that is why governments around the world are eager to control and stifle communications online. The Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been arrested in Paris and looks likely to be charged with many offences, all of which appear to have been discussed or carried out but other people, on his platform. It is the equivalent of arresting the boss of the Royal Mail because someone sent hate mail through the post.

Social Media is the town square, speakers corner. Free speech doesn’t mean only hearing what you want to hear. Many people only what to hear their point of view being aired, but that isn’t what free speech is. As a defender of free speech, I must defend the rights of those I disagree with to say things with which I disagree. That is free speech and defending free speech takes broad shoulders.

If we only want our voice to be heard then we are no better than the authoritarian governments around the world that are attempting to shut down the town squares that we value so much.

The left want GB News and Talk TV shutting down because they disagree with many of the views that are aired. On the other side, I don’t see many on the right asking for LBC to be shut down for airing a majority of left wing views.

I choose not to watch LBC because I don’t agree with much of their content, but they have a right to publish their views and opinions.

Our Freedom of Speech is under threat. If we don’t defend the right to offend, the right to publish a view, as long as it doesn’t incite hatred or racism etc. we will soon regret the curtailment of the sharing of ideas.