New Red Scare - McCarthyism Now Official

Not even Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, that greatest of narcissists, could have known just how much worldwide mileage would be extracted from his bigoted and wrong observation that there were “Very fine people on both sides” after the far-right just happened to kill an opponent at Charlottesville. Now the Trumpian equivalence has arrived in the UK, along with the useful idiots willing to run with it.

Are you now, or have you ever been, not a member of the Tory Party?

So it is that the Government of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has decided to go after political activists on the left, using the false “both sides” equivalence and excusing the new red scare by claiming that they are also investigating the far right. That far right extremism is well known, and needs no further investigation to highlight the bleeding obvious, is not allowed to enter.

Behold the new witchfinder general ...

This latest sham has, predictably, been revealed exclusively in the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, where deputy political editor Lucy Fisher has told “Attempts by far-left activists to ‘hijack’ movements including Black Lives Matter & Extinction Rebellion are being investigated in a review ordered by Govt … Lord Walney is leading the new probe on violence & disruption on the hard left and far right”. Both sides, remember.

... and his far from disinterested mentor

And there is more. “Lord Walney warns … that the UK must heed the growth of the far right in US, following storming of Capitol … But he also cautions against a ‘blind spot’ in Britain over ‘progressive extremism’ in the name of fighting climate change & racial injustice”. The new soundbite, remember it well, is “Progressive Extremism”. Do go on.

“He is also examining entryism: ‘the way anti-democracy, anti-capitalist far left fringe groups in Britain, like the Socialist Workers Party, tend to have much more success hijacking important causes & mainstream cultural activity than the far right, & the harm that may do’”. Bogeyman alert! It’s the SWP wot done it! Reds under the bed!

It does not take long for John Woodcock (for it is he) to let the cat out of the bag. This is not about far-right extremism: as Diane Abbott has pointed out, the security services already know all about that, and it does not need the newly-ennobled Woodcock to tell Bozo and his pals what they could find out from the nearest security briefing.

And as the Guardian has reminded us, in its take on the Woodcock initiative, the naming of groups like Extinction Rebellion comes on the heels of Priti Patel, inexplicably appointed Home Secretary, who “has previously claimed Extinction Rebellion activists are ‘so-called eco-crusaders turned criminals’ who threaten key planks of national life”. There was more.

“In a speech to the annual conference of the Police Superintendents’ Association last September, Patel said XR was ‘attempting to thwart the media’s right to publish without fear nor [sic] favour’, and claimed their campaign of civil disobedience was ‘a shameful attack on our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority’”.

UAF has reminded us just where the actual threat comes from. "The extreme right have killed an MP in recent years & have been involved in much violence...there is a world apart between them & [Black Lives Matter / ExtinctionRebellion]”. Got it in one.

What price a Lords commission on Un-British activities? You can feel the paranoia.

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