Newsletter 66

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Aug 8, 2021 Comments Off on Newsletter 66 John Butler

Anniversary …… 23rd June passed with very little attention from the national media. Yet the significance of what UKIP achieved on that extraordinary day in 2016, grows in magnitude with every passing year.

It was UKIP that won our country’s freedom by putting thousands of pairs of boots on the ground, dragging local Conservatives along with them. It was UKIP that gave the British people the courage and hope to defy the political and media elitists. It was UKIP that provided vital substance to the ’ground’ campaign, without which ‘Remain’ would certainly have won.

It was UKIP that won our country’s freedom. Were it not for UKIP and many brave, patriotic citizens raising their heads to take on the Westminster political class, the Conservative party would have sat on their hands and done precisely nothing. The Conservative’s plan was for Leave to lose. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Such freedom from the EU as we enjoy today (and there is still much to do), can never be entrusted to the wibbly-wobbly ‘Woke’ Conservatives.

Tolerance is becoming rare in modern-day UK. To tolerate something you don’t necessarily approve of was until recently, the mortar which bonded people to a civil society. But with the increasingly ’binary’ presentation of issues by TV news, if you don’t approve (noisily or visibly) of something (invariably a ‘woke‘ issue), then you must be against it. This dovetails neatly with the Marxist principle of ‘whoever is not with us is against us’. With controversy over the England team ‘taking the knee‘, football has become yet another battlefront in the bush-fire culture wars being ignited by Cultural Marxists, with tolerance as the victim.

It is either naïve or dishonest for the FA to pretend that this has nothing to do with politics. ‘Taking the Knee’ was developed by BLM and Antifa in the USA after the death of George Floyd. It is linked directly to their extreme left-wing politics (defunding the police, abolishing ‘white‘ capitalism). It incites people by shows of partisan approval, bullying into compliance all who do not agree. It is every bit as political as a black-gloved clenched fist or an outstretched right arm. It is contrary to FA and UEFA rules, yet the FA seems hell bent on keeping it going until all opposition is silenced.

The English FA are in a minority; of 24 national teams at Euro 2020, only 5 ‘took the knee’. Some brave black footballers have kicked back. Crystal Palace’s Wilfred Zaha became the first Premier League player not to indulge in what he declared a ‘degrading’ act, opting instead to ‘stand tall‘. Half the clubs in Leagues One and Two no longer ‘take the knee’. Having little idea of the politics behind the gesture, England’s footballers now find that when one jumps on the Marxists crazy merry-go-round, it is not so easy to jump off. Stalin understood; the first to stop applauding him at the Party Conference would be on the next train to the Gulag. If England’s players stop ’taking the knee’ it will be social media ‘death’, as it will look as if they think ’Black Lives No Longer Matter’; a fear being stoked by BBC ’Woke’. Fans are right to show they do not approve of such politics without being smeared as ‘racists’ by numbskulls such as the Labour leader:

‘We need to get real about what the identitarian elites are doing to football. From their effusive celebration of taking the knee, which is increasingly a signal designed to antagonise traditional fans, to their grandstanding over the racial and national origins of England’s players, they are trying to turn football into a big, noisy advert for their divisive worldview. Surely fans didn’t spend years kicking racism out of football only to see it reintroduced in a new, apparently PC guise by elites who want to politicise and racialise everything ….’ (Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, 10th July)

‘Will I kneel for BLM? No, I will not. I kneel for no-one other than our Queen.’ (Janice North, Independence Daily, 24th June)

History Repeating …. The Crimean War with Russia (1854-56) was one of the most pointless wars in Britain’s history, at least until Tony Blair came along. But is Boris Johnson about to repeat history ?

On 23rd June the British destroyer HMS Defender was spotted in waters which Russia considers to be its territory, just 12 miles from the major Russian naval base of Sevastopol. As Defender navigated past the Crimean peninsula, two coastguard vessels came close while about 20 Russian jet fighters monitored the situation. Although initially disputed by the UK government, several warning shots were fired at Defender. Russia interpreted its presence as a ‘clear and deliberate provocation’. Boris Johnson insisted that Defender was in Ukrainian waters and was acting in accordance with the UN Convention, whereby ‘passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State’. Johnson added: ‘the important point is that we don’t recognise the Russian annexation of Crimea.’ 

The government’s ‘innocent passage’ claim collapsed after classified documents were found at a bus stop in Kent, showing that HMS Defender had sailed into Crimean waters to provoke a reaction from Russia or, as the files stated: ‘[to] poke the Russian bear’. An alternative route was considered which would have kept HMS Defender well away from contested waters, but was rejected as: ‘it would provide evidence of the UK being scared or running away’. This gung-ho mindset should concern us deeply. Whether Crimea belongs to Russia or Ukraine is irrelevant. Sevastopol is and always has been, the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet under agreement since 1991 with Ukrainian governments of whatever orientation. How would we react if a major Russian warship appeared a few miles off the Isle of Wight, within firing range of Portsmouth ?

Politics As Usual ? ….. The Tories were full of hubris after the Hartlepool by-election (largely due to ‘Brexit’). Nemesis duly followed with the results at Chesham & Amersham and Batley & Spen. The latter may be challenged by George Galloway and the English Democrats, who claim votes for smaller parties were misplaced (incl. UKIP). 2,000 Galloway posters were removed on dubious grounds by Labour-controlled Kirklees Council two days before polling. UKIP’s 7th place out of 16 was a noble effort. Chesham & Amersham showed how Boris Johnson’s commitment to HS2 and scrapping planning controls to concrete yet more of the most congested parts of England, have alienated the Tories natural voters. Voters of the two ‘main’ parties are fed up with them. The low turnouts since Lockdown ended show that most of the electorate are now completely disengaged from ‘politics as usual’.

This will be UKIP’s time. With illegal migration across the Channel at record levels, we can’t allow the LibDems to take the protest vote. We have the policies that reflect what ordinary people in the UK say, think and feel. UKIP is getting back into action, nationally with our party conference at Worthing on October 17th/18th, and locally with a Dorset Committee meeting to plan action and local branch meetings and socials.

Stories You Won’t Hear on The BBC …. ‘EU immigration to the UK was underestimated by more than 1.6 million between 2012-2020, after the ONS revised its methodology … Previous immigration figures were based on a model known as Long Term International Migration (LTIM), which appears to have wildly missed the mark. The new technique (Rapid), is based on actual tax and benefits data …. It reveals that in the last decade the number of EU migrants was more than, or close to double previous estimates. In the year ending March 2019, 410,000 are now assumed to have arrived, as opposed to the 186,000 previously estimated’ (Daily Telegraph, 26th June)

‘The BBC’s part-time ‘diversity champion’ is being paid more per day than the head of the Corporation. June Sarpong takes home £267,000 a year for a 3-day week, or £1700 a day …. compared to Director-General Tim Davie’s £429,000 full time salary, or £1650 a day. Her part-time work leaves her free to rake in more money from book deals, corporate speaking events and as ’diversity ambassador’ for fashion firm Burberry’ (Mail on Sunday, 25th July)

‘Former BBC boss Lord Hall, should be stripped of his peerage over the Martin Bashir scandal … The DUP’s Ian Paisley told Parliament’s ethics watchdog: ‘It is untenable for him to remain in a position of public trust. But he continues to be one of our lawmakers as a privileged member of the Lords … this man not only looked the other way, but then did a double-take and permitted the rehiring of Bashir in full knowledge of what had occurred. This can’t be allowed to blow over …… The BBC has been accused of causing fear and paranoia in a woman who one day could have been Queen of our nation’ (Mail on Sunday 30th May)

‘Illegal migrants are increasingly claiming they are victims of slavery, to avoid deportation. Latest official figures show that almost 1 in 6 used this argument, up from 1 in 33 in 2017 …’ (Mail on Sunday, 6th June)

‘People smugglers took advantage of yesterday’s heatwave to ferry 430 migrants across the Channel, a new daily record for this year. It took the total who have reached the UK this year to 8,187 and puts 2021 on course to exceed within days, last year’s record of 8,420 crossings. The 430 that arrived yesterday came in 14 boats and beat the previous daily record of 346 earlier this month. Among yesterday’s arrivals were a group of 30 migrants who surprised sunbathers on the beach at Oldstairs Bay in Kingsdown, Kent. Onlookers said they ‘looked like they had won the lottery, before running away in every direction’ (The Times, 20th July)

‘RNLI lifeboats are now racing into French waters to bring migrants to Britain .. On 28th June, the RNLI crew from Dungeness crossed the sea border into France to search for a boat with 20 migrants on board, acting on orders from the UK coastguard. Says an RNLI whistleblower: ‘it’s a regular thing. The volunteers who man these boats and those who raise money for the charity are getting angry; they want ordinary people in peril on English seas to be rescued’ (Daily Mail, 3rd July)

‘The BBC reported on Covid-19 figures from Brazil almost every day, while failing to mention that it’s the 6th most populous country in the world …… Nor did they compare it with Peru, which locked down hard whereas Brazil did not. Yet the two countries had almost exactly the same number of Covid deaths per million; Brazil 1900, Peru 1868 (the comparable figure for the UK is 1903)….’ (Mail on Sunday, 2nd May)

‘A report from the SPI-B committee of Government scientists admitted that data from 1 in 10 peoples’ phones were tracked in February, without their owners’ knowledge. The figures were used by researchers at Oxford University, who carried out studies for the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), which advises the ‘Sage’ group of Government scientific advisers Using mobile phone data for 10% cent of the population, the vaccinated group was then tracked through call data, with ’location observations’ every day, and were monitored for behavioural changes by analysing their data for the weeks before and after their vaccination.’ (www.telegraph.co.uk 22nd May)

‘Spotted at the G7 summit; an Extinction Rebellion protestor wearing a ‘Fly Emirates’ football shirt‘

< < < < < Pushbacks .….. ‘A former hospital boss has accused the NHS of putting patients lives at risk by signing up to Stonewall’s ‘diversity champions’ scheme. More than 90 healthcare organisations are understood to be involved, including the Dept of Health, NHS England and numerous hospital trusts. Kate Grimes, former chief executive of Kingston Hospital, London, has joined a growing chorus calling on organisations to withdraw from ‘Stonewall’. In Health Service Journal, she wrote: ‘I believe that working with Stonewall is no longer compatible with NHS values and risks the safety of our patients and staff’. Ms Grimes recalls how she received offensive messages when she came out as lesbian in the late 1980’s ……… But she said Stonewall’s recent lobbying over ‘trans-issues’ had culminated in the incorrect notion that a man who ‘identifies’ as a woman is allowed by law to access female only spaces. As a result, she added, female patients no longer have access to single sex accommodation in wards and bathrooms ….. female patients are exposed to the distress and dangers of sharing private space with men at a time when they are most vulnerable’ (Mail on Sunday, 13th June)

‘Andrew Neill is a man on a crusade; to cancel the ‘cancel culture’ he believes is damaging almost every aspect of modern life. The veteran broadcaster and founder of GB News Channel (Freeview 236), says: ‘It isn’t enough to be told you are wrong about something. Those behind this cancel culture want to ruin your life, your career and utterly destroy you. This is a battle we all must fight ..…’(Mail on Sunday 13th June)

‘Maya Forstater is unremarkable in most respects. Then one day she pitched into the front line of the nation’s culture wars when she lost her job for saying on Twitter that ’men cannot be women’ and ‘woman means adult human female’. In a landmark decision last week, a High Court Judge overturned the tribunal decision and ruled that holding the view that a person’s biological sex never changes regardless of a person’s gender ‘identification’, is ‘a protected philosophical belief under the law‘ …… She says: ‘I expected a response to the judgment but it blew me away how big it was. It feels like it belongs to so many people. Obviously its about my job, but its also about all women whose opinions are being bullied and silenced at work. People were crying, telling me how happy they were that I‘d won.’ Graham Linehan, co-creator of ‘Father Ted‘, who was banned from Twitter over remarks about the trans-gender lobby, described Ms Forstater as ‘the heroine we need right now‘ (Mail on Sunday, 13th June).

‘IKEA was accused of ‘breathtaking hypocrisy’ after joining an advertising boycott of new TV channel GB News; despite opening stores in Saudi Arabia where women’s rights are few and homosexuality is punishable by death ….. The Swedish retailer faced a fierce customer backlash after it bowed to an online campaign led by Left-wing pressure group ‘Stop Funding Hate’, which started vilifying the channel even before it went on air ….’ (Mail on Sunday, 20th June)

‘Trying to silence your opponents by mobilising a mob of internet bullies is a hallmark of the intolerant Left ….. Again and again we see ‘non-woke’ opinions being demonised as ’hateful’ and the people who subscribe to them as ’bigots’ even though they’re often mainstream views that the majority share ……. Defending people’s right to express a range of opinions without being branded ‘bigots’ or ‘phobes’ is the reason I set up the Free Speech Union …… Thankfully there are signs that SFH’s vilification of GB News (Freeview 236) is beginning to backfire. Moneysupermarket, Vodaphone, Bosch and Ikea have all distanced themselves from SFH’s boycott, after initially withdrawing their ads’ (Toby Young, Mail on Sunday, 20th June)

‘Ben & Jerry’s announced that it will stop selling its ice-cream in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem; areas that it regards as illegally occupied by Israel. As a result, the company is being boycotted in turn by people who are refusing to consume ice-cream flavoured with malice. In the US, some supermarket chains are registering their protest by reducing or halting their sales of the product.’ (Melanie Phillips, 23rd July)

‘A defector from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is ‘not as nuts’ as the indoctrination now forced on Western students. Yeon-mi Park fled North Korea when she was just 13, and thought she had begun a new life when she gained a place at Columbus University, New York. Almost immediately staff members told her off when she said that enjoyed classics such as the works of Jane Austen …. ‘I thought it was a good thing, but I was told those writers had a colonialist mindset. They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you…’ She concluded ‘even North Korea is not this nuts ….. it was pretty crazy but not this crazy …….. North Koreans, we don’t have access to the internet or any of these great thinkers. We don’t know anything. But here, while having everything, people choose to be brainwashed. And then they deny it. You guys have lost commonsense to a degree that as a North Korean, I cannot even comprehend’ (Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday, June 20th)

Out Of The EU, Into The World …. ‘The 11-member Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership has agreed to open accession talks with the UK. The government, which asked to join the TTP in February, said that membership would be a huge opportunity in a post-Brexit world. A working group is to be set up to discuss tariffs, trade and investment. The UK is expected to join the TTP, which includes Australia, Mexico and Japan, next year at the earliest …’ (Teletext, 2nd June)

‘The UK has signed a trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein …… the agreement will be a major boost for trade between the four non-EU nations, which is already worth over £21.6bn a year. It will boost sectors such as digital research and cut tariffs on UK farm exports such as cheese and meat. Import tariffs on shrimps, prawns and haddock will also be cut, a reduction it is hoped will support 18,000 jobs in Scotland and the north-east by creating new opportunities for the fish processing industry …. The UK is already Norway’s top trading partner outside the EU …’ (Teletext, 4th June)

‘New legislation to replace EU rules will give the government and local Council’s greater freedom to support local businesses …. The Subsidy Control Bill will replace EU rules which require members states to seek EU approval for government assistance to business. The new rules will allow the government to help companies with grants or loans more quickly, and has been called ‘the most important piece of post-Brexit‘ legislation yet’ (Teletext, 30th June)

‘Nissan have unveiled plans for a new £1bn factory in the North-East, creating some 6,200 jobs. Nissan’s chief officer Ashwani Gupta said: ’Brexit gives us a competitive advantage within the UK, but outside the UK also … Brexit, which we thought was a risk …. has become an opportunity for Nissan’ (Daily Mail, 3rd July)

CCP: Beast From The East … ‘The Chinese Students and Scholars Association is disrupting pro-democracy rallies on campuses across the UK …. The CSSA has branches in more than 100 British universities and claims to support the 120,000 Chinese students in the UK. But intelligence agencies say it is part of the United Front Work Department, an agency tasked by Beijing with recruiting overseas Chinese nationals for propaganda and espionage. Two years ago the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee said of CSSA: ’Its stated aim is to look after Chinese students, but it also reports on them to the embassy and authorities, tries to stop discussion of topics sensitive to China and takes more direct action under guidance of their embassy …’ (Mail on Sunday 30th May)

‘China has started construction on 145 nuclear missile silos near Yumen, in the north-west of the country …… The images were obtained by the James Martin Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies in California: ‘We believe China is expanding its nuclear forces in part to maintain a deterrent that can survive a US first strike in sufficient numbers to defeat US missile defences’. The silos are likely intended to hold the Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which can carry multiple warheads up to 9,300 miles…’ (Daily Mail, 3rd July)

‘EU leaders reportedly blocked attempts from the US, Britain and Canada to call out the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the use of slave labour in Xinjiang, saying that the West should focus on “cooperative” areas with China instead of ‘adversarial elements‘. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel all blocked efforts by the US, UK and Canada for the G7 summit to publicly shame the regime in Beijing …… The summary of the G7 communiqué failed to mention China, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong and the full report reportedly had a reference to Xinjiang slavery removed’ (The Times 15th June)

‘General Sir Patrick Sanders (Commander of UK Strategic Command) speaking at Chatham House in December 2020, described China as a ‘chronic’ threat and said: ‘China is the greatest strategic threat facing this country’……. ‘We would like to have a constructive relationship with China, but some of their actions make us wary. While we were engaged in nation-building and counterinsurgency in the Middle East, the Chinese got ahead of us with technology ….They have exploited things like 5G, military capabilities in space, hypersonics and AI. It represents a paradigm shift in their approach to warfare’. (Independence Daily, 27th June)

‘Police are investigating an incident where a Hong Kong crowd watching the Olympics, booed China’s national anthem … Hundreds gathered in a shopping mall to watch and cheer on Hong Kong fencer Edgar Cheung, who won gold in the men’s individual foil. When the Chinese anthem was played, the crowd began jeering, while others chanted ‘We Are Hong Kong’ (Teletext News, 30th July)

Bookworm ….. Some brave writers are fighting back against the threats to freedom:
‘A State of Fear’ by Laura Dodsworth, (Pinter & Martin, £9.99), shows how left-wing behavioural scientists are driving Covid-19 policy; ‘The New Snobbery‘, by David Skelton (Biteback £16.99) shows how Labour is now the main agent of anti-working class prejudice in Britain. Also worth looking out for: ‘Trans -When Ideology Meets Reality’ by Helen Joyce (One World, £16.99); ‘The Perfect Police State’ by Geoffrey Cain (Public Affairs, £25); a harrowing expose of the CCPs digital tyranny; ‘Privacy Is Power’ by Carissa Veliz (Corgi, £8.99); ‘Unmasked: Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy’ by Alex Ngo (Amazon).

Some important websites that are pushing back against ‘Woke‘:
www.thegwpf.com (Sanity about climate change)
www.independencedaily.com (For ‘Brexit’ grassroots)
www.gatestoneinstitute.org (For US and World Affairs)
https://facts4eu.org (Facts the EU don’t want known)
https://bigbrotherwatch.org (Turns the tables on BB)
https://unherd.com (For all free-thinking writers)
www.spiked-online.com (Left libertarians; they do exist)
www.dailysceptic.org (Q All; Stay Sane; Live Free)
www.conservativewoman.co.uk (Be very afraid Boris !)
https://thepeopleslawyeruk.com (Protect your freedom)

Don’t forget to check the monthly Dorset Digest (via e-mail) locally, as well as checking our branch website www.ukipmiddorset.org

e-mail: john.butler@ukipmiddorset.org All items in this newsletter are personal views only and do not necessarily represent the views of the UK Independence Party Mid-Dorset & North Poole