Politics: playing with fire

RICHARD NORTH

I cannot help but admire the robust statement of the people in the County Tyrone village of Moygashel who have adorned their ritual bonfire with an effigy of a migrant vessel and about a dozen lifesize mannequins with lifejackets, with placards beneath the boat stating: “Stop the boats” and “Veterans before refugees”.

This is in exactly the same tradition that had people burn effigies of Guy Fawkes, although the bonfires came first with people lighting them around London to celebrate the survival of the protestant king, James 1 after the gunpowder plot was discovered on 5 November 1605.

The effigies came later when, during what had become an annual celebration, folk burned effigies of common hate figures, the pope most often featuring as the target.

The celebrations have often had a rumbustious nature to them. For instance, in 1831 an effigy was burnt of the new Bishop of Exeter Henry Phillpotts, a High Church Anglican and High Tory who opposed parliamentary reform, and who was also suspected of being involved in “creeping popery”.

Reflecting a healthy disdain for authority, a local ban on fireworks in 1843 was largely ignored, and attempts by the authorities to suppress the celebrations resulted in violent protests and several injured constables. And when “bonfire night” tradition was exported to the American colonies, it became known as “pope day”, keeping to the anti-catholic tradition.

Latterly, some towns have developed the tradition into a fine art, particularly the Sussex town of Lewes, which has a reputation for close to the knuckle celebrations, featuring effigies of well-known figures which are paraded through the town before being burnt.

In 2014, two effigies of the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond were created and although the police sought to prevent them being burned in public, one is said to have been blown up during the celebrations, after the police had withdrawn.

Other effigies have included Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and in 2012 Angela Merkel was shown making a Hitler salute and crushing the Parthenon, after she had been blamed for inflicting painful austerity measures on the Greek government.

In Northern Ireland, though, their bonfire night is known as the “Eleventh Night”, the night before the 12 July, to celebrate the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the victory of Protestant king William of Orange over the Catholic James II during the Williamite-Jacobite War (1689–1691), which began the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.

Towns and villages vie with each other to build the largest bonfires, often built using wooden pallets to form elaborate towers, often topped with Irish tricolours and symbols of Catholicism. But anti-immigrant sentiment is not unknown. In 2012, Polish flags were burned in several locations across Belfast in response to burgeoning Polish immigration.

The bonfire tradition, therefore, serves distinct functions, acting to signal community concerns about contentious issues, and as a pressure release valve, allowing people to let off steam in a relatively harmless and focused manner. There was no great upwelling of violence against Polish communities, for instance. But the message was sent.

What is particularly entertaining about this current demonstration of community sentiment is the squealing of the “offended” industry, illustrated by Geraldine McGahey, chief commissioner of the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland.

In a formal statement, she says: “We are seeing deeply troubling racist displays and rhetoric that target already vulnerable people. These send a message of exclusion and intimidation, especially in the shadow of recent violence in some of our towns”.

Demonstrating precisely how out-of-touch she is, McGahey goes on to say: “Everyone has a right to feel safe, no matter where they come from. People need to choose their words carefully and reject racist narratives that stoke division and have no place here”. She adds: “We must stand together to uphold dignity, safety and respect for everyone who calls this place home”.

This just about typifies the “open borders” zealots. Low IQ sub-Saharan Africans, it seems, can rock up to the island and demand food and shelter, adding nothing but crime, disruption and disorder, at enormous expense to the honest taxpayers of Ireland.

Yet these cretinous apparatchiks burble that this scum should be afforded “dignity, safety and respect”, just because they have decided to impose themselves on unwilling and increasingly resentful communities.

Against these sort of tone-deaf statements, therefore, the Moygashel effigies are a breath of fresh air, cutting through the sanctimonious cant to say: “enough is enough”,

Multiple complaints, it seems, have been made by the “offended” to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), who initially issued a holding statement to the effect that an investigation was in hand.

Subsequently, posted on Twitter is another statement purporting to come from the PSNI, which has them being advised of the risk of “widespread disorder”, with loyalists in other areas across Northern Ireland staging interface riots to stretch police reserves.

The police, it seems. have been told that there is a very real prospect of serious and sustained disorder should there be any effort to remove the bonfire. And, given the recent rioting in Ballymena, there is no reason to doubt that this will be the case.

Looking at the bigger picture, there are those who are saying that Northern Ireland, with its tradition of violent protest, is the touchstone for the rest of the United Kingdom, where hostility to the surge of mass immigration is building and tolerance is fraying.

Although, on the mainland, there isn’t the same tradition of violent demonstrations (except that hasn’t always been the case in the past) the summer riots of last year can be taken as a harbinger. Few are denying that England is a tinder box ready to explode into violence at the first substantial spark. And it is unlikely that it will be just effigies being burnt.

It is all very well Charles, Starmer and other establishment figures waffling about “unity”, “solidarity”, “common values” and all the rest, but as long as we have unreconciled ghettoes in our midst, with confrontational denizens going out of their way to make themselves disagreeable, these are and will remain empty platitudes.

The rush by this Labour government, urged on by Muslim communities, to produce a statutory definition of islamophobia is a case in point. While much of the antagonism displayed towards Muslim communities has been rational and entirely merited, these communities seem hell-bent on seeking to criminalise normal human behaviour, the results of which are likely to be all too predictable.

Much ink and keyboard energy has been expended on speculation about the possibility of a civil war but, if the present trajectory of increasing encroachment is matched by the continued official gaslighting, where complaint is increasingly suppressed, violent and extensive disorder become a matter of certainty.

As we hear the constant refrain that the UK police service is facing a significant crisis in both recruitment and retention, with high resignation rates and difficulties attracting new officers, the “thin blue line” gets thinner by the day.

In the event of significant disorder, police forces rely on a system of mutual reinforcement from adjoining forces but, in the event of multiple, cross-border hotspots, those reserves may no longer be available, and the police could lose control of the streets.

That scenario is probably closer than most people imagine, and if the powers that be had any sense, they would treat Moygashel as a warning, and do something serious about the effects of mass immigration, and much more to stop the boats.

But our elites are playing with fire. They would sooner retreat behind their wall of epithets, condemning this display of public sentiment as “vile”, “racist”, “deplorable” and all the rest. In the end, we will all be the losers, but the elites may find that they have more to lose than the rest of us and may have cause to regret their inertia.

••••

The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)

••••

Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.

••••

Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

••••

Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Liberty Beacon Project.