The Three-Fold Assault on Freedom in the West, Parts 1 and 2

PETER MCILVENNA

THE long march through the institutions in the UK began back in the 60s when the left began to take control of our teaching unions, schools and universities. The education of our children was paramount to the far left but largely ignored by ‘conservatives’. As a result the left were extremely successful in capturing our institutions of learning. As these children grew up and took over the key establishment institutions – the civil service, the judiciary, business, finance and medicine as well as throughout education – they began to roll out a second phase of the Marxist cultural wars without a drop of blood spilt, first through a policy of ‘inclusion’ dreamt up in by the Blair administration, which was later to develop into the ‘Diversity Equity and Inclusion’ requirement – to be ignored at your peril. It’s because of this comprehensive attack on our children that organisations like Moms for Liberty in the US are an essential part of this fight for freedoms. It has been of crucial importance for years now that conservatives in the UK reclaim teacher training colleges. Tragically they have been asleep at the wheel. Michael Gove’s education reform ignored what was most critical. The rot began to set in, however, during the preceding Conservative administration under John Major (1990-7) when speech started to be criminalised through the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, legislation that made it an offence to cause alarm or distress in certain circumstances, including use of abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or speech that incited violence or hatred.

A later amendment allowed prosecutors to apply for an uplift in sentence for those convicted of hate speech interpreted as targeting ‘individuals or groups based on their race, religion, or other characteristics’. It meant that any crime could be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has ‘demonstrated (or been motivated by) hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity’.

In the UK not only do we have this new criminal class of ‘hate speech’ but we have an even more sinister system. In 2014, the College of Policing came up with the concept of the ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI). This is any incident perceived by the victim or any bystanders to be motivated by hostility or prejudice to the victim based on a ‘protected’ characteristic (race or perceived race, religion or perceived religion, and so on).

‘Perceived’ is the operative word here, since as the guidance goes on to note: ‘The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required.’ So you no longer have to commit a crime. All you have to do is have a thought or desire or (imputed) motivation that may lead to a crime in the future.

The recording threshold for a NCHI is that someone had taken a subjective offence to something perfectly lawful that someone else has said or posted online, whether it’s directed at them or not.

It is estimated that more than 250,000 NCHIs have been recorded by police forces in England and Wales. The public have no access to this database and individuals are not informed if and when their name is included and for what. But this black mark categorises them as a hateful individual and can destroy any career opportunity. Offence ‘archaeology’ is a favourite pastime of the left. I am sure that the UK is not unique in having a hidden database with problem people that the government is targeting.

The problem is that conservatives, whether in the US or in the UK or any country, are generally nowhere near as passionate about preserving our liberty as the left are about destroying it. Whether the issue is Islam or abortion, a ‘call’ I have often heard is ‘we need to be more passionate about life than they are about death’. We do. But to date conservatives have not been. They’ve been naive and blind and full of wishful thinking. They don’t want to look old-fashioned, bigoted or narrow as the left casts them, that ‘progressivism’ must be acceded to. Only with the combination of the covid tyranny and the return of Trump have some people begun to wake up. (Though dissenting websites like TCW which challenged the government narrative were demonetised, and still are, on grounds of covid misinformation and other ‘thought’ crimes.)

The State’s monitoring tentacles do not restrict themselves to the spoken word. In the UK and Europe they cover comments and statements online as well. The UK’s Online Safety Act, 300 pages and five years in the making which came into force in March, criminalises speech online under the guise of protecting children from damaging content. Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) was introduced weeks after the UK’s Act.

Under both of these a social media company can be fined up to 10 per cent of their global annual turnover so it is no wonder that Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Wikipedia, Telegram and others have indicated they may have to pull out of the UK and Europe. Only last month the video platform Bitchute and social media company Gab blocked access to all UK users.

Paul Durov, founder of Telegram, was arrested in France last year. If President Macron does only what he is told by Nato or the US, as is widely believed, this arrest was not a French attack on freedom to communicate but a global war on speech.

Last year the Australian government pulled its misinformation Bill but immediately introduced a new Bill that aims to ban social media for children under 16 and proposed massive fines for social media platforms for systemic breaches. Australia plans to trial an age-verification system that may include biometrics or government identification to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.

In Canada legislation to restrict free speech has failed to progress but under Mark Carney it is expected to be reintroduced.

In America the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) passed the Senate last year with a big majority and is now in the House. Yes, in America with its First Amendment.

In Germany the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been facing restriction, banning and censorship. Earlier this month the German domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), classified the largest opposition party, the AfD, as ‘confirmed right-wing extremist’ – a long planned upgrade based on a mysterious 1,100-page assessment, full of damning ‘proofs’ that allegedly supported it. According to blogger eugyppius, ‘It was supposed to prove, in excruciating detail, why the AfD are so evil and so fascist and so Nazi and so Hitler, and in this way make a preliminary case for banning the party.’ However its contents turned out to be ‘such an arrant joke’ that ‘it sapped all remaining momentum within the German political class to prohibit the AfD.’

Thankfully the legal case has collapsed against the AfD, but the ‘cartel’ parties continue their dirty tricks undeterred. The AfD is the party that is polling top, the leading political party in Germany that they tried to ban. If an election were called today they would come first.

As we have seen, the Romanian elections were first cancelled and then, when conducted anew, an EU puppet was manoeuvred in to beat the popular candidate in an election marked by skulduggery. Where the US deep state failed with its lawfare against Donald Trump, the French State has had no compunction in disqualifying the bearers of opinions it finds objectionable – namely Marine Le Pen, who has not just been banned from standing for the third time for the French presidency, she has also been sentenced to two years in prison (though she will be fitted with a tag and kept under ‘house arrest’) with another two years suspended. Meanwhile the winning party in the Austrian elections, the Freedom Party, was not allowed to be the government. A five-month effort to form a coalition government ended when three other parties joined forces and excluded the People’s Party.

In the UK Keir Starmer was returned on a lower vote (9.7million) and share (33.8 per cent) of any modern Prime Minister. The ‘riots’ that occurred not long after he was elected were sparked off by the unspeakably savage murder of three little girls in Southport by someone who was suspected to be an immigrant and turned out to be the son of Rwandan immigrants.

Under Starmer’s swift justice instruction the authorities arrested more than 1,000 people following a week of protests sparked by anger over uncontrolled immigration, which some believe was fuelled by infiltrators. Of course any violence should be prosecuted, lawless behaviour and actual incitement to violence not tolerated. But many of the protests were peaceful, and where was the on-the-ground reporting of organised and threatening counter-demonstrations? Many of those arrested had posted on social media, like Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for 31 months. Her appeal has been denied.

The Labour government announced that up to 5,000 prisoners would be released early to free space for all these keyboard warriors.

Since Southport there has been no diminution in hate speech arrests. Thirty arrests a day are made for hurty words online.

To be concluded.

This article (The three-fold assault on freedom in the West, Part 2) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Peter Mcilvenna