Thread by @paddydocherty

A thread about Scotland, solidarity against dictatorship, and the connection between Chilean fascism and the disaster of Brexit. 🧐✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳🇨🇱#NaePasaran #StopFascism #Brexit #ToriesOut #solidarity #history

I recently saw the extraordinary film “Nae Pasaran”, a powerful, deeply moving story of Scottish workers standing up to the fascist dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s… 🤓✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳🇨🇱 #NaePasaran #StopFascism #solidarity #Scotland #Chile @debasersfilms @naepasaran

One day in March 1974, an engineer at the Rolls Royce plant in East Kilbride, near Glasgow, noticed that there were Chilean aircraft engines in the production line, waiting to be refurbished. They were from Hawker Hunter jets owned by the Chilean Air Force. 😀✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳 #Scotland

That engineer was the antifascist LEGEND Bob Fulton. ⬇️ Aware of the recent fascist coup in Chile, and that his union had condemned it, he prevented all work on those engines. He instructed his fellows to boycott the engines, and they downed tools. 😠✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳🇨🇱 #resist #NaePasaran

Against all orders from management, and under threat of being sacked, Bob and his comrades refused on principle to touch the fascist engines. Put in crates and moved outside, they sat untouched for days, months, then years… 😠✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #NaePasaran @naepasaran #resist

Bob Fulton was joined in leading this act of solidarity by Robert Somerville, John Keenan, & Stuart Barrie. Picture shows all four antifascist heroes with Felipe Bustos Sierra, director of Nae Pasaran... 😃✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳🇨🇱 @naepasaran #resist #Glasgow #Scotland #Chile #film

The film traces the impact of this stand, on the antifascist resistance in Chile & on the fascist regime itself. While they had received grateful thanks from hundreds of exiled Chileans, the story of the impact in Chile itself was unknown to the Scottish workers. 🙂✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇻🇳🇨🇱

One of the most shocking events of the coup (which was carried out on Sept 11th 1973) was the bombing of La Moneda, the presidential palace in the centre of Santiago, by Hawker Hunter jets of the Chilean Air Force. 😧✊🇨🇱 #Chile #LaMoneda #Santiago #resist

An amazing revelation of the film is that at least one of the engines from those very aircraft was among the ones boycotted by Bob Fulton and his comrades in East Kilbride. 🤓✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱 #StopFascism #resist #NoPasarán

The bombing of La Moneda – the armed forces attacking its own centre of government – made the 1973 coup uniquely violent, even on a continent with more than its fair share of military takeovers. 😢✊🇨🇱🇻🇳 #StopFascism #Allende #Chile #LaMoneda #resist

Though it was swift and brutal, the coup had been building for some time. The wealthy classes and fascist elements in the armed forces were implacably opposed to the government of President Salvador Allende. 😖✊🇻🇳🇨🇱 #resist #StopFascism #Chile #LaMoneda

A Marxist, Allende had been elected democratically in 1970, & was working to introduce a peaceful revolution in Chilean economy & society, undoing many instances of profound exploitation. Capital interests rebelled. 🤨✊🇻🇳🇨🇱 #Marxism #Chile #Allenda #Santiago

The full story of the campaign against Allende and the fascist coup is told in another amazing documentary film, “The Battle of Chile” by Patricio Guzman. Very highly recommended. 🤓✊🎥🇻🇳🇨🇱 #Guzman #BattallaDeChile #Chile

Although not the chief plotter of the coup, it was General Augusto Pinochet who forced himself into power as the military junta took over. If you can look at this picture without feeling rage, please stop reading this thread and seek help… 😖✊🇻🇳🇨🇱 #Pinochet #Fascism #Chile

The fascist regime in Chile was exceptionally brutal. Estimates put the number of people murdered by the state as between 10,000 and 30,000 (Rudolph Rummel) and at least 200,000 suffered extreme trauma (ILAS). Pic by Marco Ugate. 😖✊🇻🇳🇨🇱 #StopFascism #Chile

The secret police, DINA, maintained dozens of prisons & torture centres, including in otherwise regular streets in Santiago. This is Londres 38, a former clandestine torture centre, now run as a museum and place of commemoration. 😢✊🇨🇱🇻🇳 @Londres_38 #resist #Chile

Some foreign citizens were also tortured, including Dr Sheila Cassidy, shown here arriving back in the UK after being released in Dec 1975. Dr Cassidy is interviewed in “Nae Pasaran”. 😧🇨🇱 #resist #StopFascism @naepasaran

Democracy was finally restored in 1990, after a 1988 plebiscite was forced on Pinochet amid international pressure & the drawing down of the Cold War. The Pablo Larrain film “No” is a fantastic dramatization of the referendum campaign, starring Gael García Bernal. 🤓✊🎥🇨🇱🇻🇳

Thatcher was a supporter of Pinochet… Showing the standard Tory commitment to dishonest gibberish, she once told this *actual dictator* that “…it is you who brought democracy to Chile…”, a grotesque insult to the thousands of dead & tortured. 😖✊🇨🇱🇻🇳 #resist #ToriesOut

The Thatcher/Pinochet friendship is widely known. Less recognised are the other links between the dictator and the Tories… When the Labour government placed Pinochet under house arrest in the UK in 1998, while considering extradition to Spain, he needed help… 😖 #gross

… To assist with efforts to spin his way out of legal trouble (for, you know, gross crimes against humanity…) Pinochet engaged this man, rabid Tory fruitcake and PR supremo, Patrick Robertson. 😖 #ToriesOut #StopFascism #gross 🇻🇳🇪🇺

It seems reasonable to judge a person by the people with whom they choose to associate… So it may well be significant that Robertson set up a company named “Taskforce Communications” in 1992, with loopy racist Gerald Howarth… (thread ⬇️) 😖✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #ToriesOut

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1261627522615255045

… and with Tory cad Cecil Parkinson. (thread ⬇️) Board meetings must have been a gruesome stew of greed, racism and misogyny… 🤮 #ToriesOut #resist

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1264163710567940096

Moreover, Robertson worked with Tory MP, liar and convict Jonathan Aitken in 1995.... 😖 (thread ⬇️) #CheesesChrist #gross #ToriesOut #StopFascism 🇪🇺🇻🇳

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1264117287327617024

In short, some of the very worst of a horrible bunch. Robertson even masterminded the 1997 election campaign for James Goldsmith and his Referendum Party… 😖✊🇻🇳🇪🇺 #WorseAndWorse #gross #ToriesOut

Of all the many horrible things on the CV of this fascist-supporting grifter, however, possibly the most impactful is his contribution to wrecking the relationship between Britain and the EU: Robertson founded the Bruges Group think tank while still a student in 1989. 😖✊🇪🇺

Named for a speech made by #Thatcher in the city of Bruges in 1988, the Bruges Group became a leading force in Eurosceptic circles in British politics, including many MPs among its number. Thatcher became honorary president in 1990. 😖✊🇪🇺 #Brexit #gross

Robertson established the Bruges Group with Ralph Harris, the Thatcherite economist who for decades ran the free-market think tank/anti-tax lobby group, the IEA. Numerous senior Tories have used the forum to press for leaving the EU. 😖✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #ToriesOut #booo

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, the disaster capitalist and Victorian autoparody, gave a speech to the Bruges Group in January 2019, in which he reiterated his call for a no-deal Brexit. 😖✊🇪🇺 #Brexit #resist

Mark Francois MP, the comic-book character who took over from Rees-Mogg as head of the ERG group of Brexit freaks in parliament, addressed the Bruges Group annual conference in March 2020. There are dozens of other examples of close links. 🤨✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #Brexit #ToriesOut #StopFascism

I would like to suggest that it is no mere coincidence that the kind of people who support a fascist dictator like Pinochet are also the people who strive for Brexit… There are some interesting parallels between the 1973 coup in Chile & the coming disaster of Brexit. 🇨🇱🇪🇺

The fascist coup in Chile was fundamentally about capital interests & conservatism attacking democracy in order to preserve their wealth & privilege. 😠✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🇪🇺 #resist #StopFascism #NoPasarán

Chilean fascists used the military regime to undo the progressive measures & new social protections introduced by the Allende government. It’s crucial to remember that Allende was in power democratically and had immense popular support. 😠✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 #StopFascism #NoPasarán

This illustrates that fascism is best understood as a mobilising strategy for gaining power, through democratic subversion if possible and by force if necessary, in order to protect capital interests. 😠✊🇻🇳🇨🇱🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 #resist #NoPasarán

For this reason, I regard #Brexit as a model fascist project: it rests on the delusional myths of national peril & racial superiority that all strands of fascism employ as mobilising tools. 😖✊🇪🇺

Capital interests want Brexit because it will make them money: turning the UK into a deregulated tax haven hellhole will benefit disaster capitalists, money launderers and tax avoiders. It will wreck the living standards of everyone else... 🧐✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #resist #Brexit

If you doubt that, please read this thread about Crispin Odey ⬇️, and ask yourself whether his aim in life is the good of the community… Naturally, Odey is both a Brexit supporter and a significant Tory party donor. 😖✊🇻🇳🇪🇺 #gross #Odey

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1177872481270583296?s=21

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1177872481270583296

Moreover, Rees-Mogg’s father literally wrote the book on disaster capitalism... The Rees-Mogg reaction to looming crisis is NOT “how can we prevent this?” but rather “how can I make money out of this?!”… 😖✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #revolting #FFS #ToriesOut #greed #gross #resist

Even more scarily, our de facto prime minister and career psychopath Dominic Cummings wrote in his loopy blog about Brexit being a “once in 50 or 100 year crisis” to be exploited… 😖✊🇪🇺🇻🇳 #SackCummings #CummingsMustGo #NotMovingOn #nutjob

dominiccummings.com/2019/06/26/on-…

In the same way that these people are prepared to cause massive economic damage to the UK because it will benefit *them*, the wealthy classes in Chile also worked to cause economic havoc in order to damage the Allende government. 😠✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🇪🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #resist #StopFascism #Chile

In an effort to create unrest, business owners effectively placed sanctions on their own country, halting production & shutting down the transport network. During 1970-73 they sought to cause difficulties for Allende regardless of the public good. 😖✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇪🇺 #resist

One of the tools of this campaign was the fascist paramilitary group “Patria y Libertad” (“Fatherland & Liberty”) which mounted aggressive street demonstrations and even attempted a premature coup in June 1973. 😠✊🇨🇱 #Chile #StopFascism #ToriesOut #resist

Importantly, Patria y Libertad was funded by the CIA: foreign interference is another similarity between Brexit and the fascist coup in Chile. We wouldn’t have Brexit without US & Russian money via Tufton Street and donations to the Tory party. 🧐✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🇪🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #StopFascism

Similarly, US financing was a critical factor in the campaign against Allende. Documents later released by the State Department make the US commitment very clear. 😖✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🇺🇸 #resist #CIA

The US interest in Chile was partly the anti-communist impulse of the Cold War, but arguably largely about cold hard cash: US capital dominated the crucial Chilean copper industry before Allende nationalised it. Retaliation was multi-faceted, through the CIA and other means. 🇨🇱

The State Department communications make it very clear that Washington saw a coup as an entirely acceptable outcome. Remember that Allende was democratically elected, and this is the US government discussing the support of a fascist military coup. 😧🇨🇱🇺🇸🇻🇳

The US evidence demonstrates that the US government was a crucial factor in creating the conditions for the coup, though evidently Washington DC did not *initiate* it on September 11th 1973. CIA actions on the ground, however, are less well known. 🧐✊🇨🇱🇺🇸🇻🇳 #resist

While the US did not therefore order the final coup, it most certainly welcomed it: here is Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with the fascist dictator General Pinochet. 😖✊🇨🇱🇻🇳🇺🇸 #resist #StopFascism #Kissinger #Pinochet

This brings us back to where we started, with the stunning film “Nae Pasaran” and the magnificent act of solidarity by Bob Fulton & his comrades. 🤓✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳 @naepasaran #StopFascism #Resist

Most immediately, their refusal to work on the engines crippled a big chunk of the Chilean Air Force for years: Bob Fulton’s goal was to hinder the fascists in killing innocents from the air… 😢✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

…and he achieved this. It is also likely that some of the engines (which were secretly removed from the East Kilbride factory under cover of darkness in 1978) were exchanged for a number of anti-Pinochet Air Force officers, certainly saving their lives. 😊✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳

Perhaps most significantly, however, was the morale boost to anti-fascist campaigners: the developing story of the Rolls Royce workers in Scotland who refused to help the fascists was broadcast regularly on rebel radio back in Chile. ☺️✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳 #solidarity

Felipe Bustos Sierra himself speaks about hearing this story when a child in Belgium with his exiled parents. The knowledge that the world had not forgotten them was a source of strength for many prisoners held in the fascist camps. This testimony is extremely powerful… 😊✊🇨🇱

Bob Fulton and his comrades took this action because it was the right thing to do, expecting only to be fired or otherwise punished. But the moral clarity of their act of solidarity gave it extraordinary power, impacting on other continents. 🤓🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳 #solidarity

Please watch this astounding film & be inspired to act in #solidarity against the rising fascism that we face today in many countries around the world. Alone we may feel weak & helpless, but together we are invincible. ☺️✊🇻🇳#ALutaContinua #VitóriaÉCerta #NaePasaran @naepasaran

A final grateful thanks to Bob Fulton, the unassuming antifascist legend of East Kilbride.

¡Compañero Fulton, presente!

☺️✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳

#ALutaContinua #VitóriaÉCerta #NaePasaran @naepasaran

POSTSCRIPT

This magnificent film is ready for immediate viewing on Vimeo:

🤓✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇱🇻🇳🇪🇺 #NaePasaran #resist

Vimeo.com/ondemand/naepa…