Thread by @shaunjlawson

I'm going to reply to this in detail. Some tweets randomly get me thinking. This was one of them.

The person who wrote it isn't bad at all. They're certainly well-meaning. But they're also a victim - of Britain's unbelievably false, lying political discourse. About EVERYTHING.

https://twitter.com/DissidentYokel/status/1470991644904280065

I left Britain in early 2012: having told friends it was screwed for "at least a decade". Yet even though I could see what the Tories were doing and where this would lead - I saw Brexit coming a mile off - it still took that level of distance to make me see Britain for what it is

Because you see, everything in British political discourse - including a number of things a massive majority assumes to be true - is based on lies. And I mean EVERYTHING.

The person I'm responding to here has simply swallowed one of them... without thinking or questioning it.

That's despite this person *knowing* what the media did to Jeremy Corbyn. How it lied about and slandered him on a daily basis.

Similarly, huge numbers of those who swallowed those lies themselves *know* what the media and the Leave campaign did on Brexit.

The person I'm responding to even knows how opinion polls are manipulated all the time. The cognitive dissonance here is remarkable - but it's quite close to universal among British people.

British political discourse is based almost entirely on complete bullshit.

And while Blair set the ball rolling over Iraq, and Clegg made it worse when betraying students, the real moment British politics, economic policy, social policy, you name it, became based on bullshit was in May 2010... with Liam Byrne's "there's no money left" note.

In that note, Byrne followed a tradition which encompassed his predecessors. It was a jokey, cheerful transition of power to a new government who he wished well. He couldn't ever have imagined they'd use it in such a disgusting - quite frankly, evil - way.

5 years later, David Cameron paraded around the country with that note, holding it aloft at campaign speech after speech. "We had no money left - Labour had spent it all! Here's the proof!"

He used that note to justify austerity. Which killed hundreds of thousands.

Even now, quite unbelievably, you will find people on here who STILL cite it as 'proof' that "Labour spent all the money!"

The reality - that any country in charge of its own money supply cannot run out of money - and that Britain was growing rapidly before the coalition implemented austerity (more rapidly than at any point since 2001) is ignored.

And thus from that note began a narrative.

In a country in which all of a sudden, only narratives, not facts, mattered.

"We could've been Greece! We have to live within our means!"

The reality - that when a country cuts spending, it automatically cuts its own growth - was again ignored.

The reality - that investment leads to growth which increases the tax take which in turn REDUCES the debt - was ignored. And by and large, still is.

Instead, Britain was turned upside down. As total economic illiteracy was viewed as the reverse... and vice versa.

And much of the public swallowed it utterly.

Like this idiot, firmly put in his place by the great @yanisvaroufakis - but here's the thing. He won't have learnt ANYTHING as a result; I bet you it's what he still thinks even now.

All this time, what happened to the debt? You know: the 'debt which it would be irresponsible and immoral to pass onto our children'?

It SKYROCKETED. Which always happens under 'economically competent' Tory governments... and doesn't happen under 'reckless' Labour governments.

There is zero comparison, none whatsoever, between New Labour's good economic management and the Tories' wanton destruction. But narratives and bullshit mean the public think the reverse.

Just as the public thinks immigrants come to Britain for its 'generous benefits'.

The reality - that those 'benefits' are the lowest in Western Europe - is again treated as irrelevant.

Just as the public thought the EU dictated all our laws to us. Only to invariably be unable to name a single one.

Just as the public thought leaving the EU would mean 350m a week extra for the NHS. The reality - we'd lose massive amounts instead, and the 'economically credible' Tories would send tens of billions to their mates and fail to invest anywhere other than London, was ignored.

- Lies about the economy
- Lies about immigrants
- Lies about refugees
- Lies about benefit claimants
- Lies about Brexit

Many people voted for Brexit thinking we could be like Switzerland or Norway.

What they didn't know - BECAUSE NO-ONE HAD EVEN TALKED ABOUT IT - was that to be Switzerland or Norway, we'd have to stay in the single market. And therefore not be able to control immigration.

That's immigration: which motivated racists to vote Leave, despite the EU being massively majority white. If their racist problem was with non-white immigration, leaving the EU wasn't going to make a blind bit of difference.

But don't ask these people for logic or consistency.

They live in a country based on bullshit. Bullshit which then banged the public over the head day after day, week after week, month after month, with:

CORBYN IS AN ANTISEMITE! HE IS AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO BRITISH JEWS! HE IS A DANGER TO BRITAIN!

That's an 'antisemite', who:

- Tried to rescue Yemeni Jews when no-one else in the House of Commons gave a damn
- Helped save a Jewish cemetery from demolition against the wishes of Margaret Hodge's council
- Commissioned a comprehensive investigation into antisemitism in Labour

- Implemented a process under Jennie Formby which was deliberately sabotaged by relentless numbers of phony complaints
- Inherited a process which, under Formby's Blairite predecessor, was an absolute disaster
- Has always stood with the voiceless against the powerful. ALWAYS.

The media would've made you think that Corbyn's Labour were the Nazis reincarnated.

Less than 0.1% of a membership of over half a million were guilty of antisemitism. But the facts DID NOT MATTER.

Nor do they now, with Starmer expelling socialist Jews left, right and centre.

middleeasteye.net/news/uk-labour…

Nor did they when for the crime of wanting basic democratic accountability, the left was denounced for 'Stalinite purges'.

Those purges are actually happening RIGHT NOW, under Starmer and David Evans.

Astonishing numbers of good, compassionate people have been expelled for the crime of being socialists and in particular, for standing up for the Palestinians against oppression, injustice and indeed, apartheid.

Described as such by Israel's leading human rights organisation. If B'Tselem were British, they wouldn't be allowed in Starmer's Labour and would be denounced as 'antisemitic'.

Think about that for a moment. Think about it. That's the dystopia Britain is.
btselem.org/publications/f…

Corbyn, meanwhile, had the whip removed for telling the truth about the EHRC report. A report which scarcely anyone denouncing him EVEN BOTHERED TO READ.

A report whose conclusions about 'interference by the leadership' Starmer instantly ignored... for which, he was praised!

And all this time, a racist government under two successive racist Prime Ministers continued to implement disgustingly racist laws.

The latest one is the most terrifying yet - and breathtakingly antisemitic in its potential.

zelo-street.blogspot.com/2021/12/border…

Look what's happening even now. Next to nobody is even discussing a law with devastating potential consequences for fully six million British people. Instead, we're all distracted by partygate. Which is how the whole damn thing works.

A country based on bullshit and lies. About EVERYTHING.

And what's the latest piece of bullshit, swallowed by large numbers - including the person in the OP?

1. That trans rights are under threat or this is all because of 'transphobia'. They're not and it's not.

2. A 'majority of women' support self-ID. BUT THEY DON'T.

They support trans rights, yes. I'd like to hope just about everyone does. But they do NOT support allowing male-bodied people with male genitals into women's spaces.

Organisations like Stonewall or Mermaids have been absolutely deliberate and beyond cynical in how they've gone about this.

Because they know that in Bullshit Kingdom Britain, you don't need facts or details. They're the enemy! You need slogans - slogans based on bullshit.

- Labour ran out of money!
- Labour crashed the economy!
- We have to live within our means!
- Welfare is a lifestyle choice!
- They come here for our generous benefits!
- Strong and stable government!
- Coalition of chaos!
- Let's take back control!
- 350m for the NHS!

- They need us more than we need them!
- No Deal is better than a bad deal!
- Corbyn is an antisemite!
- Corbyn is a danger to Britain!
- Oven-ready deal!
- Pop it in the microwave!
- Level up!
- Build back better!

Where do Stonewall etc come in on this? This is how:

- Trans rights are human rights! (Yes: who could possibly disagree?)
- A majority of women agree that trans rights are human rights! (Yes, see above)

But what women are ACTUALLY OBJECTING TO is completely, flat out ignored.

And they're demonised instead. Including by plenty of people who swallow the slogans, and don't bother informing themselves of the detail.

Detail in which the most oft-cited poll was commissioned... by Pink News.

That'd be like me commissioning a poll which found that a majority of Twitter users like long, rambling threads written by windbags.

In fact, it's just like this:

Serious polls which ask serious questions? I keep pointing towards one of them. Because it asks the questions which activist organisations don't want anyone to ask.

Naturally, the person I'm replying to either hasn't read it or has ignored it.

This is what NO DEBATE is all about. It's about railroading a diastrous policy through while distracting the public. Exactly how Britain has operated for well over 11 years - so you can't accuse Stonewall of not understanding their audience.

It'd be the easiest thing in the world for organisations genuinely interested in equality and rights to ask:

"Do you think biological males should be allowed in protected women's spaces such as prisons or rape refuges?"

But they don't. Because they know what the answer would be

Instead, they've tried to pretend people can change sex (they can't. Fact).

They've lumped all trans people together - including those who've gone through painful, long term transitions alongside those who just tell people they're the opposite gender, and nothing else.

They've openly denied same sex attraction and accused those attracted solely to members of their same sex of 'bigotry' and 'transphobia'. You what?

And what much of the public *assumes* about all this is that 'trans people' means those who have fully transitioned.

It has no idea of the reality. Because Stonewall etc DON'T WANT THEM TO KNOW the reality.

And worse: those who point out the reality are denounced, cancelled, excommmunicated, lose their jobs, told they're 'fascists' or 'far right', and receive rape and death threats galore.

Britain didn't end up as a complete and utter basket case by accident.

Britain ended up like this because of more than a decade of lies about absolutely everything, catering to a public with the attention span of a newt.

A public which just does not pay attention. At all.

What's the result on this particular issue? We all end up at each other's throats even though we all agree that trans rights are human rights. Even though none of us are transphobic.

Even though what unites pretty much all of us is our contempt for toxic men.

I hope the person in the OP reads the survey I linked to. Really reads it.

I hope they ask themselves some questions based on this thread.

But I wouldn't bet on it - because believe me, when you actually realise that Britain is built entirely on bullshit, it's a huge shock.

"What, us? The UK? I know we have our skeletons and our issues but we're not that bad, are we?"

Yes. We are. We're one of the most corrupt countries on the planet. Corruption which now plays itself out in plain sight: through both Tory sleaze AND Stonewall's policy capture.

And more broadly, memo to everyone: the woman who's standing up for women and girls everywhere and you're denouncing does not think what you think they think. AT ALL.

You're being played. Again. As you've been played for well over a decade by lying, grifting bastards. /ENDS