So @paulmasonnews has been talking about Socialist Action as an example of pro-Putin politics on the British left. The blue tick left have been responding saying that what he’s attacking has no meaningful existence off the Internet…
2/ I think Socialist Action (whose guru John Ross was one of Ken Livingstone’s advisors) are, despite their tiny size, particularly pernicious due to the organisational power they have in many of the UK’s (trade union bankrolled) key left organisations.
3/ For example, behind big name figureheads, Socialist Action share control of Stand Up To Racism/Unite Against Fascism with the SWP (they each have a full-time? national organiser in them, presumably funded by union affiliations). workersliberty.org/story/2012/02/…books.google.co.uk/books?id=C2a5D…
4/ Their current campaign pointing out the hypocrisy of the warmth towards Ukrainian refugees with the hostility to Syrian refugees particularly galls me, given Socialist Action backed the Russian/Assad onslaught on Syrian civilians which led to mass displacement.
5/ For example, check out this horrible 2015 piece by John Ross when SA joined Boris Johnson in backing Assad & Putin’s murderous bombing campaign, using Islamophobic GW Bush style War on Terror rhetoric.
6/ Or this horrible response to Assad’s horrific (Russian-backed) chemical weapon mass murder of civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2014. socialistaction.net/2013/09/03/it-…
7/ Just as SA blame Putin’s invasion of Ukraine now on “NATO imperialism”, they blamed Assad’s (Putin-backed) war on “Western imperialism”.
8/ So don’t let them gaslight you into thinking Socialist Action’s alliance with fascists to back the Kremlin is somehow trivial.
1/x A thread on “Tommy Robinson”, the riots and “Zionism”, covering Yaxley-Lennon’s funding, his relationship to Zionism and his role in the riots. I’ll try not to make it too long this time…
A. Who funds “Tommy Robinson”?
Some fringe anti-Zionist influencers (many of whom work for Iranian state media and/or are deeply antisemitic), such as David Miller, Lowkey, Richard Medhurst, Nick Fuentes, Anas Altikriti, have blamed the riots on Israel/Zionism…
…It’s true that in the 2010s Robinson was connected to and funded (in the 10s of $1000s) by a US-centred network of counter-jihadi donors and thinktanks who were aggressively pro-Israel and linked to the Israeli right… theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/d… timesofisrael.com/why-are-us-pro…
So, "Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) has called for his followers to join a march against antisemitism, to a resoundingly negative response from the organisers and the mainstream Jewish community. Quick thread on him and his supporters...
"Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) joined the fascist British National Party (BNP) in 2004 age 20, stayed for a year. In this pic he's with Holocaust denier Richard Edmonds (convicted of racist violence in the 1990s). But was this just some youthful thing?
In 2012, Yaxley-Lennon became the deputy leader of the British Freedom Party, which was led by disgruntled BNP members and advocated "cultural nationalism". Its logo echoes (L) echoes that of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (R)
I only just realised this “#OctoberDeclaration” against antisemitism comes from Allison Pearson and Laura Dodsworth. IMHO those two are racists conspiracy-mongers nobody should go near. Some examples:
1/ Laura Dodsworth’s book _State of Fear_ (endorsed by the likes of GBNews presenter Neil Oliver) draws heavily on the discredited work of 911 truther and full-time atrocity denialist Piers Robinson. See @DAaronovitch: archive.is/https://www.th…
2/ Dodsworth is also close to Max Blumenthal, another professional atrocity denier and disinfo entrepreneur.
On Friday, a California storekeeper, Laura Ann Carlton, was shot dead for flying a Pride flag. The killer has been named as Travis Ikeguchi. The son of a Florida state trooper, he was a Christian fascist radicalised online...
He was a prolific re/tweeter: I just looked through 3 months of his output. As well as Christian fundamentalism and a tsunami of homophobia + transphobia, there’s a wide range of conspiracy theories, linking mainstream conservative anti-LGBT culture wars with fascist terror…
At the heart of his cosmology is a set of hate figures he identified as the globalist elite or the Illuminati — Gates, Soros, Schwab, Fauci, the World Economic Forum. These are shared obsessions with QAnon, anti-vaxxers and those who follow the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory.
Inspiring general strike in Al-Suwayda, Syria, including by shopkeepers and public sector workers. Slogans call for dignity and reject the house of Assad.
In an effort to contain protest, yesterday Syria’s dictator Assad doubled state salaries (they’re now just 8% of an average family’s cost of living). Seven minutes later he raised the price of diesel by 300% and gasoline by 170%.
Mass protests across southern Syria, especially Daraa, after Friday prayers last night, demanding the fall of the House of Assad and decent living conditions. (Political liberty and social struggles are intertwined under a warlord kleptocracy.)