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@docrussjackson
Oct 11, 2022 • 26 tweets • 14 min read • Read on X
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On 7th October, 2022, news broke that Westminster student union has been accused of “racial segregation” after banning white students from #BlackHistoryMonth.

This thread is about truth, the culture war, the UK's broken news media, & the amplification of hate.
On 7th October, the non-dom billionaire-owned Telegraph broke the story, followed the next day by the same story appearing in the non-dom billionaire-owned Mail.

Both newspapers quoted Dr Neil Thin, a social anthropology lecturer at Edinburgh University.
Dr Neil Thin said it was “tragic” to see a UK university “copying the racial segregationism that we have previously seen in South African & USA education systems”, adding: “It is bitterly ironic to see the rhetoric of ‘safe spaces’ abused to justify racial segregation.”
The Free Speech Union's Toby Young was quoted in the Mail & Telegraph: “You’d think it would be clear to these zealots that you’re not going to reduce racial discrimination by discriminating against people on the basis of their race.” He also wrote a piece in his "Daily Sceptic".
Anti-abortion #TuftonStreet mouthpiece & ERG Tory MP, Sir John Hayes, said he was concerned about “how sinister it is that such ideas can be propagated in a free and open society”, & called for an investigation into any potential discrimination.

On the 8th October, the right-wing Express amplified the story by pretty much copying & pasting the telegraph story word for word, including the same quotes from the same people.
The story went viral, both on & offline, with tens of thousands of hateful (almost invariably anonymous) tweets amplifying the story, denouncing the 'madness' of the 'woke terrorist lefties' for reintroducing dangerous "anti-white" "racial segregation" & introducing apartheid2.0.
By the 8th October, Nigel Farage was claiming Britain now had "apartheid", & by the 10th, many GB "News" presenters were discussing how white students were BANNED from #BlackHistoryMonth emphasising the idea that this would lead to a Britain characterised by "racial segregation".
Pretty much every GB "News" presenter framed the story in the same way, despite recent denials that GB "News" was a "right-wing" channel following the announcement that John Cleese was joining them. LBC joined in, again quoting the same handful of people.
The far-right hate group, 'Save Britain', quoted GB News' "Anglican Deacon Calvin Robinson" (who has opposed #BLM for years): he was “sorry to see [the Westminster Student Union] implementing racial segregation at [the University of Westminster]"

Far-right US "news" site Breitbart: "While the British education system has imported many tenets of the far-left 0n issues surrounding race & gender from the United States, instances of racial segregation have not been a prominent feature of the ‘decolonise the curriculum’ push."
Rather than gathering a range of views from academics the UK's 160+ HE institutions, every "news" publication quoted just ONE academic - Dr Neil Thin, who in 2020 was accused by many of his students of spouting ‘racist & sexist’ comments, becoming a cause célèbre for the Right.
Eventually, the investigation into Thin didn't uphold the complaint made by his students, leaving at least one “bothered by Dr Thin’s complete lack of accountability throughout the process, for the negative impacts he has caused through derogatory marking, teaching, & tutoring.”
Thin was in the news again in July this year, when the University of Edinburgh saw a decrease in cash donations following its renaming of its David Hume Tower because of Hulme's slavery links. Thin called those calling for a name change "censorious idiots" & an "extremist mob".
So after the divisive hateful media furore, what's the truth of the original claim that Westminster University was introducing "racial segregation" & had "banned" white students from attending #BlackHistoryMonth events?

The reality, as you might imagine, is somewhat different...
There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating that news stories using divisive culture war rhetoric provoke outrage & produce the demonisation of Others, which are the most shared posts on social media, & thus drive the most clicks, & thus ad revenue & data harvesting/resale.
I've written elsewhere about the culture war; about the discursive demonisation of Others; about the importance of how the framing of issues guides political debate; & about the UK Govt's & national news media's embrace of Steve Bannon's strategy of 'flooding the zone with shit'.
The fact is that the story was triggered (no pun) by just a single email from Westminster Students union, which said *some* events would be reserved for black students in a bid to encourage a space for debate & "honest conversations".

Most events were open to *everyone*.
The manufactured outrage hinges on a principle: whether it is EVER acceptable for some groups, defined in some contexts by largely immutable human characteristics (eg sex, age, or ethnicity), to EVER hold ANY meetings/events that are open only to members of that particular group.
Let's start with an extreme example: would it be acceptable for female rape survivors to have a women-only event/meeting?

We can only speculate, but imho, pretty much everyone in Britain - including every single person objecting to the Westminster situation - would support this.
Some people might object that 'comparing black people to rape survivors is unfair' - a strawman argument. Well OK, how about non-rape victim women holding a women only event? I guess some of the people objecting to the Westminster situation would say this is "sexism against men".
And let's not forget the female Tory councillor who defended the disgraced *men-only* dinner at the Presidents Club & accused the FT of exaggerating the behaviour of its guests, saying on #Vine that “real harassment” took place at women-only functions.

theguardian.com/politics/2018/…
Another example: given that 75% of Tory MPs are male (94% are white btw) how about if a campaign to elect more Tory women into parliament were to hold "women only" events?

Would that be "sexist"? Would that be introducing "sex segregation"? Would that be an example of apartheid?
Because that's exactly what the @Conservatives' Women's Organisation, in conjunction with the Parliament Project & the @Conservatives did in 2020.

Strangely enough, the Mail, Telegraph, GB "News", Breitbart & tens of thousands of largely anonymous @Twitter trolls didn't mind.
Perhaps those objecting to Westminster Uni holding a few events just for black students would also insist that men should be able to attend ALL women-only events: they could offer their views on eg coping with menopause, or share tips on how to avoid lactating through clothes...
Here's another example of the same process from April. Right-wing extremist politicians & "news" media are intent on deflecting from the multiple crises we face after 12 catastrophic years of Tory misrule by focusing on dividing voters on cultural issues.

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More from @docrussjackson

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Feb 6
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Tice amplifies this article by Allison Pearson, which is riddled with factual errors, misleading claims, selective omissions, and hyperbolic sensationalism which attempts to recast Lucy Connolly not as a bigot lawfully convicted of inciting racial hatred, but as a victim. Image
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Reform UK’s slick, stage-managed launch of a Christian Fellowship in St Michael’s Church is not some harmless Christmas-season publicity stunt. It is a clear and brazen step towards the Trumpification of UK politics, where religion is weaponised as a tool for cultural warfare and political mobilisation.

This is not organic Christian revival. It’s strategic political engineering.

Behind this development sit figures who have spent years trying to inject a US-style fusion of right-wing politics and religious identity into British political culture:

• Paul Marshall

A billionaire media financier with a clear ideological project: to build a hard-right cultural and religious counter-establishment. Through GB “News”, The |Spectator and UnHerd and other platforms he has amplified narratives about “woke attacks” on tradition, identity, and Christianity. The Islamophobic tweets he liked are disgusting. His network provides the media oxygen for precisely the kind of politicised Christianity on display at the Reform launch.

• James Orr

A Cambridge academic and prominent Anglican conservative intellectual, closely connected to the “post-liberal” movement and hard-right US conservative and Hungarian organisations. Orr openly promotes the idea of restoring Britain’s “Christian identity” through politics — a framing that sits uncomfortably close to the Christian-nationalist rhetoric of the US right. His advisory role to senior Reform figures is a clear sign of the ideological hardening underway.

• Danny Kruger

Long known for advocating a more “muscular” Christian politics, Kruger has repeatedly argued that the UK should explicitly root its laws and social policy in “Judeo-Christian values” - a dog whistle I explain in the next tweet.

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• Calvin Robinson

Though no longer in the Church of England, disgraced former GBN presenter and political extremist Robinson remains one of the most prominent voices pushing an aggressive “anti-woke, anti-liberal” form of Christianity in the media — including endorsing narratives that paint inclusive or progressive churches as heretical. His alignment with Reform’s messaging shows how the party is deliberately courting polemical, grievance-driven Christian activism.

Together, these figures represent a new coalition: a British attempt to import the US religious-right model, with all its corrosive social consequences.

Using St Michael’s Cornhill — a church rooted in the conservative evangelical network — as the backdrop for this political spectacle is shocking in a UK context.

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Britain is not America — but Reform UK wants to change that

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grievance Christianity
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and a narrative of cultural siege identical to the US evangelical right

It is the Trump playbook, translated into British idiom.

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Reform UK’s “Christian Fellowship” is not about faith. It is the public unveiling of a British Christian-nationalist project — backed by wealthy ideologues, amplified by culture-war media, and borrowing heavily from the most divisive elements of the US right.

It is a serious warning sign of where Reform UK intends to take the country: toward a politics defined by religious grievance, cultural division, and the erosion of the pluralistic norms that have protected Britain from the worst excesses of American political extremism.
Concerning Paul Marshall:
Concerning James Orr:
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You can subscribe here, and I would encourage you to - Bylines tells the stories and undertakes investigations many national news media fear to.

subscribe.bylinetimes.com
Across the West, figures such as Trump, JD Vance, Farage, Johnson, Tice, Kruger, and Lowe helped normalise far-right populist rhetoric within mainstream politics. Their appeal is anti-elite—yet they themselves embody the privilege they claim to challenge.

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