1/ When @SuellaBraverman took office she would be briefed on the fact that one in six terror convicts in the UK is far-right. The core ideology driving them is fear that "invasion" by migrants is a form of "white genocide". Here's Renaud Camus - Great Replacement - 2012...
2/ So "invasion" is not just an over-emotive word, that might trigger the far right. It is a word validating their world-view... that the invasion is being organised by liberals, human rights lawyers, and feminists - and in Suella's case by implication, the Labour Party
3/ For Camus there are three phases: the "collaborators" prepare the way (human rights law); the "invasion" takes place; then the invaders "colonise and replace"... Braverman's thought architecture is close on the first two points...
4/ Here's the most succinct form of Camus' thesis. Tell me how Braverman's Commons answer in any way distanced the government from this worldview?
5/ See also the link to "globalism" and ...and you can see why it is so dangerous to use this terminology. Thousands of actual fascists will feel they have an explicit ally - in the very politician whose job it is to prevent far right terror and street disorder...
6/ In #HowToStopFascism I describe the central problem: the ideological takeover of authoritarian conservatism and right-wing populism by the language and thought structures of Camus' fascism...
7/ If Great Replacement is Item #1 in the fascist thought architecture, and Collaborationism of the liberal humanists #2, what is Item #3? You guessed it: Cultural Marxism... the idea that the downfall of the West has been designed by an alien/hostile/treacherous force...
8/ Item #4 of modern fascist ideology is to commit acts of symbolic violence that reinforce the narrative. Like firebombing a migrant centre. Spot the absence of outright condemnation in Braverman's first public response...She could have said "I condemn this attack".
9/ The fifth and final item in the modern fascist belief system is the idea that modernity will end in a global ethnic civil war, from which transnational ethnically pure empires will emerge. Thankfully there is no trace of that in right-wing British conservatism...
10/10 But Braverman's use of the world "invasion" in this context is despicable. I hope ministers will take a crash course in how to defeat Great Replacement politics, and understand its pervasive influence among the online right, including those convicted of terror offences.
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I'm a China hawk but I am sick of Tory duplicity and 💩 Fleet Street commentary on "why don't we designate China a threat"? Neither Johnson, Sunak nor Truss did so, despite Truss threatening... and here's why: 1/ This is what a "threat" to National Security looks like...
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3/ In 2021 the Tory govt recognised China as a "systemic competitor" - that is, a country determined to compete with us over economic interests, values and geopolitical influence... then, in 2022, China overtly backed the Russian invasion of Ukraine....
I just used my fingerprint to log into my Apple computer; I used facial recognition to pay for an e-bike on my Apple phone; I ordered a repeat prescription on the NHS app that holds every detail of every illness I have ever been treated for on a central server...1/
2/ ... I had to show my drivers' licence to get into a briefing from a civil servant; I used the e-gates at LCY to cross the border without having to speak to a human being... why would I object to "the state" issuing me with digital proof of ID?...
3/... Labour must of course address privacy concerns and the possibility of cyberattacks on a single digital ID - but there are massive libertarian and economic upsides to a society where *everybody is who they say they are*...
Labour's reshuffle was deftly completed and has rewarded competence and narrative skill. Task now is to start not just delivering but telling a story of who we are - I am proud of what Labour is achieving... here's one example... 1/
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2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
2/ ... look at this: diplomats with PhDs, security analysts with years in the field, aircrew risking their lives to surveil the Russia/Iran threat... all that expertise and dedication keeping us safe ... for this? The White House of Kennedy and Roosevelt turned into a trashy gift shop....
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2/ At Munich democracies signed up to dismembering Czechoslovakia, sidelining USSR with which it had a mutual defence pact ... so this wasn't Munich, yet...
3/ The Aug 1941 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact dismembered Poland and started WW2...
Global investors are selling US stocks because they know Trump's tariffs will kill globalisation and trigger recession 1/... but why are they selling bonds at the same time? 🧵
2/ ....They're selling US bonds - which they would normally buy as a safe haven - because bonds have become gambling chips for hedge funds who are gambling on massive credit ... as @FT explains
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