Far-right activist James Allchurch, described as a supporter of Adolf Hitler, has been found guilty on ten counts of distributing audio material to stir up racial hatred over a two-year period through a “highly racist & antisemitic” podcast station called 'Radio Aryan'.
But where would anyone in Britain get the impression that it's OK to stir up racial hatred or use antisemitic tropes & conspiracy theories? Surely no-one in the media or public eye - nor God-forbid anyone in Government - would fuel racism or antisemitism?
The jury heard how the charges relate to audio files uploaded between 17 May 2019 & 18 March 2021 to a public website called Radio Aryan, later renamed Radio Albion: the content of the episodes is said to be “highly racist & antisemitic”, & “white supremacist in nature”.
On the recordings (titles include 'Rivers Of Blood' & 'the Leftist Supremacist Mindset') Allchurch is heard being “threatening, abusive & insulting” about ethnic minorities, & perpetuating the idea that people in Britain are engaged in 'a race war'.
A cartoon had the caption: "Anything you say can & will be used against you by the Jewish press." The podcasts included talk about hanging black & Jewish people, & Allchurch denied there was racial hatred within a comment that white people were "superior in most measurable ways".
James Allchurch was the owner of the website, the main host, & was responsible for distributing the audio recordings, despite often being joined by co-hosts & guests such as National Action co-founder Alex Davies.
Davies, 27, from Swansea, was jailed in June last year for eight and a half years for being a member of the banned far-right organisation.
Other guests included Laurence Nunn, also known as Max Musson, & American neo-Nazi Daniel Kenneth Jeffries.
Allchurch & his guests referred at times to the well-known far-right organiser and anti-Islam activist, Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who founded the English Defence League as “too moderate”.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees KC, said Radio Aryan spread #propaganda about racial conflict: Allchurch “was building up a community of ‘positive-minded individuals”’.
A divisive propaganda channel that appeals to 'salt of the earth people'? Sounds familiar.
Themes in a number of episodes include negative stereotypes of black & Asian people, & the idea that “non-white” people are responsible for all the crime, violence & sexual violence in the UK.
Now where else might we look to find negative stereotypes?
There was discussion of 'the great replacement conspiracy theory' (which GB "News" presenter Laurence Fox appears to subscribe to) with Allchurch suggesting using violence to “protect white people” in the fight against (echoing Braverman) “the #invasion”.
In the #propaganda channel's 'Rivers of Blood' episode, Allchurch defended former MP Enoch Powell’s anti-immigration speech delivered in 1968, claiming “everything he said has come true” & that areas of the UK have become “overthrown” by minorities.
Judge Huw Rees told Allchurch to expect a custodial sentence "that will not be measured in months", for "using vile & inexcusable language which I regard as a stain on humanity. NO-ONE should express themselves this way."
Allchurch will be sentenced on 28 April.
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"Foreigners" DO NOT claim £1BILLION/month in benefits.
This disgusting anti-migrant dogwhistle by shameless liar and former Head of Policy Exchange, Neil O'Brien MP, is just one of several recent dispicable divisive Telegraph front page lies.
WTAF @IpsoNews? @HoCStandards?
The claims that the UK spends £1bn/month "on UC benefits for overseas nationals" (O'Brien) and "Foreigners claim £1bn a month in benefits" (Telegraph) are revealed to be lies in the article: the£1bn relates to "Benefits claims by HOUSEHOLDS with AT LEAST ONE FOREIGN NATIONAL."
The Telegraph claims that (unnamed) "experts suggested the increase reflected a SURGE in the number of asylum seekers being granted refugee status and in net migration."
To evaluate/make sense of this sensational unsourced claim, additional context is needed (but not provided).
Chase Herro, co-founder of Trump’s main crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, on crypto:
“You can literally sell shit in a can, wrapped in piss, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story’s right, because people will buy it.”
Despite crypto being bullshit, & memecoins being consciously bullshit, many – especially angry young gullible men – still invest: 42% of men & 17% of women aged 18-29 have invested in, traded or used crypto (2024 Pew Research), compared to only 11% of men & 5% of women over 50.
“It’s no accident that memecoins are such a phenomenon among young people who have grown immensely frustrated with a financial system that, I think it’s fair to say, has failed them” - Sander Lutz, the first crypto-focused White House correspondent.
🧵In January, Farage said Musk was justified in calling Starmer complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs: “In 2008 Keir Starmer had just been appointed as DPP & there was a case brought before them of alleged mass rape of young girls that did not lead to a prosecution.”
The allegation that Starmer was complicit in failures to prosecute grooming gangs is often repeated. But how true is it?
Two Facebook posts, originally appearing in April/May 2020, claimed Starmer told police when he was working for the CPS not to pursue cases against Muslim men accused of rape due to fears it would stir up anti-Islamic sentiment.
In 2022 the posts and allegations saw a resurgence online with hundreds of new shares. They said: “From 2004 onwards the director of public prosecutions told the police not to prosecute Muslim rape gangs to prevent ‘Islamophobia’.
Decades of research shows that parroting or appeasing the far-right simply legitimises their framing, and further normalises illiberal exclusionary discourse and politics.
Starmer's speech is more evidence that the far-right has been mainstreamed.
Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist who focuses on political extremism and populism in Europe and the US, is, imho, one of the most important voices on the Left today.
Allow me to briefly summarise some of his work.
In a 2023 lecture, Mudde emphasizes the importance of precise terminology in discussing the far-right, distinguishing between extreme right (anti-democracy) and radical right (accepts elections but rejects liberal democratic principles like minority rights and rule of law).
He argues we're in a "fourth wave" of postwar far-right politics, characterized by the mainstreaming & normalization of the far-right - what Linguist Prof Ruth Wodak in a related concept refers to as the 'shameless normalization of far-right discourse'.
After eight years as US President, on Janury 17, 1961, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former supreme commander of the Allied forces in western Europe during WWII, warned us about the the growing "military-industrial complex" (and Trump2.0) in his prescient farewell address.
Before looking at that speech, some context for those unfamiliar with Eisenhower, the 34th US president, serving from 1953 to 1961.
During WWII, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army.
Eisenhower planned & supervised two consequential WWII military campaigns: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–43 & the 1944 Normandy invasion.
The right-wing of the Republican Party clashed with him more often than the Democrats did during his first term.