Massive danger for Reform if they really are bringing back the National Front's argument from 1984 that John Barnes can't be English. Does Isabel even realise she is doing that here?

Mad for Reform to say Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy + Marcus Rashford can't be English

https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1973051041428963374

The Daily Mail challenged that NF racist argument - that black goals did not count, because black people can not be English - strongly in 1984. A settled question by the time Ince captained England in 1993 + had blood on his shift in 1998

Its a 90% norm (everywhere except X)

Just about every single thing this headteacher states so confidently - her hunches - in this thread about public attitudes is wrong , if she only did the homework first to check what actual public attitudes are. as @jydenham of Centre for English Identity has shown

https://twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1895793670450004112

This (2012, YouGov) is the gap in perceptions of British, Scottish, Welsh, English identity - and the importance of ethnicity of being white. There was a gap in 2012, but it is much narrower than @Miss_Snuffy thinks it is & the reasons she gives don't fit the data either

Elon Musk supports terrorism. He objects to 7.5 years for man who created Southport Wake-Up Group, proposed mosque as the target, championed attacking the police their, **took part in the real world violence, carrying a knife**, and promoted the list of 40 targets for violence McIntyre was fortunate that his call to kill the Home Secretary was not pursued in the charges, which include being the key organiser of the riots online and a participant in the violence against the police in person

It weird that @GoodwinMJ could believe the false claim there was no media coverage of grooming before 2011. He wrote a book on the BNP. The extensive media 2004 coverage of Annie Hall's Channel 4 film about grooming being rescheduled could be used to support some of his points

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1876039159787454611

Guardian report on the 2004 controversy over the Channel 4 film covering grooming
google.com/amp/s/amp.theg…

I hope mainstream supporters of farmers/countryside alliance will challenge effort by overt racists of the Homeland Party to associate themselves with the protest. Extreme racism of Mr Laws (who seeks to deport *all* migrants *and* Uk-born minorities) obvs not shared by farmers! I trust many farmers would on a values basis to reject his persistent calls for Sunak, Badenoch & myself to be deported (on grounds that minorities can never be British).

Opposition from farmers to his call to remove all migrants would also reflect a practical self-interest!

Policy Exchange's A Portrait of Modern Britain (2024) @rakibehsan & @IGMansfield offer a constructive centre-right response to Britain's growing ethnic diversity in a society where patterns of progress to equal opps & the discrimination which persists are more complex

https://twitter.com/IGMansfield/status/1846180122325365207

It is a follow-up to the 2014 report of the same title coauthored by a young Rishi Sunak.

I took part in this Westminster Hour discussion with Sunak. I think perhaps his very first national media interview about politics

https://x.com/sundersays/status/1584207758441996288?t=VzTPtHJenF495_d8mULLAQ&s=19

Obviously Laws is entirely racist. He does not accept that Badenoch or Sunak are British.

Laws got 0.4% of the vote in Dover in July.


The tweet itself isn't racist seems exceptionally naive when it is a matter of record that Laws primary goal/priority is the deportation of all ethnic minority Britons, including Badenoch, Sunak and myself

"Musk is obsessive, almost manic, about the stakes & the need for Mr. Trump to win"

NYT reports scale/frenzy of Musk's backing for Trump is without any precedent. Estimates $ spend around $140 million + use of X on top of that

A real life Citizen Kane
nytimes.com/2024/10/11/us/… Has never been a bigger financial champion of a Presidential candidate, nor a more xenophobic Pres campaign (deport legal migrants) less committed to basic democratuc norms (eg: accept defeat if you lose) than this one which Musk sees as an existential necessity for USA & world

Musk is in the dock - metaphorically

Nobody alive did more to extend reach of racial hate in last 12 months

- replatformed those dedicated to hate, big increase in reach (eg Britain First. Patriotic Alternative. Tommy)
- introduced £ incentives that groom escalating hate Where & how does the metaphor become actual scrutiny and sanctions?

What can existing tools be used to do?

What new bespoke or general interventions can govt/parliament consider this Autumn?

"The public will have to go in, & the public will have to sort this out themselves, & it'll be very, very brutal. I don't want them here. I don't want them to live here. They came under false pretences" - Douglas Murray widespread violence

"Probably hundreds of thousands... We have a couple of choices. One of them is - and I say this metaphorically *for the time being*, BUT its NOT that metaphorical. One is to stand up and the other is to beg on your knees ... the British soul is awakening and stirring with rage"

This is the radicalised @elonmusk
sharing the deputy leader of the far right extreme Britain First group who has doctored a false headline.

The owner does not seem to attempt even cursory checks on what/who he is posting to share far right content including misinformation on X I would propose @nickpickles now be called to go to No 10 or by the SoS to give specific assurances about what has been done to curb the plafform owner not CONTINUING to inflame racial tension in Britain by sharing extreme misinformation SEVERAL TIMES now

Jacob Rees-Mogg pushes back very strongly against Steven Edgington's effort to relegitimise Enoch Powell. Even Edgington eventually concedes the language is incendiary and racist.

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1820481272021708973

His father William Rees-Mogg wrote the Times editorial in April 1968: "an evil speech".

One in six people were born abroad: 10 million people in this society.

Almost one in three people in Britain are migrants, and/or the children and grandchildren of migrants. It is a very large minority of the whole population

https://x.com/sundersays/status/1587942749835124736

The suspect/perpetrator was "the son of immigrants from Rwanda" as Professor Goodwin notes. One of the three victims in Southport was the daughter of an immigrant. Two of the six Tory leadership candidates are the son/daughter of migrants from Africa, a third of Indian immigrants

Bernie Spofforth @Artemisfornow has unprotected tweets

Much more defiant than apologetic about being crucial early disseminator of dangerous misinfo

She is obvs a unreliable witness: has already now given 3 or 4 mutually contradictory accounts of where she sourced the misinfo She first claimed she believed the information to be "from a reputable news source" - but she posted it before any non-reputable feed masquerading as a news source had posted it. (No reputable news source ever reported the false information, which was legally restricted)

Good Channel 4 news report unpacking the role of online misinformation in the Southport riot

Identifies Bernie Spofforth @Artemisfornow as the first account to give a false Arabic name online, tweeting "if this is true, then all hell is going to break loose"

Spofforth did not return Channel 4 calls about her role in spreading the misinformation

A scam/fake news channel (which now has 3000 followers, having had almost none) seems to have invented a fake Arab name and run a false story about Southport, generating 1.4 m impressions. Widely shared by users (some naively, others perhaps knowingly). X doing nothing about it

This 5.51pm post (1.4 million views) appears to be the original source of viral misinformation about Southport murders.
- 17 year old not named
- "Ali Al-Shakati" an invention.
- MI6 watch list & false claim that asylum seeker seem to originate here too

NB: no X intervention?

Can @Nigel_Farage or @TiceRichard or @Towler confirm if Reform yesterday suspended this extreme far right candidate Leslie Lilley running in Southend East. Can never been a clearer open & shut case of need to suspend immediately - unless the new party policy is now pro-fascist An excessive amount of laughter in GB News clip, but 2/3 of them are clear you'd have to suspend this. Leo Kearse more mixed;whataboutery + blames those who called Reform racists for the racists;"wouldn't it be funny to see this guy stand up in parliament"

https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1806102222993867093

It's interesting Martin so puzzled by why anti-immigration pitches are much harder to make to young British than young French people. His analysis ("identity politics") is a Very Online/Media Talking Point misperception of causality. The actual drivers offer important insights.

https://twitter.com/MartinDaubney/status/1796810020018889185

Big driver is UK has comparatively much better integration outcomes than France - for migrants & esp UK-born children (grandchildren) of migrants. In education, in residential segregation, in work, contact. Has big impacts on intergroup relations among young people at school. FT

Seems to be a trend towards large NGOs in Britain adopting "global majority" communities (to talk about all people who aren't white).

I think organisations should not adopt until have checked
- do most people understand the term?
- do most people it is being used about approve? I would welcome your views about this term: for, against or neutral.

I am v.sceptical about it & don't identity with it (though I am in the 85% of people on this planet it is grouping together). Here are some of my reasons for finding it unfamiliar, incoherent and regressive.

There is a persistent pattern of CCHQ/government investigations burying very serious issues (including credible allegations of criminality) until they act rapidly, after exposure in the media, months after knowing the content

https://twitter.com/NatashaC/status/1780720018264650101

Peter Bone: party did not investigate for 5 years

https://twitter.com/Mr_John_Oxley/status/1713864225704079613?t=zn4pb-K92ZlrL9Go9DysVA&s=19

Spoke to Guardian about this. My view is politics of dealignment have been v successful for Labour - advancing most where weaker - & & time for a change will hold most core votes too. Bigger challenge to come in trying to retain that coalition in power theguardian.com/politics/2024/… Excellent visualisation by @Dylan_Difford of Labour's advances 2019-24