Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Monday, September 29, 2025
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Labour has turned our constables into commissars
The Prime Minister cannot distance himself from
speech policing; this Government has encouraged these shocking arrests
The stirring up
racial hatred offence, first created in the Race Relations Act 1965, is very,
very serious. It carries a potential penalty of up to seven years in prison. It
is also disturbingly vague: What does “stirring up” actually mean? Who gets to
define “hatred”? Unlike American speech laws around incitement to violence,
speech doesn’t have to be “likely” to stir up violence to count as criminal,
but merely “intended” – meaning it strays into policing thought crime.
To safeguard free speech, any such charge requires the consent of the Attorney
General to proceed.
Once, it was used sparingly and for relatively
extreme cases. Among the first convictions, in 1967, was the leader of the
British National Socialist Movement, Colin Jordan.
But as our justice
system gets more politicised and the state grows more censorious, arrests and
prosecutions under this once-rare offence have expanded massively. Just one
person was convicted of the offence in 2015, compared with 44 last year.
Last year, Essex
Police used this offence to go after The Telegraph’s
Allison Pearson over a tweet in which she criticised two-tier policing, before
the force shamefacedly dropped the charges after a major public outcry. And as
even the White House now knows, childminder Lucy Connolly received a 31-month
prison sentence for stirring up racial hatred over a single, hastily deleted
tweet on the night of the Southport massacre.
Then there was
personal trainer Jamie Michael, who stood accused of stirring
up racial hatred over a Facebook monologue in which he urged people in his area
to protest peacefully against illegal migration. The case was against him was
in fact paper thin: in February, a jury found the former Royal Marine not
guilty in just 17 minutes.
The latest example
highlights just how bad things have got. Pete North, an online political
commentator and veteran of the Brexit movement was arrested for stirring up
racial hatred in his home late last night over a meme, before being driven 30 minutes to
Harrogate Police Station, where he was interrogated in the dead of night over
his alleged motivations.
Reportedly, the post in question was a picture of a
Palestine flag which read: “F--- Hamas, F--- Palestine, F--- Islam. Want to
protest? F--- off to a Muslim country and protest.” These are strong sentiments,
which many may find distasteful, but in a free country people should be able to
voice robust opinions without the police knocking on the door.
Mr North has said
that he had “not intended to stir up racial hatred”, adding: “I am entitled to
dislike a religion.” He isn’t wrong: the law is not supposed treat Islam, a
religion, as equivalent to a race, though increasingly the boundary between the
two is being blurred, not least through Labour’s efforts to conflate the two in its
“Islamophobia” rules.
Lord Young, director of the Free Speech Union,
said: “The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are defining this offence
incredibly broadly to justify arresting and, in some cases, prosecuting people
for social media posts. Muslims are not a race, yet Pete North is being
investigated for intending to stir up racial hatred, and asylum seekers aren’t
a race either, but Lucy Connolly was charged with the same offence.”
If police and prosecutors are interpreting this
offence more broadly than ever under, that’s because this Labour Government has
repeatedly encouraged them to do so.
Labour had been in
power less than a month before it effected a punitive crackdown on online speech
during the Southport unrest. Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, advised Sir Keir Starmer that it would be
lawful to charge social media users with stirring up racial hatred online.
Indeed, Hermer consented to 17 separate charges of this offence related to
Southport, later crowing that people could not “hide behind a keyboard”
following convictions. Sir Keir, meanwhile, has publicly backed the prosecution of the
most high-profile of these, Lucy Connolly.
The Prime Minister may wave away free speech
concerns when Donald Trump is in town, but shocking arrests like these are his
responsibility. After comedy writer Graham Linehan had his collar felt earlier
this month, Starmer tried to distance himself from such speech policing,
saying: “We must ensure the police focus on the most serious issues.” Yet the
fact is, the message Labour has been sending in Government is quite the
opposite. The public are right to draw a link between arrests over speech and
“two-tier Keir”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1c04c52b10a4ff8c
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Friday, September 26, 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Monday, September 22, 2025
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Gender-critical
gay rights groups unite against trans lobby
Newly formed LGB
International says gay people are at risk of losing hard-won rights
Gender-critical gay rights groups are forming a
global alliance to challenge transgender advocates.
On Saturday, the LGB Alliance relaunched as LGB
International to declare its “independence from the LGBTQIA+ establishment” and
to distance itself from the “legacy gay organisations which now focus entirely
on transgender issues”.
The LGB Alliance
was started in 2019 following a fallout and factionalism at Stonewall, Europe’s
biggest LGBT rights organisation, after it was accused of promoting a “trans agenda” at
the expense of gay and lesbian rights.
At the time, the LGB Alliance, which is made up of gender-critical lesbian, gay and bisexuals, said the point of forming a new organisation was to “counteract the confusion between sex and gender which is now widespread in the public sector and elsewhere”.
Speaking of the group’s relaunch, Frederick
Schminke, the chairman of LGB International, which does not include transgender
organisations, said: “We are launching this because the organisations that once
represented gay people are now entirely devoted to ‘gender identity ideology’.
“We risk losing our hard-won rights, and as public support
plummets, traditional LGBTQ+ organisations have barricaded themselves up
against all reason, fostering an atmosphere where no dissenting views are
tolerated.”
The launch of the new global organisation comes
amid mounting friction between some LGB groups and the International Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexal, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), which has been
increasingly vocal in its support of trans issues in recent years.
Mr Schminke added that ILGA “no longer speaks for
us”.
LGB International said it had member organisations
in 18 countries, including Australia, Bulgaria, Taiwan and the US, and that the
groups were inspired by the creation of LGB Alliance six years ago.
The group said it wanted to raise awareness of the
64 countries where homosexuality was still illegal, places where same-sex
partnerships were not recognised in law and cases in which it believed that
“gender identity ideology is undermining same-sex rights”.
It also wants “to fight the way that heterosexual
men are defining themselves as lesbians and heterosexual women as gay men and
demanding access to our spaces and bodies”.
‘Peddling victimhood’
Bev Jackson, the co-founder of LGB Alliance, added:
“Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals are sick of seeing our movement, their language,
and their rights stripped away. Organisations like ILGA that once championed
LGB people now peddle victimhood. Meanwhile, LGB has been replaced by
meaningless jumbles of letters like “SOGIESC” [sexual orientation, gender
identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics].”
Responding to the launch of the new organisation, a
spokesman for the Beaumont Society, the largest and longest-established
transgender support group in the UK, said: “The emergence of yet more LGB
isolationist and similar ‘sex-based’ advocacy groups such as this, represent
the continuing efforts of well-funded groups with their own agenda to divide
the LGBTQIA+ family, and this is now spreading beyond the USA and UK.
“This is a retrogressive step as it ignores the
fact that all sections of the family intersect each other and that the history
of
the fight for rights for all sections depended on the actions of all working in
harmony.”
The row comes after
the UK Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that
the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, rather than gender
identity. The ruling has far-reaching implications for single-sex spaces and
services.
Last week, the equalities watchdog submitted its formal guidance about how institutions should respond to the landmark ruling.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has
handed the guidance to Bridget Phillipson, who, as well as being Education
Secretary, is also minister for women and equalities, and she must decide
whether to accept the recommendations of the watchdog.
Its interim advice,
released in April, included guidance which said that trans women should not be
permitted to use women’s facilities, and that schools must provide single-sex toilets for boys
and girls over the age of eight.
The row also comes amid a number of high-profile cases in which lesbian and gay people with gender-critical beliefs have faced backlash for their views.
In March it was
reported that police were forced to apologise over an investigation they
mounted into a Newcastle United fan banned by the football club after
expressing her gender-critical views on social media.
Northumbria Police told Linzi Smith that crucial elements of their investigation into claims she had committed a hate crime were not acceptable.
Ms Smith, who is gay and promotes lesbian, bisexual
and women’s rights, was accused of being transphobic by a complainant who told
the football club that trans people would not feel safe sitting near her.
In May it emerged
that a gay volunteer was banned from a railway group after
expressing his gender-critical views on email and social media.
Matthew Toomer, 48, was thrown out of West Midlands Railway’s (WMR) adopt a station scheme after he privately contacted company bosses to express concern about its “Progress Pride” train.
In response, he was summoned to a meeting and told
that his views “do not align with [WMR’s] values and mission”. He was banned
from the Redditch station volunteer group.
He spoke out, saying: “The Progress Pride flag has
become associated with particular ideological stances – particularly around
gender – which not everyone, including many within the LGB community, fully
endorse.”
In response to the LGB International launch, a
spokesperson for ILGA-Europe said: “ILGA is a global family of thousands of
independent organisations – more than 700 in our region alone – working
together to advance the rights of all LGBTI people.
“Our movement is built on a simple truth: the freedoms
we share, such as the rights to private and family life, bodily autonomy,
freedom from discrimination, and self-determination, are strongest when we
defend them collectively. None of us will be free until all of us are free.
“As an organisation working for almost 30 years to
advance, protect and defend human rights, ensuring everyone’s rights –
including those of women, migrants, racialised groups, and others – are upheld
has always been strong and a fundamental principle.
“Building coalitions that reflect the diversity of
our communities are the cornerstones of real progression. Division only weakens
the advancements we have already made, while collaboration across groups with
different needs is the path to lasting change for all, not just for some.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9c8b2057c4a6d15a
Friday, September 19, 2025
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Detour
I took a long time getting here,
much of it wasted on wrong turns,
back roads riddled by ruts.
I had adventures
I never would have known
if I proceeded as the crow flies.
Super highways are so sure
of where they are going:
they arrive too soon.
A straight line isn’t always
the shortest distance
between two people.
Sometimes I act as though
I’m heading somewhere else
while, imperceptibly,
I narrow the gap between you and me.
I’m not sure I’ll ever
know the right way, but I don’t mind
getting lost now and then.
Maps don’t know everything.
Ruth Feldman
(The Ambitions of Ghosts)
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Monday, September 15, 2025
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Friday, September 12, 2025
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Monday, September 8, 2025
We’re too dysfunctional to stop small boats, admits
French police chief
Force is ill-equipped to deal with
‘violence’ from migrants and spends British money on wrong equipment
France’s efforts to stop the migrant boats are dysfunctional in the face of extreme violence orchestrated by people-smuggling gangs, a policing chief has admitted.
Marc Alegre, who represents officers
in Calais and Dunkirk, said efforts by police and gendarmes were
disjointed, plagued by a lack of training, faced shortages
of recruits and spent British money on the wrong type of
equipment.
He said his Unité police union was pushing for the French government to set up dedicated police units to specialise in tackling immigration and taking on the people smugglers so that they could reverse the record level of migrant small-boat crossings this year.
The admission came as 1,097 migrants crossed the Channel on Saturday in 17 boats, close to the daily record this year of 1,195 on May 31.
It takes the total past 30,000, up 36 per cent on last year’s figure at the same point and the highest number since the first arrivals in 2018.
Mr Alegre said officers’ lives were being put at risk by the unprecedented violence by migrants, who were encouraged by the people smugglers to attack officers with petrol and smoke bombs, stones and burning life jackets and to vandalise police vehicles.
The ongoing clashes between police and migrants meant police
were running out of tear gas, grenades and vehicles.
“Police are pelted with stones practically every night. We’re
short of cars because they’re vandalised by migrants, who the smugglers and
traffickers order to throw stones at us to slow us down,” he said.
“I have colleagues who are regularly injured, who go to hospital
because they’re doing this job. We use grenades and tear gas to stop the
migrants, but they throw stones, smoke bombs and burning life jackets at us.
All our vehicles are damaged. We’re practically out of ammunition. It’s not
easy every day, every single day.
“Last year, two
night-shift officers were surrounded by migrants and almost got burned to
death. The migrants had set fire to the place with bottles of petrol. They were
dog handlers. Two against 60. They risked their lives to prevent a boat from
reaching England. Is it worth dying burned alive to let a boat pass? Would you?”
He conceded there
were significant “coordination” problems between different forces policing the
northern French coast, which remained too “compartmentalised”. He said that
police lacked any specific “training” on how to handle the migrant crisis.
It comes after the number of migrants crossing the Channel
topped 30,000 in record time. Some 1,097 migrants crossed on Saturday, the
highest daily number for four months and bringing the total for 2025 to 30,100.
Reinforcements sent in the summer months and dedicated only to
tackling migrant crossings were mostly not from the area so did not know it as
well as local police, who continued to have a “dual mission” of fighting crime
and dealing with migrants.
“That’s not good for the French taxpayer,” he said. “In my
opinion, we need to create special units that would work all year round,
covering the entire border from the Belgian border to Boulogne, both the police
and the gendarmerie, but working only on the beaches.
“It’s currently too compartmentalised, meaning that if, for
example, gendarmes between Calais and Dunkirk are attacked by migrants and find
themselves surrounded, which has already happened, the gendarmes will call the
police or vice versa. It would be quicker if there was direct communication.”
Mr Alegre said
police sent from outside the region lacked training. “No one has been trained
in France [to deal with migrants and small boat departures]. It’s all
on-the-job experience. [Local police] know the beaches, we know the migrants
from working there every day, and we know how to deal with them,” he said.
“But when you come from Lyon or Paris and you come to work on
the beach, it’s not the same job. When you work in a housing project, it’s not
the same way of working as on the beach.”
He said there were also recruitment problems. “At the police
academy, where people can choose their police station in France, they know that
if they go to Calais or Dunkirk, they’ll work twice as hard as in other
places,” he said.
“We have to motivate them because they have to do the normal
work of the police, but on top of that, they have to guard the borders. That’s
twice as much work for them, with more risks and more work, but for nothing
extra.”
He said that British
funds were not always spent in the most effective manner. “Regarding the
resources bought with British funds, often we don’t ask the police officers who
are on the ground for the equipment they really need,” he said.
“For example, we got some 4x4 vehicles that can go on the beach.
That’s good, but my colleagues would have preferred pick-up trucks because when
we discover a boat, we have to put it somewhere, and it doesn’t fit in the boot
of a seven-seater. But a boat with an engine can be put in the back of a
pick-up truck and driven away.”
He believed the new one in, one out deal with the UK could act
as a deterrent provided those deported from the UK were not sent to the
northern French coast.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/8e9b488cf633dd11