Paul Nuttall and alt-right ‘patriots’

Paul Nutall? Of the UKIPS? Well let Stewart Lee say it best (NSFW).

And I think the best response to the ‘alt-right’ (sorry, like New Labour you can’t rebrand Nazis – yes not all ‘alt-right’ people are fascists but some are) and the far-right is Maajid Nawaz’s response on LBC – you aren’t patriots.

You aren’t fighting for the nation, you can’t claim to somehow have our best interests at heart as a fascist or neo-Nazi or a rebranded ‘alt-right’. Taking our rights and democracy away is spitting in the face of those who fought the last lot of Nazis – and that’s what fascists want, it’s why giving them a platform is so problematic as much as I love free speech. If you use that free speech to take away others free speech, then I think that’s a special case for not being on that platform.

Others disagreed and thought that Nick Griffin – who’s back like a nasty stain – on Question Time would destroy the BNP and his career. It might have, but the media cashing in on such clickbait furore lead to Nigel Farage and our current predicament in the UK and US. People (stupid ones that is) wonder why the far-right never took off in Britain like France or Italy – it’s because they were smashed, in the 1930s and the 1970s.

Allowing them a voice, like that Marine Le Pen woman just means they spread their hatred far and wide. It doesn’t serve democracy any better, in fact as we are seeing here and in the US it gets worse…some argue you need to debate these things (debate bigotry? No.) and ‘see all sides of the argument’ and ‘keep an open mind’ – well as the old saying goes, keep your mind open enough people will just throw rubbish into it.

This is not a time for wishy-washy liberalism, this is not a time for pointless arguments with people who are scripted bots or just playing to the gallery. I don’t agree with the idea that you shine a light on these things, because like overturning a stone the insects just run elsewhere, it doesn’t change anything. The oxygen of publicity is a dangerous tool, and giving these people air time means you’ll just choke on the toxic fumes. And these people bleat about censorship…no-one is throwing you in jail, you can still have your lying fake news outlets like Br€itb@rt…these white males seem to manage quite well to get their point across without any gatekeepers, so it’s not like they are being silenced, as they claim. Or oppressed, which is laughable.

The real irony is they’ve been copying the same techniques and language of the ‘SJWs’ they hate for ages…like Trump asking for a ‘safe space’ for Pence. Co-opting the same ideas and ‘weaponising’ them back. I’m no fan of identity politics, but it is a strange thing to hit the Left over the head with.