By Owen Jones
The Guardian (6/13/18)
Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts were a menace. So were the Nazi sympathies of many British aristocrats in the 1930s. Today’s ascendant far right poses its own unique dangers, using familiar tropes that have been fuelled and legitimised by the political and media elite – and there is all too little appreciation of where Britain could be heading.
Brexit, for the Tory right, was a national revolution: not simply a recalibration of Britain’s relationship with the EU but a blunt instrument to roll back progressive social norms. Those deemed to be critics or opponents were now enemies of the people, saboteurs, traitors, all splashed on newspaper front pages. A rising Labour left is portrayed as treacherous, in league with terrorists and foreign powers. For the hard right, in Britain and beyond, the left is an agent of the nation’s destruction because of its support for migrants and refugees, and opposition to anti-Muslim bigotry. Islamophobia is a respectable bigotry, fanned by national newspapers such as The Sun and The Times which are forced to publish corrections after publishing articles which twist the truth and whip up hatred, but by then the damage is already done.
Hysteria will be whipped up mercilessly by the rightwing media. And one of the chief beneficiaries will be an increasingly assertive and dangerous far right.
A classic far-right trope has always been to portray opponents as betrayers of the nation. This week, it reached a zenith with the threatening Daily Express headline: “Ignore the will of the people at your peril”. Little wonder that the Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, tweeted: “These front pages are not just disgraceful but downright dangerous. What the hell is happening to our democracy?” This while an alleged member of a banned neo-Nazi group has admitted to plotting to kill her friend and neighbouring Labour MP for West Lancashire, Rosie Cooper, with a knife. Jo Cox was murdered by a fascist terrorist almost exactly two years ago; the anti-Muslim terrorist Darren Osborne drove to London last year hoping to murder Jeremy Corbyn, and mowed down a group of Muslim worshippers, killing one; and four far-right plots were thwarted last year.
The profile of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (or “Tommy Robinson”), who founded the English Defence League, flourishes despite, or perhaps because of, his being jailed last month for contempt of court. His growing far-right movement benefits from the promotion of bigotry by the media and political elite.
Today’s far right has many parents. …
(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )
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Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King Promotes Well-Known Neo-Nazi On Twitter
By Christopher Mathias
The HuffPost (6/13/18)
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) retweeted a British neo-Nazi on Tuesday, the latest in a series of incidents in which the congressman has parroted or promoted the views of unabashed white supremacists and other bigots.
“Europe is waking up… Will America… in time?” King tweeted, linking to an anti-immigrant tweet from political activist Mark Collett.
Collett is one of Britain’s most high-profile white supremacists. He has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and has called himself a “Nazi sympathizer.”
King’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday as to whether he condones the views of neo-Nazis, whether he’s concerned his views align with those of neo-Nazis or whether a U.S. congressman should be amplifying a neo-Nazi on Twitter.
King’s office also did not respond when asked if the congressman considers himself a white nationalist.
The tweet, posted early Tuesday morning, hasn’t been deleted.
“No mainstream politician in their right mind should be retweeting Mark Collett,” said Nick Ryan, director of communications at the British-based anti-racism advocacy group Hope Not Hate.
“He’s a neo-Nazi who used to be the youth leader of the thuggish far-right British National Party here in the U.K., which has had ties to Holocaust denial, rampant anti-Semitism …”