By Gerry Downing

One Ted Talbot complains in the Weekly Worker letters page that I have merely asserted that Tommy Robinson is a fascist and not proved it. If joining a fascist party, then founding your own and engaging in street thuggery against the left and organised labour is not fascism than what is?

Of course, Robinson has denied being a fascist (Hitler, Mussolini and Franco gave the creed a very bad name) so we would be entitled to say he is a Schrödinger [1] fascist, using the buzz word of the day. Like the Israeli genocide in Gaza where Israel denies genocide whilst mass slaughtering more that 40,000 defenceless civilians (including the missing, dead under the rubble), two thirds of whom are women and children, they can deny it whilst benefitting from ethnic cleaning from Gaza and then the West Bank (and then Israel itself, inevitably, if not stopped).

But Talbot has a long history of Schrödinger politics. Paul Demarty did the job on Talbot in Original takestem on 29.09.2022, issue 1412, when he pointed to his defence of far rightist Maurice Barrès, Douglas Murray, Eric Zemmour and Tucker Carlson in perpetrating the modern version of Renaud Camus’ Great Replacement theory; there is a secret group conspiring to replace the white majority US, British, French and European people with black and brown immigrants, mainly Muslims. Renaud Camus called this “genocide by substitution”. In the days of the Nazis, it was Jews and non-Arians who were seeking to replace ethnic Germans.

So today Talbot discovers that the only true intellectuals are not those like Demarty, still less that appalling Gerry Downing (Dowding?) but, wait for it, not only the aforementioned but also the former leader of the RCT [2], now a Tory ‘advisor’ Frank Furedi who is, “one of Britain’s foremost public intellectuals… emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent”. And others on the far right also admire far rightists like themselves, amazingly. Far right French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy writes of the far right Douglas Murray [3], “Whether one agrees with him or not he is one of the most important public intellectuals today”.

The far rightist Talbot has objected that those who oppose him from the left descend into “mere abuse”. I think abuse and ridicule are the proper ways to attack gammon (far rightists who turn that colour when encountering leftism) Schrödinger racists and fascists, as long as the organised left does not have the means and the imperative to deal with them properly when they become a mortal danger. And their defenders, who would obviously join them. Talbot can take that any way he likes.

Notes

[1] Schrödinger’s Cat is a thought experiment that follows the false idea in quantum physics that tiny particles can be in two states at once until they’re observed. It asks you to imagine a cat in a box with a mechanism that might kill it. Until you look inside, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. This is nonsense, like the false notion in quantum physics. Objective reality exists independently of human consciousness or observation; the cat always is either alive or dead.

[2] The Revolutionary Communist Tendency was the forerunner of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which split from the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) in the late 1970s. They all originated in the Socialist Workers Party when it had an ‘open party’ orientation, allowing tendencies and factions.

[3] Douglas Murray is associate editor of the right-wing magazine The Spectator and author of The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason, among other books. ▲

Appendix

Counterfire  wrote of Tommy Robinson in 2018, Be clear: Tommy Robinson is a violent, fascist thug, Don’t be fooled by Tommy Robinson’s attempts to come across as a man of the people. He is the very opposite of that [1]

Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, likes to present himself as an ordinary citizen concerned about Muslim influence, a defender of free speech and a champion of white people’s rights. This is a con. Here is why:

He advocates violence. Robinson is a violent thug. His criminal record includes being jailed for 12 months for two charges of assault in 2005, one causing actual bodily harm. In 2011, he was convicted of assault for an attack at an English Defence League (EDL) march in Blackburn and the same year he was found guilty of leading an attack on rival fans by 100 Luton Town supporters. As he was led away he was chanting ‘EDL till I die.’

More worryingly, he actually encourages organized violence. The EDL, which he headed up, organized gangs of hooligans to terrorise communities across the country, and Robinson was open about its aim. In 2011 in East London, he threatened the whole Muslim community with violence;

‘Every single Muslim watching this… on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens… you had better understand that we have built a network from one end of the country to the other end… and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed, or hurt on British soil ever again.’

More recently this champion of free speech has taken to turning up at newspaper offices and harassing journalists who criticise him. Once again this behaviour comes with the threat of violence. In a recent video he stated, ‘If you’re a journalist and you think your office or your home is a safe space …. it’s not.’

He wants to deport all Muslims, or worse. Robinson sometimes claims his problem is with Muslim extremism as opposed to Muslims themselves. Not true. He has said he wants to forcibly deport all Muslims not just from Britain but from the whole of Europe. Here is one of his tweets from early 2016:

‘I’d personally send every adult male Muslim that has come into Europe over the last twelve months back tomorrow if I could. Fake refugees.’

Note

[1] Be clear: Tommy Robinson is a violent, fascist thug, Counterfire, 22 October 2018, https://www.counterfire.org/article/be-clear-tommy-robinson-is-a-violent-fascist-thug/ ▲