AIBU to think this quote sums up Tommy Robinson and his supporters?

[Gingerbreadtree]

The quote is taken from the British philosopher Bertrand Russell's essay on Fascim in 1940,

"The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other."

To me it sums them up, but it sums up a lot of the far right in general. The same could be said about Farage and many of his supporters too.

I wish the Greens were touting communism!

Of course they don't give a stuff about white women. But in many cases Labour politicians in local authorities and Labour MPs in these areas ( including Andy Burnham I believe but not Keir Starmer) covered this up. It wasn't only ' white women' who were victims of grooming gangs. The Sikh community had to deal with their girls being raped and no one doing anything about it. They had to move them to other areas.

Not strange at all. That threat normally goes ignored when it's actually the biggest one presented to LGBT.

I hear this cited on the right a lot, but haven’t experienced that in the left-wing circles I move in.

Two Reformers doesn't even touch the surface compared to the threat from the Left-Islamo movement.

I agree with those saying the Greens are also authoritarian these days but others have said all that needs to be said.

On your point OP, I think it’s a quote and concept worth discussion, but I think a huge issue is anyone denigrating anyone else as stupid.

Many people in this country have concerns about immigration and feel that it is the reason their services are failing, women are being raped etc. I see it differently to them but I don’t blame them when they are silenced and called racist and stupid for raising their concerns, to effectively say ‘fuck you’ and move to the right.

Those of you who are eyerolling at the feminists on this thread - most of us are/ were left leaning generally until we suddenly were told we were ‘wrong thinkers’ because we raised our concerns about the implications of self ID and expressed our view that no man is any kind of a woman. It’s been an experience of scales falling from my eyes, suddenly being on the side being labelled baddies, and ostracised. So while I completely disagree with Reform and their stance on immigration etc, I understand the psychological process that people who repeatedly get told ‘you are stupid and BAD’, and should not be listened to, get louder and more strident in their views, not less.

Obviously there is some actual racism, some actual transphobia, some actual antisemitism. But these terms have become quite meaningless because they are levelled at people who don’t hate anyone but are saying ‘hold on, there’s an issue here’. I think those who can’t see it applies to a variety of causes are naive.

If that was the case, would it be a good thing or a bad one?

Inner turmoil? Don't believe you. They are attention seekers, Look at Biggus Tittus at Oxford. He is, I suggest doing it to annoy. A simple choice.
Not at all like our friend who is gay and the life he leads.

That's probably because the ones steering the ship are doing well in manipulating people to think otherwise.

Nobody has said any of that.

People want nuance. People want real issues to be addressed in a real and meaningful way. People do not want a flood of illegal immigration but people don’t want to kick out every brown person/muslim.

People want religious extremism tackled but they want people to celebrate their religious heritage and identity.

Poor people want opportunities to get themselves out of poverty not just handouts that trap them into poverty. Disabled people want the same opportunities to thrive.

People want a fair society but not one that doesn’t see reality or obfuscates it with niche beliefs.

People want security and safety from the very real global threats out there.

The left is who should be doing the above. That is who they have claimed to be but they are not strong enough to implement any of the above and consistently show themselves as more interested in performatively evocation of “left values” than delivering it.

What a lot of dramatising and histrionics. The people voting Reform and going to the march tomorrow aren't 'far-right'. They're people who voted Conservative but have been failed by the 14 years of that and now they've been failed by Labour and they are people on the left who feel betrayed by Labour and are politically homeless.

In general they are people who don't want Net Zero madness, want illegal immigration stopped, want women and children protected, don't want digital ID, want UK food producers respected and vulnerable people protected.

They'd like their children to be able to buy their own home;they'd like an NHS they can depend on and for the economy to be good so they can enjoy life.

They'd also like to feel that they can say that are British or English and that not be seen as shameful and they'd like to be able to say they are proud of British culture - just like they would assume other countries can.

None of these things make them 'far right'.

Agree

The far right and far left operate in the same way

That’s absolutely what they are trying to sell.
Read their policies alongside The Red Book.
They should be done for plagiarism.

The right-wing press, yes.

The issue with self ID is that a man could " put a v neck top on" and say they are a woman. Green policy doesn't distinguish between those who have gone through a process, gender dyasphoria, counselling etc and those who decide suddenly when they are about to be sentenced for rape to " put a v neck top on" or someone who fancies being a woman on Tuesdays ( or when they haven't got an audition for a lucrative male acting role...) or if their wife leaves them because he punched her in the face and is in a women's hostel.

I am fairly live and let live.

If you are a 6ft boke and want to put on a dress and call yourself Carly - then crack on I have no problem with that.

You just don't get to use the same changing rooms as my daughters.

Distraction tactics are doing their job well.

YABU in only attributing these tactics to the far right. I view both far right and left as being equally dangerous to society. The Green Party under Polanski scares me. Reform party scares me. The prospect of either party having control is an awful scenario. This is what happens when moderate parties lose sight and stop listening to the electorate.

Yeah, see, this is blatantly transphobic. Would you label all gay men as attention seekers because one is an actor?

All the time the government is ignoring these issues by failing to hold a centre line. What a mess this country is in.

"Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."

Dictionary definition.

You think a man wearing humungous fake tits at Oxford University is fine and any student thinking he is crossing boundaries in doing so; is 'transphobic'?

pho·bia
[ˈfəʊbiə]
noun
phobia (noun)
phobias (plural noun)
an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something:
"she suffered from a phobia about birds"

I'd say it was a totally RATIONAL RESPONSE to a man turning up to work with humungous fake tits.

The problem facing the moderate centre is that on one hand to grow the economy you need to cut taxation but because of the high levels of Government debt, the only way to do this is by cutting Government spending which is electoral suicide or as the current Government found out will never pass with the backbenchers.

That leaves tinkering around the edges of (Labour) slightly increasing taxation to increase spending and slightly slowing the economy or (Conservatives) slightly cutting taxation by slightly cutting spending and thereby producing marginal economic growth but at the cost of massive public opposition.

I will leave you with my favourite quote by Alexander Tytler in the early 1800s:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy"

The thing is, I have no idea why he's doing that, and it's not something I waste time thinking about.

I don’t really see it as a ‘good or bad’ issue for me personally. Adults can dress and present themselves however they want. That doesn't harm me. At the same time, someone identifying or presenting as a woman doesn’t require anyone to believe that sex literally changes. Those are two different questions. I think people should be treated respectfully either way.

"people who don't want Net Zero madness"

Exactly. Only one side of the political spectrum is claiming that climate science is a conspiracy theory and wanting to follow Trump in going gung-ho for fossil fuels (Trump literally paying vast amounts of US taxpayers' money to companies NOT to build planned windfarms, as it's competition for his fossil fuel donors).

Personally as someone who would ideally like my children to live in a world where the global food supply isn't buggered up and who actually listens to what scientists say about where we're headed, that is another very compelling reason to be concerned about the possibility of a future Reform government.