Tommy Robinson and Let Women Speak

[eatfigs]

I've only read about this on Twitter so there's a chance this is being taken out of context, but it looks like Let Women Speak were part of Tommy Robinson's rally in London this past weekend:

https://x.com/shularises/status/1797585248580186511

https://x.com/GappyTales/status/1797611080212205988

https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1796931835823362392

This doesn't sit right with me at all. I've been to LWS events and thought I knew what they were about. I've argued against the guilt-by-association tactics that some activists use against LWS when male intruders have turned up to the events, like the neo-Nazis in Melbourne.

But here we see the opposite, LWS deliberately attending far-right fascist marches. This seems inexcusable to me.

Well from pondering over everything, I think Aja has done a massive piss take of both left and right.
What she's done is hilarious imo.

There's a full transcript above. Which of her words are bigoted?

What were the figures in 2010? Gordon Brown couldn't see 6 years into the future.

Similar, I think. I am not going to check, but the imbalance has always been there - inevitably so since there are more people in continental Europe than in the UK.

Quite 👏👏

If I remember it - and it's 14 years ago - she was worried about places for her grandchildren at school, and access to a GP. She linked this with EU immigration. T. Blair had said the UK would put no limits on people coming to the UK from the new members of the EU (Romania, Poland etc) whereas eg. Germany and France had - Blair expected a few hundred thousand and he hugely miscalculated. This influx was what the woman meant when speaking to Brown - that too many people were arriving very suddenly and there was no infrastructure being put in to support their arrival. Not bigotted; realistic and pragmatic. She could see the problem, which was impacting on her family and she wanted to know how Brown was going to solve the problem. He called her a bigot, which rather suggests that he is one.
NB Not all of us think it is a plus when 1M people arrive in the UK and 1M leave for somewhere else.

Abusive men don't need their sob stories listening to.

By listening to TRs tale of woe around why the police are mean to him and he should be able to do what he wants you are giving him an opportunity to manipulate you. Like any other abusers.

The way to deal with abusers is by being clear about boundaries and not engage with abusive people. Many women have learnt that the hard way. Unfortunately many other women still feel they need to be kind, empathise, compromise etc.

Women on this board know this, and it's pretty weird to watch the need to "be nice" to their tribe leading to empathy for abusers e.g. TR and his followers.

It feels as though Cassie is so far removed from the real world and lives life on a computer screen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8649448.stm

GD: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're... all these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

PM: A million people come from Europe but a million people, British people, have gone into Europe. You do know that there's a lot of British people staying in Europe as well?

If it's 3 million by 2016 and a million them that's half a million a year in six years. A woman asks the man who has made the arrangements for eastern Europeans to flock here where they are flocking from and she's a bigot apparently.

He made the arrangements, but being asked a question about his arrangements as simple as "where from", is bigotry even to the Labour Prime Minister responsible for making the arrangements for half a million a year to come here. He can surely tell someone from where he's set that up, no? Why not?

He went on to apologise

BROWN'S APOLOGY ON JEREMY VINE

Brown: "I apologise if I've said anything that has been hurtful"

1244 BST: Mr Brown is quizzed about the incident on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine programme.

PM: I apologise if I have said anything like that. What I think she was raising with me was an issue about immigration and saying that there were too many people from eastern Europe in the country. And I do apologise if I have said anything that has been hurtful and I will apologise to her personally.

So he decided her asking him where from meant too many and she was a bigot as a result.

He's not actually listening to her as he's writing her off as a bigot while she's speaking. Even hearing a recording later he will only reframe her as saying something he can claim is bigotry and not actually the question she asked him.

At the time more countries where being added to the free movement area, it was a big news item, the discussion of which country next.

So @GrammarTeacher

This is the bigoted thing she said? The thing she said or the thing Gordon Brown changed it to?

On populism:

In political science, populism is the idea that society is separated into two groups at odds with one another - "the pure people" and "the corrupt elite", according to Cas Mudde, author of Populism: A Very Short Introduction.

The word "is generally misused, especially in a European context," according to Benjamin Moffitt, author of The Global Rise of Populism.

The true populist leader claims to represent the unified "will of the people". He stands in opposition to an enemy, often embodied by the current system - aiming to "drain the swamp" or tackle the "liberal elite".

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-43301423.amp

Having done some very brief reading, FDR was not a populist. He exploited some populist themes to get elected.

Trump is a populist with his "drain the swamp" rhetoric and anti-democratic elections in power.

It's probably like Sunaks Conservatives- exploiting populist themes to try to get elected. And Farages Reform - total change needed.

Populism is dangerous because there needs to be a scapegoat.

Nothing to see here of course. Just a T shirt.

Stop derailing a thread about the far right and Tommy Robinson onto Labour.

Its nothing do to with being nice. And as for having empathy fuck that.

It's not about giving them chance to manipulate me,

I grew up with men with repulsive views and habits.

I also spent my working life working with men with repulsive views and habits.

Did they manipulate me? No. I learnt the hard way with the ones in childhood.

Did i believe their versions? No!

Do I better understand how their minds work by listening to them whine and whinge about how nothing is their fault? fuck yes.

So you can assume until the cows come home about other people's motives for listening to things they find distasteful said by people they find abhorrent, but you do you and I'll do me.

Why?
It's a good point about why is it ok to listen to the sob stories from people like Tommy Robinson?
As that's what some people on here are arguing for.
It's just such the opposite stance as to what's usually taken - shut abuse down, not be sucked in by manipulative sob stories etc

It's not a derail, it's about providing social and political context for why people whose politics would typically sit on the left, and who would typically and historically support and vote Labour, are turned off the left and Labour. That's what this thread could have been about were it not for the constant shaming and outcasting. If we want to engender change we need to understand why people do what they do.

So do you think all women have the powers you do, to avoid abusers?

Unfortunately most abused women (including me) aren't fully aware of the signals they give off. Read the "shark cage". By encouraging women to listen to views from abusive men, you are putting the ones with a rusty cage in danger. Even if your cage is rock solid.

Plus, if you truly believe listening is the best approach, why would you think Stonewall are dangerous? How do you think institutions got "captured" and why doesn't that same risk exist with TR?

Given you are in your 40s, and given the strength of your political feeling - you really ought to do better

Oh wow 😂
Fucking hell.
Did you honestly type that with a straight face because if you did can you not see the utter hypocrisy?!
The outrage / indignation there'd be if someone said that to a "GC" poster on here.

@CassieMaddox You're a woman in your forties not bowing to group think.
You heard. Do better
😂

The title is LWS and TR. There are plenty of threads about Labour, analysing why women have left them. Or you can start another. You are trying to derail onto a topic that feels less dangerous for you. I understand but it's not OK.

How many times do we get accused of being in an echo chamber here despite the fact that a lot of the women on this board tend to read everything and watch everything about both sides of a particular argument?

And now we are being told off for not being in an echo chamber of just our own way of thinking and seeing things we are still fucking wrong!

Damned if we do, damned if we don't!

FFS.

How can anyone ever hope for change in a particular group if they won't even try to go below the surface level of that groups views?

. You are trying to derail onto a topic that feels less dangerous for you. I understand but it's not OK

The thread isn't about TR specifically, it's about two GC women who were at a rally so clearly that's going to cover quite a wide range of relevant topics.
What's not okay is for you to try and tell people what they are and are not allowed to post. You can report anything you think breaks the talk guidelines but other than that you'll just need to tolerate it.

I'm not overly surprised though because most of what you've posted has been along the lines of how dare anyone say or do anything you don't like.

@DrSpartacular post is relevant and who controls threads to that extent anyway

The blinkered way some seem to think there's one issue for women to deal with and nothing else matters is corrupting everything.

Some are corrupting everything.

Everything.

So if we link to Wikipedia and start at A you can tell us how some women dealing with the one issue has corrupted everything under A? @GrammarTeacher

Or have you got the list already? You must have it because you told us this so there must be many many examples and explanations underlying you saying that everything is corrupted?

TR makes a living off of being a right wing mouthpiece and has done for years now. Who is hoping to change him and why? Who needs him? Really confused of why you're advocating people listening to him, for what actual purpose?

My OH has that t-shirt.

I must tell him he is 'aligned with' the Proud Boys now. That's gonna be awkward. Seeing as he came out for the miners back in the day and has been a leftie his whole life. Is there any other colour of Fred Perry that is aligned with any other gang, as he has a range of them. Bought of course years before the Proud Boys were even a thing.

I wonder did she fiddle with a zipper as well? Just to get all the hidden signs symbols and dog whistles in?

Of course I don't!

I went into adult hood having been abused all the way through childhood. I knew how to spot a wrong un by the time I was 7. I am aware of how slimy manipulative men operate. I also understand that a lot of women aren't aware of the signals.

But how can women help other women if no one will speak to the abusers in order to work out why they do what they do.

There are whole areas of study about how people's brains work, why groups have the ideas they have. How do you think the data from those studies come about? How do we know what makes serial killers tick etc? Someone had to talk to the fuckers.

You might not have the stomach for it and that's fine, you don't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. However what you shouldn't do is slate other women for wanting to be more knowledgeable about subjects.

And as for stonewall and institutions being captured, it happened because people didn't check everything out. They didn't listen or investigate other points of view. It happened because institutions made decisions about people and groups putting them into good and bad on the say so of one side of the argument. The very thing you seen to be arguing we now do