Jane Clare Jones blog on Tommy Robinson

[CassieMaddox]

Just a really great read
https://janeclarejones.com/2024/07/28/tommy-robinson-far-right-populism-and-gender-criticism/

These are my favourite bits:

The greatest danger to women and girls has always been, and remains, the men inside their own houses. This is the nature, and the devastation, of endemic male sexual violence. It usually happens in the place, and with the people, who are supposed to be most safe. It would perhaps be comforting to imagine that we could easily identify the men who are dangerous – the Muslims, the brown ones, the ones in dresses – and then we could keep ourselves safe by keeping them out. But the argument materialist feminists made throughout the early years of the gender wars applies equally here: men are a statistical danger to women as a class and there is prima facie no way of working out which ones are dangerous and which ones are not.

The argument is no longer ‘guilt by association’ or ‘purity politics,’ it is now a) What even is the far right anyway?, b) The far right doesn’t mean anything because I was called far right for knowing men aren’t women, c) You people think anyone who disagrees with you is far right, and d) He is not far right anyway. That is, it has moved from claiming that association with the far right is either not happening or if it is happening has no impact on the substance of GC discourse, to people openly associating with the far right and recycling far right talking points while denying that the far right is the far right.

But what feminist women have tried, largely unsuccessfully, to get across, is that these kinds of men are not on ‘your side,’ if ‘your side’ is genuinely defending women’s rights. These men are on their side, and their side wants a largely white patriarchal nation, in which ‘their’ women know their place and are ‘protected’ only insofar as ‘protection’ means keeping them guarded from ‘other’ men.

The pictures at the end of the article are very illuminating too.

Brava JCJ 👏

Reminds me of Joey from Friends
“It is a love based on giving and receiving as well as having and sharing. And the love that they give and have is shared and received. And through this having and giving and sharing and receiving, we too can share and love and have and receive.”

materialist analysis of sex-based oppression

Yah those WASPI women don't need 300 quid for heating, but Yah, civil servants do need a huge pay rise for their DB pensions and they have to have the heating on all day at home now they are not going to the office. Oppression yah. Materialist oppression expecting civil servants to pay for heat while they are not in the empty office.

Am I doing it right. Oh no I mentioned the right.

I will head off to denounce myself.

OK! I have to hold my hands up and confess that I have read JCJ's blog. Not once, not twice but three fucking times.It is a complete stream of consciousness, mish-mash of finger-pointing, false teaming and logic leaping. It doesn't need an editor, it needs complete erasure.

To avoid any confusion, Tommy Robinson is no more Gender Critical than Owen Jones. TR believes that your sex defines your gender and Owen Jones believes that your gender defines your sex. People who are gender critical know that gender is a social construct that actively disadvantages women.

Any attempt to align GC women with Tommy Robinson is false teaming.

WTAF!!! I don't want to derail by asking you to explain so have you got a link please?

I thought it was a coherent argument although if what you got from it is some notion of aligning GC women with TR and false teaming, maybe we read it in different ways?

JCJ seems to be saying that the far right have been successful in influencing some elements of the GC movement which is a fair point. And that the influence is only going one way ie the far right are not becoming more feminist.

The 'I want my country back' song that was played at TR's last rally does suggest that it was about more than 'two tier policing' (which I completely agree exists in many different ways ie black and brown people are treated differently to white people, poor to rich, women are held to higher account than men in terms of charging and sentencing and so on).

So it's women who don't agree with you and your friends' POV that you claim despise women.

SMH

Sooner or later someone might tell us what the "GC movement" is.

If you read these threads you will have no idea.

I tend to think of it as a umbrella term for people who are critical of gender ideology and who believe that sex is real - biology isn't bigotry and all that. A broad church, spanning gender conservatives, who believe that sex is real and that gender roles should closely align to radical feminists who would like to abolish gender roles.

Gets used in lots of different ways, as I'm sure you know.

107 words. Concise, clear. A* 🤣

And I agree, so extra points from me.

One of the key topics in Jack's blog is the 'I want my country back' song played at a TR rally.

Using very few words, I would say that it is sovereign state, nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-women, far right hate masquerading as patriotism. As many posters on this thread know, several 'GC' women attended the march and many more were indignant that they were criticised for this by other 'GC' women.

Is the lack of discussion because posters don't think the song is relevant to a thread about TR and the far right, and that taking the piss out of JCJ is far more important? Or is it more that, as someone suggested up thread, that discussions about parts of the 'GC' movement amplifying, minimising or otherwise condoning far right views are off topic for this board? Or maybe other reasons?

Thanks OP, brilliant well written article as ever from JCJ. Seems it has went over the heads of the KJK devotees.(Is she still making out she is working class and does not have a degree herself? Oh I forgot us working class people can't do that book learning stuff only the learning that PP tells us . Silly me ! ). Yet JKJ's views are backed by evidence. TR and chums are not a friend to women and girls and I want the likes of him and his cronies out of our spaces as much as males in dresses. Thank you JKJ and Cassie Maddox.

As many posters on this thread know, several 'GC' women attended the march and many more were indignant that they were criticised for this by other 'GC' women.

If I remember the thread correctly it was 2 GC women, it was a march against 2 tier policing, not against immigration or anything like that. The women were GC and non-white - so therefore had at least 2 ways in which they may experienced unfair treatment by police.

I'm not indignant that they were criticised. But I think both that much of the criticism was unfair, and that even if two GC women had become full on goose stepping neo nazis, that still wouldn't mean the far right was infiltrating or was linked to gender criticism.

Edited to say I have no idea who Jack is or what his blog says, so I can't respond to that part of your post.

If I remember the thread correctly it was 2 GC women, it was a march against 2 tier policing, not against immigration or anything like that. The women were GC and non-white - so therefore had at least 2 ways in which they may experienced unfair treatment by police.

There were many white GC women there, Louise Distras who designed the "Terf is the new punk" T-shirt as worn by JK Rowling performed at the rally at Tommy Robinson's personal request. Louise is very popular on FWR

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4964581-louise-distras-has-been-arrested

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4982096-singer-songwriter-louise-distras-and-her-cancellation-interview

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4901839-ordinary-women-being-cancelled

We were even gardening for her crowdfunder earlier this year https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5064106-april-gardening

She very much taken TR's doctrines on board recently - she posted this yesterday.

@Togetherin
I think it's completely understandable that one of the many GC women who have been arrested by the police for their views would want to attend a rally about 2 tier policing, but regrettable that it was TR who provided the opportunity.

What has a crowd chanting "Allah, Allah, who the fuck is Allah?" & "You can stick your Islam up your arse" got to do with two-tier policing?

I'd define it as the people (mainly women) who have successfully self organised and pressurised governments and political organisations to take womens concerns seriously. The ones who got the self-ID proposal taken off the table in 2018, the ones who got the "belief in biological sex" (in quotes because it's not a belief) recognised in law. In the face of constant criticism they were bigoted, prejudiced etc. Women worked together across political divides and classes to do that.

Its sad now to see the infighting, sneering at each other for being "intellectual"/"managerial class", complaints about elites and other women being the problem, and letting racist prejudiced men set the agenda.

And saying "there is no movement" is a huge disservice to what women have done over the last 10 years to protect their rights.

I guess that's a rhetorical question?
But if we're going to hold every attendee responsible for the worst thing shouted at any march, then there are a lot of people on all sides of the political spectrum who should be worried.

See, I think you seem very reasonable and then you say things like this. The rally was not about 2 tier policing. That is a pretext for the far right.
In the same way as what's happened the last 2 nights isn't about "protecting our kids" no matter what the racists say.

❤

I'm have no information on that rally other than how it was described on MN, and my recollection was that people on both sides of the argument referred to it as being about 2 tier policing.

But to carry on attending these events knowing what they are doing is lending support to them.
Everyone with access to the internet knows TR and his opinions, so you can't pretend that those attendees didn't know what they were turning up to. Then to be sharing tweets like that one earlier by Louise filled with misinformation. That is a choice she has made.

So again, we should be holding people responsible for allowing bigotry in any form. Don't engage with the people who stoke these divisive fires.

https://news.sky.com/video/tommy-robinson-thousands-gather-for-far-right-demonstration-in-central-london-13146516

This is a typical headline. It was described unanimously as "far right".

I guess if you are of the "what even is the far right anyway?" mindset that would pass you by.

Even supposing one had concerns about "2 tier policing", why the fuck one would think a violent convicted misogynistic racist was the person to sort that out is beyond me.

It was not more about 2 tier policing then the rioting in Southport was about grieving for 3 little girls murdered. Just an excuse.