"Right or Left, I want No Part in Extremism" - Milli Hill

[WhereDidSummerGoAgain]

A thoughtful article by Milli Hill today.

https://millihill.substack.com/p/right-or-left-i-want-no-part-of-extremism

I can't help but find myself agreeing with her.

I know there's been a lot of debate on here about Kelly-Jay and whether she supports the far right.

Milli's article links to a Twitter post by Tommy Robinson showing an event and his inner circle. Kelly-Jay is there, dressed in a Union Jack.

This is pretty conclusive now, isn't it? You don't go and hang out with racists like Tommy Robinson and pals in times like these if you don't support them, surely?!

Milli's stood up for Kelly-Jay before, but this is a step too far for her, and for me too.

Just wondering what others think? This really doesn't look like a mistake this time.

Who has said that feminists have to support TR? I've never seen anyone say anything so absurd. Certainly not on here anyway.

Edit to say: I think I might have misunderstood your point. Apologies if I have.

It’s just ridiculous.

I recently listened to TR on a couple of podcasts and I was genuinely surprised by what a nice person he is. I didn’t find anything he said to be racist or far right (and I say this as a mixed race person). I don’t think the media is portraying him accurately or fairly.

@Signalbox, pretending that we don’t control immigration is dishonest. The vast majority of our immigration is legal and people are arriving with visas and paying NHS surcharges. The small boats are tiny in comparison. Sky News gave a great breakdown recently, you should read it as this is something you care passionately about:

https://news.sky.com/story/how-much-does-the-uk-rely-on-legal-migration-13427636

If you were starting off by saying you disagree with our immigration policy since Brexit, there would be the start of a discussion. But if you start with “immigration is uncontrolled” when what you really mean to say is you don’t like how high legal immigration is right now, then people need to start off bringing you back to square one before a discussion can start.

There really is a very big convo to be had around our falling birthrate, huge pensions bill, skills shortages and the role population growth plays in our economy, as well as how we manage cultural cohesion and preparing our young people to work in a knowledge and AI-fuelled future. But just demonising software engineering students who’ve come to the U.K. from overseas is willfully avoiding the discussion.

None here is 'pretending we don't control immigration'.

You are proving the point in that even seeking to discuss third hand why some other people (ie not even necessarily posters here) are pissed off about immigration is being equated to 'pretending we don't control immigration'.

There is a conversation to be had and to pretend otherwise is to invite another brexit/Trump clusterfuck.

And THAT is why people were marching, and that is why they are listening to TR.

I really think we need to define terms if we're going to use 'far right' to mean 'going too far'. At the moment it seems to mean 'anyone more right wing than me'. Having right wing politics is not illegal. Having very right wing politics, eg Reform, or EDF, while abhorrent to many, is still not illegal. We need to protect legal free speech and stop trying to silence everyone we don't like. It doesn't work.

Where exactly have I said that we don't control immigration? That is a complete misrepresentation of my position. It is clear to me that 95% of our immigration IS controlled by government policy. What I have said is that there needs to be an open discussion about policy and that people should leave off calling others racist or (or in this case dishonest) when their opinion is that immigration has become too high. As for the 5% which is not controlled I also don't think it's racist for people to discuss concerns around who these (mainly) men are, whether or not there is a misuse of the asylum system and whether or not they (or at least some of them) present a security risk to this country.

Also nobody has ever demanded that feminists align themselves with TR.
This is a absurd thing to say.

@Signalbox You have used the phrase “uncontrolled immigration” repeatedly. Did you mean to type something else?

@AstonScrapingsNameChange This is genuinely outrageous - TRA levels of “no one is saying sex doesn’t exist” followed by yards of claiming exactly that, and then aggressively trying to make out that I’m misrepresenting you!

It takes some brass neck, that’s for sure.

I don’t think the media is portraying him accurately or fairly.

They have the same information as everyone else about his background and criminal convictions.

Regardless of his views on immigration, he is a con artist and a thug.

Where? Go back and read my posts. I have not once said that we have "uncontrolled immigration".

TR is a highly flawed individual but it just so happens that he speaks for hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people in this country

So in a country of almost 70 million people there isn't anyone better than Tommy Robinson to make these points?

Are all these people so incompetent that they can't express an opinion without being led by somebody convicted of fraud and assault?

@RayonSunrise Can you correct this please. You called me dishonest earlier. You have misrepresented me and said that I have said something I haven't said.

I think there are much better people to make these points if only they would. Labour could have been making them when they were in opposition. They could have challenged the Tories on why having promised to bring numbers down they massively liberalised immigration policy. It would have been better if any of the mainstream parties had made these points. Instead they call people racist, divisive, far-right etc. and this has a chilling effect. Nobody wants to be called racist so the discussion is suppressed. And then the likes of Farage and Robinson step up and we find ourselves in the situation we are in now. The fact is that the "much better" people no longer represent the people who vote for them.

Farage at least has the sense to keep some distance from Tommy Robinson.

Ok, so maybe some useful context.

TR's fanbase is mostly online, and very largely American, partly because Elon likes the cut of his jib.

In the UK he's been Public Enemy No 1 for the past 16 years, the media report on him as if he's basically Skeletor, and as a result I don't think there's anyone in the UK who isn't aware of his extensive criminal record. Polling shows that he's very unpopular in the UK - his approval rating is similar to that of Meghan Markle and Keir Starmer.

Americans don't have this background. When TR appears on podcasts with Jordan Peterson or Tim Pool - which get millions of views - an audience without that background just sees him as an English talking head with criticisms of immigration and Islam. They don't see him as being essentially different to Douglas Murray.

And because Tommy is always on the grift, most of what he does is aimed at his American audience.

He doesn't even have a cult following among people who turn up to his events. There's a well known phenomenon of people who go to Tommy rallies and gradually drift off to the pub after an hour or two of his boring speeches.

He's not even popular with the minuscule extreme right in the UK, almost all of whom believe he's a state agent.

But he has his fans, and there are others who see him as an imperfect spokesman, and as a result your standard Tommy rally gets about 30,000 attendees.

If five times as many people as normal turn out for a Tommy rally, it's not because he's suddenly become much more popular. It might be useful to ask why the turnout was as big as it was.

No, that was someone else.

I don't understand what you're saying. Did you mean to quote someone else?

You seem very angry at me; I'm not sure why.

There is a massive difference between saying :

'TR seems like a good chap, I don't know what all the fuss is about, he definitely has the right idea about immigration' (which i don't think anyone here is saying)

and

'perhaps we should take a minute to figure out why he is as popular as he seems to be and the implications of that for our society. '

Acting as if anyone saying the latter is also saying the former is false equivalence, it's dumbing down and it's not helpful in terms of understanding where we as a society are at.

Discussions of the far right put me in mind of Mary Douglas's maxim that 'dirt is matter in the wrong place'. The moral caricatures attached to the right and left (largely by the left) mean that anyone who gets close to the right has to find ways to decontaminate herself or himself. The left are empathetic, inclusive, kind, caring, are welcoming, open-minded, altruistic, intelligent and sensitive. The right are, well, the opposite. Contamination leads to disgust -- hence 'never kissed a Tory'.

Now you see this all over the place as people try to avoid contamination. 'I'm not far-right but...' 'I hate Nigel Farage but...' 'I don't like GB News but...'. And also, 'Kellie Jay Keen goes too far but...'

We've seen this again and again as feminists try to resist contamination. One of the things I admire about Kellie Jay Keen is that she is absolutely immune to the fear of contamination. She really doesn't mind if people (people in general -- I'm sure she cares whether her actual friends and family like her) don't think she's a nice person. That's what makes her so effective. But we have seen time and time again it gives other women the heebie-jeebies.

Absolutely agree.

But there's also a lot of preference falsification. I sometimes think of those threads on AIBU where the OP says something a bit unfashionable (in political terms, let's say something to the right of Rory Stewart), she gets dogpiled for 1000 posts by people telling her how awful she is, then the vote goes the opposite way to what you'd expect from the thread.

You'd think people would start to wonder why they keep dominating the conversation but losing the vote. They rarely do.

@SionnachRuadh I may be in danger of following you round Mumsnet agreeing with you.

I'm the same and don't want to be thought of as stalking 😂

Sionnach I agree with your analysis 👍

'There's a well known phenomenon of people who go to Tommy rallies and gradually drift off to the pub after an hour or two of his boring speeches.'

And good god, he could bore for England. I started watching his recent Triggernometry interview and lasted about 20 mins. It was mostly him recounting each and every ruck he had been part of in Luton over the last 20 years, and his version of the events that led to a man ending up 'asleep on the floor' (his words) in St Pancras station during the summer. Even the hosts looked like they were trying not to drift off

'TR seems like a good chap, I don't know what all the fuss is about, he definitely has the right idea about immigration' (which i don't think anyone here is saying)

Hmm, that was certainly how I read this message.

ChirpyPearlMoose · Today 11:25
I recently listened to TR on a couple of podcasts and I was genuinely surprised by what a nice person he is. I didn’t find anything he said to be racist or far right (and I say this as a mixed race person). I don’t think the media is portraying him accurately or fairly.

I agree with you about the distinction, but I think people are saying the former.

People. Or one person?