In October of 1984, the Conservatives held their annual party conference in Brighton. At 2:54 a.m. on October 12th, a bomb blast cut through the hotel, ripping the frontage off the building, collapsing floors, killing 5 people, and injuring 31 others. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis narrowly escaped being killed.
Prime Minister Thatcher’s reaction, after coming within a few feet of being blown to bits, came in her conference speech, in which she stated: “The bomb attack … was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our conference; it was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty’s democratically elected Government. That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and determined, is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.” That was in 1984. In 2024, we have seen the opposite of such fortitude.
Sometimes small events have much larger lessons. So it was on February 21st, with the Scottish National Party’s attempt to put forward a motion calling for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.” The Labour and Conservative parties then tabled their own amendments which differed in tone if not in substance. The day soon descended into absolute chaos, becoming a farce worthy of a Hogarth caricature.
Rumours flew of rules being bent by the Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle, having been leant on by the Labour Party to the extent of being threatened with deselection after the next election, so that Labour could get their amendment through. The SNP protested angrily, then walked out, as did the Conservatives. If that were all, this would have been simply yet another squabble over arcane Westminster proceduralism transformed by delusions of grandeur.
However, more sinister details soon started to emerge. It has been reported by several sources that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had intervened personally, telling Hoyle that the amendment was essential to ensuring the security of Labour MPs. According to Channel4 News, “As Keir Starmer left the chamber he said an audible ‘thank you’ to the speaker. … In a private meeting, Starmer told the speaker [that] Labour MPs must have the chance to vote for a ceasefire motion, or they could face threats in their constituencies.”
Following the uproar, the Speaker of the House confirmed, during his apology to the House on February 22nd, that he had allowed the motion to go through because “The details of the things that have been brought to me are absolutely frightening,” and, “I don’t want another [terrorist] attack on this house.”
The simple fact is that British democracy is now dictated by Islamist mob intimidation, in alliance with the far Left. The useful idiots of the far Left comprise the glove that covers the Islamist fist. The direction of a parliamentary debate, as irrelevant and farcically deluded in its conception of grandeur as it may have been, was influenced through extremist coercion. To ram the reason for this fear home, up to 2,000 protestors had congregated in Parliament Square, screaming slogans such as “There is only one solution, intifada and revolution.” All the while, the genocidal call “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” was projected onto Big Ben. As usual, the police did nothing, signalling yet again the state’s impotence in the face of Islamist aggression.
The crowd outside Parliament was only the most immediate example of such coercion. Conservative MP Mike Freer announced his resignation from his seat in Finchley, London, after threats, intimidation, and the firebombing of his office, all because of his pro-Israel stance. Multiple Labour MPs have been harassed in the street by anti-Israel ideologues for not being anti-Israel enough. Labour MPs had their homes barracked back in November over abstaining from a similar vote. Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood was subjected to similar treatment in his own home last week. We heard from Labour MSP Paul Sweeney that “The Glasgow constituency office of Labour MSPs was stormed by protestors this afternoon, terrifying and threatening our staff. … Thanks to @policescotland for ensuring their safety. The Speaker is right to try to calm this down.”
Place this in the context of the murder of Conservative MP David Amess by a jihadist in 2021, during his constituency surgery hours. The jihadist responsible also tried to seek out Mike Freer MP. Previously, Labour MP Stephen Timms had been stabbed multiple times by a female jihadist in 2011. He only just survived. MPs now often wear stab-proof vests when meeting constituents in their offices, conducting meetings in such a way that they can escape if attacked. Jihadist terrorism is responsible for almost 70% of terror attacks in Britain, with higher lethality. Out of the 43,000 extremists of which the security services are aware, 90% (39,000) are Islamists; 75% of MI5’s caseload involves Islamist extremism. From 2005 to 2021, Islamist terrorism killed 94 people, while far-right terrorism killed three.
The roll call of jihadist terror attacks provides further context: The 7 July 2005 attacks in London; the murder by attempted beheading of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013; the Westminster Bridge vehicle attack in March 2017; the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017; the London Bridge vehicle and stabbing attack in June 2017; the second London Bridge attack in December 2019; the Reading stabbing attack in June 2020; the murder of David Amess in October 2021.
These are just the successful terror attacks. There has also been a steady drumbeat of Islamist blasphemy intimidation: the forcing into hiding of a Batley grammar school teacher and his family over showing images of Mohammed in class, in May 2021; the terrorisation by local Islamists of an autistic schoolboy for “scuffing” a Qu’ran, for which he went into hiding. The boy’s mother was made to apologise in the local mosque, at which the local police chief sat like a jellyfish, neglecting his duty of enforcing the law without fear or favour.
All of this preceded the general miasma of hatred that hangs over British public life since October 7th. The ongoing anti-Israel hate marches on British streets every Saturday since then have seen hundreds of thousands chanting genocidal slogans against Israeli Jews, and accusing MPs of complicity in genocide. Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed to the highest in 40 years. British Jews now fear to walk our streets.
There is an air of threat over our politics and culture that is impossible to ignore. We arrived here through a toxic combination of mass immigration, begun by Labour and turbocharged by the Conservatives, and the multiculturalism perpetuated by both. Add to this the “covenant of security” between our security services and Islamist and jihadist “asylum seekers” in the 1990s that let this form of extremism metastasize within our body politic. It is now seemingly impossible for our representatives to be honest about what the leading cause of extremism and terrorism is, much less what to do about it. Calls that “We should all reflect on how we got to where we got to” by Labour will mean the opposite of facing the truth of where these “threats, intimidation, and security concerns” come from, because Labour have nurtured sectarian Islamist politics and enabled the far Left that ally with them in the public realm.
Since 2001, we in Europe have allowed jihadist terrorists the violent veto over freedom of expression, with writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, and teachers murdered for ‘blasphemy.’ Islamists now do so with democracy itself. Our weakness means that any attempt to call out and prevent its worsening is met with the weapons of lawfare and warfare: anti-discrimination lawsuits, and the bombs, bullets, and blades of jihadism. Any serious attempt to shore up our state against Islamist extremism, as William Shawcross attempted to do with his report on the PREVENT counter-radicalisation scheme, is ignored. Islamist groups are still employed by the government, despite their support for terrorism.
Meanwhile, continued immigration will drive demographic change that will increasingly entrench across the country a sub-continental sectarian politics as seen in the 2022 Leicester riots between Muslims and Hindus, and more recently in the Rochdale by-election. The numbers projected to enter and settle in Britain over the next 12 years by the Office for National Statistics are simply staggering: a population increase of 6.1 million, with 13.7 million arriving and 7.6 million leaving. The main source for this inflow will be Non-EEA: Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the sub-continent. At present, an increasingly balkanised culture, sectarian politics, and an unstable country are likely outcomes. The Islamist intimidation of Parliament today heralds the world we will wake to tomorrow, unless we grow a spine.
Margaret Thatcher’s stand against the IRA was not without cost: MPs died, along with over 3,000 others as a result of the Troubles. But she knew that to give in to the intimidation of terrorists and their thuggish enablers and sympathisers was a sure route to perdition. We no longer seem to have the backbone and moral fibre to halt and push back the coercion of our politics by violent jihadist terrorists and non-violent Islamist extremists. Instead of declaring that “All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail,” we now bleat “Please don’t hurt us, we’ll do what you demand.” Parts of Europe have now woken up to what is happening today and what could happen tomorrow if nothing changes. But Britain is still sleepwalking into that dark future.
British Democracy Has Surrendered to Islamist Intimidation
Pro Palestine protestors in Trafalgar Square. Photo by Alisdare Hickson, CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed
In October of 1984, the Conservatives held their annual party conference in Brighton. At 2:54 a.m. on October 12th, a bomb blast cut through the hotel, ripping the frontage off the building, collapsing floors, killing 5 people, and injuring 31 others. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis narrowly escaped being killed.
Prime Minister Thatcher’s reaction, after coming within a few feet of being blown to bits, came in her conference speech, in which she stated: “The bomb attack … was an attempt not only to disrupt and terminate our conference; it was an attempt to cripple Her Majesty’s democratically elected Government. That is the scale of the outrage in which we have all shared, and the fact that we are gathered here now, shocked but composed and determined, is a sign not only that this attack has failed, but that all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.” That was in 1984. In 2024, we have seen the opposite of such fortitude.
Sometimes small events have much larger lessons. So it was on February 21st, with the Scottish National Party’s attempt to put forward a motion calling for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel.” The Labour and Conservative parties then tabled their own amendments which differed in tone if not in substance. The day soon descended into absolute chaos, becoming a farce worthy of a Hogarth caricature.
Rumours flew of rules being bent by the Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle, having been leant on by the Labour Party to the extent of being threatened with deselection after the next election, so that Labour could get their amendment through. The SNP protested angrily, then walked out, as did the Conservatives. If that were all, this would have been simply yet another squabble over arcane Westminster proceduralism transformed by delusions of grandeur.
However, more sinister details soon started to emerge. It has been reported by several sources that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had intervened personally, telling Hoyle that the amendment was essential to ensuring the security of Labour MPs. According to Channel4 News, “As Keir Starmer left the chamber he said an audible ‘thank you’ to the speaker. … In a private meeting, Starmer told the speaker [that] Labour MPs must have the chance to vote for a ceasefire motion, or they could face threats in their constituencies.”
Following the uproar, the Speaker of the House confirmed, during his apology to the House on February 22nd, that he had allowed the motion to go through because “The details of the things that have been brought to me are absolutely frightening,” and, “I don’t want another [terrorist] attack on this house.”
The simple fact is that British democracy is now dictated by Islamist mob intimidation, in alliance with the far Left. The useful idiots of the far Left comprise the glove that covers the Islamist fist. The direction of a parliamentary debate, as irrelevant and farcically deluded in its conception of grandeur as it may have been, was influenced through extremist coercion. To ram the reason for this fear home, up to 2,000 protestors had congregated in Parliament Square, screaming slogans such as “There is only one solution, intifada and revolution.” All the while, the genocidal call “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” was projected onto Big Ben. As usual, the police did nothing, signalling yet again the state’s impotence in the face of Islamist aggression.
The crowd outside Parliament was only the most immediate example of such coercion. Conservative MP Mike Freer announced his resignation from his seat in Finchley, London, after threats, intimidation, and the firebombing of his office, all because of his pro-Israel stance. Multiple Labour MPs have been harassed in the street by anti-Israel ideologues for not being anti-Israel enough. Labour MPs had their homes barracked back in November over abstaining from a similar vote. Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood was subjected to similar treatment in his own home last week. We heard from Labour MSP Paul Sweeney that “The Glasgow constituency office of Labour MSPs was stormed by protestors this afternoon, terrifying and threatening our staff. … Thanks to @policescotland for ensuring their safety. The Speaker is right to try to calm this down.”
Place this in the context of the murder of Conservative MP David Amess by a jihadist in 2021, during his constituency surgery hours. The jihadist responsible also tried to seek out Mike Freer MP. Previously, Labour MP Stephen Timms had been stabbed multiple times by a female jihadist in 2011. He only just survived. MPs now often wear stab-proof vests when meeting constituents in their offices, conducting meetings in such a way that they can escape if attacked. Jihadist terrorism is responsible for almost 70% of terror attacks in Britain, with higher lethality. Out of the 43,000 extremists of which the security services are aware, 90% (39,000) are Islamists; 75% of MI5’s caseload involves Islamist extremism. From 2005 to 2021, Islamist terrorism killed 94 people, while far-right terrorism killed three.
The roll call of jihadist terror attacks provides further context: The 7 July 2005 attacks in London; the murder by attempted beheading of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013; the Westminster Bridge vehicle attack in March 2017; the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017; the London Bridge vehicle and stabbing attack in June 2017; the second London Bridge attack in December 2019; the Reading stabbing attack in June 2020; the murder of David Amess in October 2021.
These are just the successful terror attacks. There has also been a steady drumbeat of Islamist blasphemy intimidation: the forcing into hiding of a Batley grammar school teacher and his family over showing images of Mohammed in class, in May 2021; the terrorisation by local Islamists of an autistic schoolboy for “scuffing” a Qu’ran, for which he went into hiding. The boy’s mother was made to apologise in the local mosque, at which the local police chief sat like a jellyfish, neglecting his duty of enforcing the law without fear or favour.
All of this preceded the general miasma of hatred that hangs over British public life since October 7th. The ongoing anti-Israel hate marches on British streets every Saturday since then have seen hundreds of thousands chanting genocidal slogans against Israeli Jews, and accusing MPs of complicity in genocide. Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed to the highest in 40 years. British Jews now fear to walk our streets.
There is an air of threat over our politics and culture that is impossible to ignore. We arrived here through a toxic combination of mass immigration, begun by Labour and turbocharged by the Conservatives, and the multiculturalism perpetuated by both. Add to this the “covenant of security” between our security services and Islamist and jihadist “asylum seekers” in the 1990s that let this form of extremism metastasize within our body politic. It is now seemingly impossible for our representatives to be honest about what the leading cause of extremism and terrorism is, much less what to do about it. Calls that “We should all reflect on how we got to where we got to” by Labour will mean the opposite of facing the truth of where these “threats, intimidation, and security concerns” come from, because Labour have nurtured sectarian Islamist politics and enabled the far Left that ally with them in the public realm.
Since 2001, we in Europe have allowed jihadist terrorists the violent veto over freedom of expression, with writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, and teachers murdered for ‘blasphemy.’ Islamists now do so with democracy itself. Our weakness means that any attempt to call out and prevent its worsening is met with the weapons of lawfare and warfare: anti-discrimination lawsuits, and the bombs, bullets, and blades of jihadism. Any serious attempt to shore up our state against Islamist extremism, as William Shawcross attempted to do with his report on the PREVENT counter-radicalisation scheme, is ignored. Islamist groups are still employed by the government, despite their support for terrorism.
Meanwhile, continued immigration will drive demographic change that will increasingly entrench across the country a sub-continental sectarian politics as seen in the 2022 Leicester riots between Muslims and Hindus, and more recently in the Rochdale by-election. The numbers projected to enter and settle in Britain over the next 12 years by the Office for National Statistics are simply staggering: a population increase of 6.1 million, with 13.7 million arriving and 7.6 million leaving. The main source for this inflow will be Non-EEA: Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and the sub-continent. At present, an increasingly balkanised culture, sectarian politics, and an unstable country are likely outcomes. The Islamist intimidation of Parliament today heralds the world we will wake to tomorrow, unless we grow a spine.
Margaret Thatcher’s stand against the IRA was not without cost: MPs died, along with over 3,000 others as a result of the Troubles. But she knew that to give in to the intimidation of terrorists and their thuggish enablers and sympathisers was a sure route to perdition. We no longer seem to have the backbone and moral fibre to halt and push back the coercion of our politics by violent jihadist terrorists and non-violent Islamist extremists. Instead of declaring that “All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail,” we now bleat “Please don’t hurt us, we’ll do what you demand.” Parts of Europe have now woken up to what is happening today and what could happen tomorrow if nothing changes. But Britain is still sleepwalking into that dark future.
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