Professor Brian Cox has been slammed by many on social media for suggesting the term ‘The British People’ should be banned from political discourse.
Mr Cox wrote to his over 3million followers saying: “I’m so sick of this ‘The British People’ nonsense. It’s inflammatory and divisive and also errant vacuous nonsense with no meaning in a multi-party democracy. The phrase should be banned from political discourse.”
The OBE followed up his tweet by saying: “Some are (deliberately?) misunderstanding this. The point is that invoking ‘the will of the people’ or derivatives in promoting policy is a well-rehearsed propaganda technique and has no place in our democratic dialogue. Once elected, Government must seek to unify, not to divide.”
Then added: “Furthermore, governments can be radical / reforming without using division as a governing technique. This government has a large majority and need not apologise for its policy choices; it was elected on a manifesto. But it should calibrate its language much more responsibly.”
His comments came in response to Home Secretary Priti Patel’s earlier thread of Tweets on the 7 August that ended by saying: “We also need the cooperation of the French to intercept boats and return migrants back to France.
“I know that when the British people say they want to take back control of our borders – this is exactly what they mean.”
One member of Twitter named @RuleBrexiitannia responded to Mr Cox’s saying: “I am a British person and find your typical lefty moral supremacy view offensive.”
Another member of the public by the name of James responded to Cox writing: “But that is what we are Brian! We live in Britain and we are the British people. And yes, the British people do you want to take back control of our borders.”
A deluded scientist, whose intellect is much smaller than his ego
Decides it’s time to tell the British People what they should think about who they are
Were English Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish & as a group are British
We are proud of who we are as Induviduals or as a group pic.twitter.com/7FbkYOgzLI— Peter R (@PeterR2808) August 9, 2020
Peter R on Twitter wrote: “A deluded scientist, whose intellect is much smaller than his ego decides it’s time to tell the British People what they should think about who they are.
“Were English Scottish, Welsh & Northern Irish & as a group are British.
“We are proud of who we are as Induviduals or as a group.”
Keith Hopkins then asked Mr Cox to clear up what in fact he meant by his initial Tweet by asking: “So to clarify Brian, are we allowed to say ‘British people’?”
Mr Cox responded saying: “Don’t be so silly. Of course, but what I am arguing is that saying ‘Policy X is the will of the British People’ implies that if you disagree with policy X then you are not one of the British people. It’s a well worn path to some very dark places in history.”
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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