Free speech for me but not for thee

Niall McCrae

Islamophobia and antisemitism are serious charges, as anyone who wants to keep their job knows. As a trade union rep, I have dealt with several cases of such perceived discrimination, with employers citing their ‘values’ in sanctioning a worker for having said something that offended someone, somewhere (not necessarily in the workplace). British people, apparently, must accept their country being overrun by mass immigration from Muslim regions, as well as prohibition of any criticism of the shadowy forces that push asset-stripping, sexual subversion and demographic replacement.  

The concept of a New World Order is smeared as antisemitic conspiracy theory, but it is becoming clearer that Zionists really do run the world. Indeed, if the UK government had its way the Israeli government would be immune from critics. Of course, neither Zionism nor the genocidal maniacs in the Knesset are representative of Jewish faith or culture. Netanyahu and colleagues exploit the Holocaust to justify an imperialist, totalitarian state that practises Apartheid and ethnic cleansing. 

On Monday on this channel, David Clees interviewed David Miller, the scholar who was sacked by Bristol University two years ago for expressing views about Israel. Miller’s recent employment tribunal was timely, with the current efforts of the establishment to quash protests against the massacre in Gaza, a military onslaught backed by the British f=government not only with words but weapons too.

Toby Young’s Free Speech Union has taken a partisan line on the Israel / Gaza conflict, to the extent of calling for curbs on pro-Palestinian demonstrators   But Miller was not a member anyway. He would probably have regarded it as a right-wing body resisting much-needed sensitivity to ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged groups. Miller has incurred a legal bill of £100 thousand but he scored a significant success not only for himself but for others. The judge at his employment tribunal ruled that Bristol University was wrong to reject Miller’s claim of anti-Zionism as a philosophical belief protected under the Equality Act 2010.

Yet Miller should not be regarded as a free speech hero. Far from it: on UNN Miller revealed himself as a blinkered leftist who thinks that his views are legitimate (academic freedom, he professed) but showed no concern for the many people with conservative or nationalist opinions who have been struck by cancel culture (some convicted and jailed). Indeed, he admitted ‘I’m no free speech absolutist’.

To explain his intense interest in the plight of the Palestinians, Miller told of his schooldays in Edinburgh, where all of the boys supported the Protestant team, Heart of Midlothian. He rebelled against this, and sympathised with the Catholic side in the Troubles in Northern Ireland (‘the north of Ireland’, as Miller described). Later, on visiting Belfast and Derry, he saw the profusion of Palestine flags in nationalist districts. For Miller, the Irish had a natural bond with the Palestinians as victims of brutal colonialism.  

Last week I was talking to an acquaintance from the Covid-19 protests, who supports Celtic FC. He presumed that I would be cheering for Israel, because I was a fan of the rival Glasgow Rangers. I reminded him that I have spent the several years warning of the globalist cabal, and that the oppressive vaccination policy of the Israeli government had shown itself at the vanguard of this tyranny.  Admittedly,  my default setting in the past was to regard Israel as the only good country in an area surrounded by regressive Islamic states, but like David Clews I have listened and learned.  

By contrast, I do not see much flexibility in Miller’s thinking. For him, the biggest ogre in British society is not antisemitism but Islamophobia. David Clews asked him whether he could understand the worries of ordinary British people at the rapid transformation of their areas by mass immigration. Visibly uncomfortable at discussing Muslims as a problem rather than as victims, Miller denied the existence of a British people. @who do you mean – the French, Germans, or the Vikings?’.  

Miller’s casual disregard for a white British identity was mirrored by an opinion piece in the Guardian today by Emma Dabiri. ‘False prophets are peddling conspiracy theories about Ireland’s history’, the article is titled, and Dabiri targeted Russell Brand for broadcasting the outrage of Irish folk at the sudden influx of migrants in every town and village. Brand, now bête-noire of the intelligentsia, is provoking far-right populism and ethno-nationalism in pushing ‘a localised variant of the great replacement theory, whose supporters claim that white Europeans and Americans are deliberately being replaced by non-white and Muslim migrants’.  Well, that’s obviously happening, so why deny it? 

Dabiri sees this multiculturalism as inherently positive, as would Miller. Sinn Fein, the nationalist party in Northen Ireland, is now a political force throughout Ireland, but people are belatedly realising that this party is betraying them. Brits out; everybody else in. 

While Miller made some very strong points on Israel, showing his wealth of knowledge of the regime and the plight of the Palestinians, his is a partisan rather than principled voice.  His ideological bias on rights of expression displays the repressive tolerance of Herbert Marcuse, the Cultural Marxist professor who inspired activists in the USA in the 1960s. It’s free speech for me, but not for thee.