Prime Minister Theresa May’s second-in-charge, Damian Green MP, hit out at Breitbart News this week insisting that “fake news” and “increasing hatred” could lead to the assassination of another Member of Parliament, following the murder of Jo Cox on the run up to the Brexit referendum.
How stupid does Green think we are?
When there’s an Islamic terrorist, we’re told we have to consider “mental health” factors, but when Thomas Mair — an actual mental health sufferer — murders an MP, we are supposed to accept it outright as domestic terrorism?
Of course Mair committed a terrorist act, but he was also an actual mental health sufferer who even asked for extra care just days before he flipped and killed Ms. Cox. Green’s successive Conservative governments have done little to improve access to care for mental health sufferers, by the way.
And the last time I checked, no one had ever claimed Mair was a Breitbart reader either. He wasn’t. Mr. Green’s conflation between these two unrelated incidents reveal his willingness to use the death of a young woman to pursue state censorship, very similar to what the hard-left did in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
The big lie he’s perpetrating here however, is that while one “far right” nationalist killed one Member of Parliament (at a time his boss was insisting Brexit would lead to World War III), many British civilians are killed or maimed due to his government’s refusal to tackle rising crime, rape and grooming gangs, and Islamic terrorism.
Since Ms. Cox was tragically killed, over 500 people have been injured across Europe thanks to terrorism. Over 75 people have been killed. There have been at least 10 attempted, or committed, terror attacks on civilians in Britain in 2017, and there is one newly reported case of female genital mutilation in Britain every 100 minutes under Green’s government.
And Green has changed a lot in the past few years.
At Conservative Party Conference in 2009, we stood together in opposition to the Labour government’s national ID card scheme. He flounced around as a capitalist and a libertarian. Today, he’s best known for trying to water down Brexit, and was an ardent Remain campaigner.
But he has also been referred to as the most powerful man in the British government, so I suppose I should be flattered by the attack, even if it reveals a stark hypocrisy.
Green was once arrested, and had his parliamentary office raided by an over-reaching state and its police. Now he is using the same state leverage to attack an independent news organisation. What would he prefer? For everyone to silently watch the increasingly hard-left BBC and nod along silently?
He said in his address yesterday:
But I do think that we need to respect eachother motives, and treat eachother’s views with courtesy, whether we are on either side to the Commons chamber or even on either side of the much bigger chasm of politicians and journalists.
Is it respectful to allege — without proof — that we publish fake news? Has Mr. Green added up the corrections and edits that the BBC, or the Times, or other news outlets have to make weekly, compared to how many Breitbart News has to?
Is it respectful to allege the phrase “I’m not racist, but…” was invented for Nigel Farage, as Mr. Green did last July?
In is respectful to attack a site that has contributors that include Mr. Green’s parliamentary colleagues, and even government colleagues?
Green is a liar and a hypocrite, but really just a puppet for the Prime Minister Theresa May.
They don’t want to deal with Britain’s skyrocketing crime rates. They don’t want to tackle radical Islam. They don’t want to attack the regressive forces of left-liberalism and return Britain to a successful, sovereign, nation-state.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less if Green — presumably a grown man — feels scared of what we publish on these pages. We never encourage violence. We never endorse physical attacks. And he would do well to understand the threats we face every day simply for reporting the truth and daring to oppose the state-endorsed liberalism promoted by almost every other part of the political spectrum. I’d be happy to meet with him and walk him through it.
Raheem Kassam is the Editor in Chief of Breitbart London
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