Tag Archives: Boris Johnson

news, UK

Taking the knee against racism shames the Tories – support England!

Taking the knee for racial justice is a gesture of solidarity and support i the fight for racial equality. It is taking a knee against racism. You would have thought that might be reasonably uncontroversial – unless you are a racist.

But the government has nailed its flag to the racist banner by supporting the minority of booing racists at England friendly warm-up matches for the Euro 2020 football tournament.

Although the government seems to have since backed down by claiming it now support the players statement against racism, the damage has sadly already been done.

This is of course part of a piece for a government that commissioned a report into racism with the intention that it should deny that racism exists.

Boris Johnson, whose racist track record is well known and for which he hasn’t apologised, is the spearhead of the assault on anti-racism.

Applaud footballer taking the knee against racism; boo our racist government

The message to black footballers is stopping moaning about racism and put up with it! The message to their white team mates is to stop being ‘woke’ by standing up for their team mates. The message to the rest of society is that it is the anti-racists that are the problem not the racists.

There is no other way to interpret this other than as the government teaming up with the far right.

Despite the war by the billionaire media and the government against BLM, a recent poll commissioned by the News Statesman showed a majority of the population think that more must be done to eradicate racism.

The truth is that it is an insulting lie that most white working-class people are supposedly racist.

Over many years of battle and struggle – of black and white – racist has been made non-respectable, although never eradicated, especially at an institutional level.

But the idea that we live in a “post-racial” world, where racism is naturally dying away or doesn’t exist in a deep or measningful way is for the birds.

The evidence is all around us, especially when the policies of this government are concerned – such as Priti Patel‘s racist refugee policies, the ongoing Home Office institutional racism against the Windrush generation, who still mostly have not been compensated and cases of gross injustice continue.

And whatever your background as a black person, you can’t escape racism, even if you are a Premier League footballer.

The shocking refusal of social media companies to clampdown on racists adds to the pain of the footballers who daily have too put up with racism in their social feeds or in stadia across Europe.

Take a knee – that’s what leadership really looks like

Footballers have shown their determination to carry on taking the knee for racial justice. That’s brilliant news. Gareth Southgate and his open letter to England fans has shown more leadership in his little finger than in the entire body of Boris Johnson as he flounders on the beaches of Cornwall.

taking the knee
Garteh Southgate’s open letter to England fans

The Tories and their racist supporters claim that they are against Taking the Knee because BLM is “Marxist”. The truth however is that BLM is a movement not a single organisation. In the UK there are literally hundreds of BLM organisations of different sizes, many of which, such as ourselves (BLMM) are not affiliated to BLM UK.

But nevertheless BLM UK is the ‘official’ organisation affiliated to the US body and maybe some of its members are Marxists or sympathetic to Marxist ideas. So what? Certainly the US group’s policies link the fight for racial justice to wider issues of social justice such as the fight against sexism or for Palestinian rights. We think that is to be applauded not vilified in a latter-day McCarthyite witchhunt.

However, whatever the policies of BLM UK, or of the individual views of the US founders or the organisations stated aims, BLM is much bigger than any single group – it is a movement with many different and competing political ideas. Those who Take A Knee or join protests for racial equality are making a statement against racism.

All such actions matter because they help to isolate and push back the racists. Unfortunately Boris Johnson and his racist government has sought to deliberately bolster not just booing racists but the Nazis that are amassing weapons in this country as they plot and plan to spread their hate-filled message with racist terrorism.

The best answer the England football team can give to the the racists within and outside government and across Europe is to bring football home.

news, UK

Tories targeting Black Lives Matter and XR as ‘extremists’ exposes their own weakness

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In a disturbing development, the government today announced an investigation into Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other “progressive extremists”, as it sought to liken the ecological movement and the fight for racial justice to far-right thuggery and terrorism.

The Tories have hired a clapped-out ex Labour MP to be the witch hunter in chief – a certain Lord Walney, real name John Woodcock.

Woodcock performed his services to the ruling class of Britain by doing his best to destroy the Labour Party, during the time when it was led by socialist and staunch anti-racist Jeremy Corbyn.

We hope they are paying Woodcock well for his McCarthyism.

Woodcock, after citing the far right in passing, then focuses on his real target: “We must be vigilant against a similar blind spot in Britain to the prospect of progressive extremism.

“That is, unacceptable disruption or even violence carried out in the name of progressive causes to which the political establishment and large majority of the population have great sympathy, like climate change and racial injustice.”

In a backhanded way, Woodcock admits that there is no evidence of violence by Extinction Rebellion, in comments to the Tory rag the Daily Telegraph, where he mused: “There have been a number of, at the moment isolated, examples of climate change activist groups, particularly Extinction Rebellion, overstepping the mark into antisocial behaviour.”

Not content with attacking XR, he then went on to indulge in a bit of old-fashioned red-baiting (you know the line – ‘Are you or have you ever been a communist?’).

His target was the left-wing socialist group the Socialist Workers Party: “I want to look at the way antidemocracy, anti-capitalist far left fringe groups in Britain like the Socialist Workers Party tend to have much more success hijacking important causes,”said Woodcock.

Clearly the powers that be hate the idea of people exercising their democratic right to protest and to be anti-capitalist, as well as anti racist, it would appear.

Black Lives Matter Movement responds to anti-democratic witch hunt

BLMM activist Gary McFarlane, responded to the government witch hunt in comments supplied to the media.

“Tarring XR and BLM with the same brush as far-right terrorists is an outrage. Far from the noble Lord being independent, he is the hand-picked servant of a man – the prime minister – who described Black people using vile racist language, extremist language that thankfully most people left behind in the 1950s.

It is Boris Johnson who has made pedalling Islamophobia his trademark, and in so doing providing cover for far-right extremism. So if the Lord wants to fight extremism he should start with his employer. 


“As for supposed left-wing hijackers, the Lord needs to brush up on his Black history. Many leading and influential figures in the fight for Black liberation were Marxists or influenced by Marxism – from Angela Davis to Paul Robeson, not to mention the great Black historians CLR James and WEB Du Bois (the latter being the founder of the NAACP).

“Also, one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival was a member of the Communist Party – Claudia Jones. The hugely influential Black Panther Party was a Marxist organisation – are they to be excised from history too by the Tories’ McCarthyite thought police? 


“The truth is that both XR and BLM have wide support and encompass people of divergent political views united in common aims – and our rulers clearly find that a threat. Meanwhile, violent fascists go about their business relatively unmolested by the same authorities.”