Tag: George Square

The Chain That Binds

On By JacIn British Nationalism, Scotland20 Comments

In a sense, this post is a sequel to the previous one, so maybe the The British Propaganda Corporation should be read or re-read before starting here.

That done, let’s start with asking, what is the connection between the Queen of England and a fascist thug giving a Nazi salute in the George Square riot the day after the Scottish referendum? Answer: They’re both Unionists, both believe in preserving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And that, monarchists and other apologists might suggest, is nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence, for there is a world of difference between Elizabeth II (I in Scotland) and those Nazi-Loyalist thugs.

Chain 1But that ‘world of difference’ is filled by many groups and agencies that overlap and interlink to make up a chain, and while many in this ‘chain’ would refuse to acknowledge having anything in common with some of the other ‘links’, or even that the chain exists, but they have and it does. I have tried to explain what I mean in the collage on the left (click to enlarge). The ‘links’ are, in clockwise order: the monarchy; government / political parties; the civil service; the City of London and the financial sector; academia (don’t kid yourself, higher education nowadays is all about lucre and influence); the media; big business; the military and intelligence communities; and finally, the assorted fringe political parties and groups making up the extreme Unionist Right that we saw in Glasgow on September 19th.

This chain has always existed but it has been brought into sharper focus of late. Partly – though indirectly – because the ideological politics of Left and Right that many of us grew up with is all but dead, as Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats fight over the centre ground. This ‘Rush to the Centre’ has been observable for many years now, since Blair and Mandelson blessed us with New Labour, but the fear of appearing too different became even more obvious during the referendum campaign, when we saw the London-based parties unite – almost coalesce – against Scottish independence. (Ukip may offer an alternative to this Centrist hegemony, but it doesn’t take us beyond the sovereignty and unity issue.)

Victory for the forces of the Union in the referendum should have been the end of the matter, and that is certainly what the ‘chain’ wants everyone to believe – ‘dead for a generation’, etc – but it’s not, and for two main reasons. First, the cause of Scottish independence attracted support from those outside of Scotland wishing to shake up or reform this corrupt, unequal and decadent state. Which in some ways made the debate over Scottish independence a surrogate Left / Right contest, with the Yes campaign offering optimism and hope, while the No campaign urged people to stick with the tried and failed. The George Square thugs (here’s one) gave a glimpse into a dark and primitive past that everyone but them is thankful to have left behind. Second, the Yes campaign gained almost 40 per cent of regular Labour voters, yet the Labour Party is London’s only real hope of holding on to Scotland.

For anyone in any doubt about the nature of the riot and the rioters, this MailOnline account will help explain how repulsive these people are. The headline reference to ‘Nazi-saluting thugs’ should not be dismissed lightly, for when it comes to Nazis the Daily Mail knows what it’s talking about!

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Suggesting that shrewder and more devious elements might employ people like the Nazi-Unionists seen in George Square may be dismissed as silly speculation, but when I first saw the pictures and videos of what happened there and in the streets nearby on September 19th, two thoughts occurred to me. The first was, given the previously exhibited logistical skills of those involved, the violence seemed to be surprisingly well organised. Second, if these people feel so passionately about the issue (and obviously they do), where had they been during the referendum campaign? Because apart from a relatively peaceful Orange parade in Edinburgh on September 13th I don’t remember seeing or hearing anything of them. The first could be answered fairly easily if the rioters had help in orchestrating the trouble. And the second answered by arguing that these assumed ‘helpers’, realising what a boost the Nazi-Loyalists would have provided for the Yes camp, persuaded them to lie low until the referendum was over, with, perhaps, the promise that they could have their fun on the 19th, whatever the result.

Government agencies certainly do work with the most unsavoury allies to pursue certain objectives. As an extreme example, back in the 1970s the Italian secret service used the neo-fascist group Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei) to commit terrorist acts that were then blamed on the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), and used as justification to crack down on the Left. Perhaps inevitably, the fascists went too far, culminating in the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing that killed 85. ‘Ah, but that was Italy’, you might Griffin Fioresay. True, but when one of the prime suspects in the Bologna bombing, Roberto Fiore, came to London he seemed to enjoy a charmed life. The reluctance of UK authorities to extradite him is attributed by many, including anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, to the fact that Fiore was co-operating with MI6. Perhaps helping MI6 (and MI5) put together a reformed National Front, made up of a new cadre with university education and a bit more political nous than your average skinhead. Among these was a young Nick Griffin. (Fiore may still run a language school in London.)

After Griffin and his colleagues Derek Holland and Patrick Harrington became leading lights in the National Front in the early 1980s, and under Fiore’s tutelage, they began moving the NF in a different direction, such as trying to link with Gaddafi, and the US black nationalist Louis Farrakhan. This was – as you might imagine – resented by other NF members and so by 1983 Griffin and his allies had almost broken away from the NF with their Fiore-inspired Political Soldier faction. This new National Front began to take up curious positions on a number of issues.

For example, I recall the Green Party and other environmental groups demanding that the NF stop showing its ‘support’ for them with unauthorised ‘advertisements’ in NF News and other media. That was odd, but then came an episode even odder – NF News came out with a front page splash telling the world that the National Front now supported Meibion Glyndŵr! There were two ways of looking at this. Either the National Front had radically changed, and really did support environmentalists and Welsh nationalists or, its intelligence service handlers were using the NF to inflict reputational damage on those it viewed as threats to the established order. It soon became clear which was the correct interpretation.

In 1989 a major commemoration was planned for George Taylor and Alwyn Jones who died at Abergele in 1969, when a bomb they were carrying exploded prematurely on the eve of the Investiture. The National Front insisted they were coming – they’d been ‘invited’! Which of course was a lie, but the media lapped it up, giving uncritical coverage to anyone claiming to represent the NF; one spokesman I recall hearing used the name ‘Drax’. I can also remember travelling to Bangor the day before the event to give a Radio Wales interview in which I made it clear that no one had invited the National Front to Abergele, and if they did turn up there would almost certainly be trouble. In the event, and as might have been expected, the National Front did not appear. They never intended to turn up, it was a propaganda exercise to a) discredit the event and b) deter people from attending.

There were other instances of suspected fascists believed to be run by the intelligence services trying to infiltrate Welsh nationalist organisations. One curious incident involved Y Cyfamodwyr (The Covenanters) when two rather suspect individuals, claiming not to know each other, wrote to the secretary using the exact same envelopes; unmistakable due to being the type with a pre-paid ‘stamp’ embossed on the top-right corner of the envelope. Remember them? These were rare even then, perhaps unobtainable today. ‘Someone’ had obviously supplied both these characters with the same envelopes.

But it won’t just be infiltration you’ll need to worry about. For the security services will also seek to ‘turn’ trusted individuals within your organisation or movement. There will often be those with little ‘weaknesses’ vulnerable to such a tactic, which can be very effective. I have said it before and I will say it again, I believe that Plaid Cymru was compromised at a very high level decades ago. This accounts for the party’s lack of success and the bizarre and otherwise inexplicable action taken when the party threatened to be successful.

And of course, I haven’t ventured across the water, where murderous collaboration between police, army, intelligence services and Loyalist paramilitaries went on for over twenty years. Some of those in George Square on the 19th of September may have had knowledge of such collusion. (Though Ireland is not a valid comparison with Scotland due to the levels of violence and the deep-rooted communal divide encountered there.)

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The behaviour exhibited in Glasgow told us a lot about those belonging to the extreme Unionist Right. On the one hand they swear loyalty to the monarch and profess their love of Britain . . . yet they sing God Save the Queen and Rule Britannia wCharles de Gaullehile giving Nazi salutes! (No wonder the MailOnline was outraged!) To me, these people are the ideological descendants of those who would have co-operated with Nazi invaders in 1940. Of course, the collaborators of 1940 would have justified their position by arguing that the ‘British’ (i.e. the English) had no quarrel with their German cousins; the real enemies were communist Russia, and England’s ‘natural enemy’, France, which provides another instructive example.

More specifically Algeria, and colonial France’s withdrawal from that country. To explain . . . the French settlers in Algeria felt betrayed by de Gaulle’s decision in 1961 to give Algeria independence and so they threw in their lot with extreme Right-wing politicians in France plus elements of the armed forces and the intelligence community to create the OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète). This provides the background and context for Day of the Jackal.

The British Unionist Right is feeling betrayed today; in fact, it’s raison d’étre nowadays seems to be the fight against one betrayal after another. Northern Ireland will soon have a Catholic majority, Scotland is on its way to independence, while Mother England is being simultaneously swamped by immigrants and swallowed up by ‘Europe’, then there’s them kilometres and litres . . . To those Unionists who know their Wagner, we are approaching Götterdämmerung. Would it be stretching things too far to compare the position of Ulster Loyalists and their extreme BritNat allies today with that of the pieds-noirs and their supporters back in the 1960s?

What we can state with absolute certainty is that links between state security agencies and ‘patriotic’ groups is universal. The United Kingdom is no exception.

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Despite what I’ve written I have no direct evidence that those responsible for what happened in Glasgow on September the 19th, not even those who travelled to the city to ‘celebrate victory’ by intimidating and attacking people, were directed or manipulated by any third-party agency. I am just a man who has been involved in both mainstream and ‘fringe’ politics for almost half a century and who has observed things along the way.

What I will repeat is that the ‘chain’ exists’, and it defends its collective interests. That should have been made clear to everyone by the behaviour of the media during the referendum campaign, and by the hysterical interventions from banks and big business. In addition, you know that MI5 has infiltrated the SNP in the past, for example, during the 1979 referendum campaign. And then there’s the long-running mystery of the death of Willie McRae. Scotland’s enemies will use every conceivable tactic to thwart independence, and they’ve got a whole box of tricks.

Given that the ongoing independence campaign is much more threatening to the ‘chain’ than anything that happened in 1979 MI5 would not be doing its job if it didn’t infiltrate the parties and groups that make up the campaign. The strongest weapons you have to fight them are truth, belief in your cause, and the trust of the awakened Scottish people. So build your own ‘chain’, and don’t restrict it to Scotland, for you have friends everywhere, among the silenced and the marginalised, those in need of hope and inspiration. These people are depending on you – go for it!

The British Propaganda Corporation

On By JacIn British Nationalism, Labour Party, Scotland47 Comments

In times of national crisis, when Britain is under threat or involved in overseas conflict, the BBC gives unquestioning support to the official government line. To all intents and purposes the BBC becomes the mouthpiece of the government, an agent of propaganda. This is understandable, it may even be acceptable, though what is less easy to understand is why a referendum on Scottish independence should have been treated like a war, or why Alex Salmond was put on a par with General Galtieri or Saddam Hussein.George Square

And even when the referendum had been ‘won’ the BBC couldn’t drop its prejudice. On the day following the referendum gangs of Loyalists roamed the streets of Glasgow, attacking peaceful Yes supporters and burning Scottish flags. Many of these thugs – some giving Nazi salutes – had come over from the Six Counties, others had come up from England. Yet the BBC reported it as two groups – one pro independence the other pro Union – both intent on violence. If they’d believed they could have got away with it I’m sure the BBC would have portrayed the pro-independence students and families as the aggressors. It was left to the Herald to give the truth, even identifying a Rangers supporters group involved in organising the violence and encapsulating what really happened in George Square and nearby streets with the memorable phrase, “The heart of Glasgow had gone from Woodstock to Belfast in the space of just one day”.

Of course no one at the BBC would admit to it, nor would anyone in the Conservative Party, or at The Times, or in the Tesco boardroom, or on the trading floor at Deutsche Bank, but those thugs that terrorised central Glasgow last Friday night – violent and malodorous though they might be – are allies, for they’re all found in the great Unionist spectrum. This explains why the BBC and the rest of the London media deliberately misreported those events in Glasgow.

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If the Scottish referendum presented a very real threat to England’s prestige this wonderful United Kingdom, then it follows that potential or lower level threats must also be dealt with, using the same agencies, primarily the BBC. Yesterday the BBC produced the results of a poll that purported to show that only 3% of people in Wales favoured independence. A quite remarkable finding when compared with other recent polls.

Polls this year by ITV Wales put support for independence at 14% in May and 17% in September. Another poll in September, this one by Face for Business, suggested that support for independence was as high as 29%. Now it would be easy to dismiss this last poll as being wrong . . . though few did, for it seems to have been ignored by the media. I was tempted to dismiss it myself, until I looked into it a little more and found that it provided a breakdown by age group, so I made a comparison with what has been produced for the Scottish Pollsreferendum by Lord Ashcroft Polls, and the concurrence is quite striking.

The little table I drew up unsurprisingly shows that there is more support for independence in the younger age groups, while it falls off dramatically in both countries after the age of 55. Though the fall is greater for some reason in Scotland, where among the 65+ support for independence is 46% of the highest independence supporting age group, while in Wales it’s 51%. This is strange, even more so when we consider that so many English people retire to Wales. (In the area where I live they make up two-thirds of the 65+ age group.) And even if the FfB poll is all to hell, I still don’t fully understand why support for independence in Scotland declines so dramatically in the 65+ bracket.

Whatever the answers, we have to remember that opinion polls are not simply produced to tell us what people are thinking, many are designed to influence how people think, and this explains the BBC poll. Also, to provide ammunition for the defenders of the UK State who, in Wales, love to trot out the lie that, ‘only between five and ten per cent want independence’. (Hang on, is this why the Face for Business poll was totally ignored?) The only way to establish how many people in Wales want independence is to ask them the same question that was asked in Scotland last Thursday (with Wales substituted for Scotland) – ‘Should Wales be an independent country?’ That’s it, one simple question. Anything else, involving multiple choice or ‘answer-guided’ questions, is unacceptable and designed to confuse and mislead.

Among those making political capital out of the BBC’s propaganda poll was Councillor Pearleen Sangha of Swansea (well sort of, as I’ll explain). She re-tweeted @PearleenSangha enthusiastically that within a margin of error there could be nobody in Wales who wants independence. Even making allowances for the fact that Ms Sangha doesn’t know SanghaWales, not even she believes that. But it’s not about what people really believe, is it, we’re talking propaganda here. Councillor Sangha is a staunch defender of the Union, and was up in Scotland for a few weeks campaigning for a No vote. Though seeing as she’s from the USA I can’t help wondering if she’s a UK citizen, and if not, should she have involved herself in a constitutional issue like this. Although nominally a Swansea councillor Sangha is now working for the Labour Party in Cardiff, so her Uplands constituents see very little of her these days. Though perhaps they don’t notice, for even when she was in Swansea she was strictly a Monday to Friday and 9 to 5 councillor. That’s when she was there, because she also likes to take lengthy trips home to California, and being a true party girl, she never misses a Labour conference or knees-up.

UPDATE 27.09.14: I’m told the Evening Post ran a story today (can’t find it on the website)  in which it queried Councillor Sangha’s status. She claims to have resigned as a councillor in July and informed the party leadership, which was then (the recently departed) David Phillips. Yet no one else seems to know about this, certainly no by-election has been called. But despite what she told the Evening Post, on her Twitter account Cllr Sangha is still describiSangha Twitterng herself as a Labour councillor for Uplands! (Click to enlarge.) Lending weight to the suspicion that she is still, officially, a councillor – even though, due to her long absence and appalling attendance, record she shouldn’t be – is the fact that her council e-mail address is still receiving mail. In addition, she is still listed on the council’s website as a councillor. So what’s the story here?

28:09:14: A story on the Evening Post website today tells us that “Uplands councillor Pearleen Sangha steps down from her post”. She is quoted as saying “It is with regret that I have formally tendered my resignation as a Swansea councillor”. Which I take to mean that she’s resigning now, following the recent attention. Though she claims she decided “some time ago” to resign, perhaps at “the end of July”, when she says she informed the “leadership” of her intentions. (‘Leadership’ suggests more than one person, so who exactly did she tell?) She also wants us to know that she has not received her councillor allowance since then – good for her! Though the problem is that she went AWOL long before July, so it looks as if she was getting paid her councillor allowance while she was no longer in Swansea, no longer attending council and committee meetings, no longer serving her constituents. It has been obvious for a year or so that Pearleen Sangha was not doing her job as a Swansea councillor, but the local Labour Party allowed this situation to persist, and for her to collect her councillor allowance – simply because she is working full-time for the party, in Cardiff. What a squalid arrangement! What contempt it shows for the city of Swansea and its people. Yet another example of the Labour Party putting its interests first.

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Robert Burns wrote a damning indictment of those who sold out his country’s independence in Parcel of Rogues; perhaps it should be updated, or maybe someone should give us a new song for the twenty-first century.

Any new ‘Parcel of Rogues’ would have to mention the British Propaganda Corporation, and the London newspapers . . . you know, those ‘journalists’ who’ve been tapping phones, and bribing bent London coppers, like the ones involved in the murder of Daniel Morgan. And we mustn’t forget the noble and upstanding politicians, most of whom seem to be fiddling their expenses. Sticking with politicians, let’s remember ALL the parties opposed to Scottish independence – Labour, Tory, Lib Dem, Ukip, BNP, National Front, Britain First, and a host of even smaller, loonier parties; plus of course the Unionists and Loyalists across the water. Finally, there was Carwyn ‘the veto’ Jones. Then there’s the supermarkets, the supermarkets that rip off Welsh farmers. And how could we forget the banks, for all of them were opposed to Scottish independence because they feared being properly regulated, as they are just about everywhere outside of the UK and the USA. Have you noticed that the bankers who end up in court are not the ones who nearly wrecked the Western economy but ‘rogue traders’, in other words, those who lose the banks’ money! Then there’s the oil industry, ‘Scottish oil running out’ they screamed . . . then four days after the referendum we learn that they got it wrong. But of course, this was unknown before referendum day! These are just some of the turds to be found floating in the cess-pit of modern Britain, the most corrupt and unequal society in Europe.

If the people of Scotland had known the truth, if they could have relied on an impartial and unbiased media, then Scotland would today be on its way to independence. That’s why Britain’s elite so desperately needed its propaganda machine and its foot-soldiers. But it was so blatant, so clumsily done and so easily exposed, that the backlash has started, and Scotland will be independent within ten years. The changes Britain will see in the coming decade will not end with Scotland. Fasten your seatbelts!

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