By Andrew Brons.
We are used to UKIP being immune to criticism in the mainstream media. However, it appears now that it is to have immunity from criticism on social networking sites.
A member of the Green Party, Mr. Michael Abberton sent a series of tweets (no I don’t know what they are either) in which he questioned statements by UKIP. Somebody from UKIP then complained to the police in Cambridgeshire who visited Mr. Abberton at his home. There was never any question of Mr. Abberton’s tweets being illegal and the police told Mr. Abberton that.
If a person complains to the police about the conduct of another and it is clear that the conduct of that other person was not a criminal offence, the proper response of the police is clear. They should tell the complainant that no criminal offence has been committed and the matter should end there.
The only possible object of the police visit to Mr. Abberton’s house was intimidation.
I cannot believe that this visit was inspired by the Pro-UKIP sympathies of an isolated officer. It would seem that the officer in question had misunderstood an instruction from above and interpreted it too widely. I suspect that an instruction has been issued at the highest level for officers always to respond to attacks (i.e. physical attacks) on UKIPPERS and to prosecute the attackers. This officer thought he was expected to respond to verbal attacks too – even if no offence had been committed.
There would be nothing wrong with the police prosecuting people who launch physical attacks on UKIP except that it should apply to anybody or party attacked and not just UKIP. Specifying one particular party implies that there should not necessarily be such a response in the case of other parties being attacked. We know that from the physical attack on me and my former colleague, on College Green, opposite Parliament, in June 2009, just after our election. There was a police presence across the road. They witnessed metal darts being thrown at us but remained where they were and did precisely nothing – presumably because that is what they had been told to do.
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This very thing has happened to me twice now, the last time being in September last year when I wrote a piece on a local councillor who stood in open court and swore to the good character of a muslim named Habib Khan, who murdered Keith Brown in cowardly attack from behind.
Two officers showed up on my doorstep to ask me to ease off on the comments I wrote for our local blog. They admitted that no crime had been committed, this was just in the way of a polite request. I told them to bugger off.
The councillor in question is almost certainly a freemason, and his police buddy that organised the visit was Inspector Stanier- I know because I chased it up- but it just goes to show how widespread this type of cronyism is, when truthful and legal statements are followed by attempts at intimidation by those who are supposed to implement the laws of the land without fear or favour.
Should this happen to me again, I’ll take them to court.
As a pensioner who also does not know whatever a “tweet” may be, I would like to believe that the police in this instance were merely putting in a routine personal public service visit to Mr. Abberton to explain that he was absolutely innocent but they felt they should advise him of the facts and that they needed to pay a personal visit merely so that they could close their books on this matter and be on record as having closed them, so that nobody could later accuse the police of not being open and honest. HOWEVER – having the benefit of 69 years experience in the real world, I no longer believe in fairy tales, nor in the inate goodness of the authorities in Britain. For example, one cannot help being puzzled regarding exactly HOW Cyril Smith, Jimmy Saville, Stuart Hall, Max Clifford et al were able to get away without being investigated and arrested for so many years! There is an obvious answer, and if anyone can think of a better one please write-in with it:- those men were Freemasons , and so are the majority of higher ranking police and civil servants. I try not to believe in wild conspiracy theories, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? And in this particular case regarding Mr. Abberton, the police actions seem to be a rather unnecessarily heavy way to convey to him the clear message “Don’t do it again!” Or am I being paranoid, do you think?
I can’t comment on the ‘Green Tweet’ incident as I don’t know what the comment was and it is not reproduced here in words. Over recent days however, there has been accusations and counter accusations between UKIP and UAF & ‘Hope not Hate’. On monday, we had Weyman Bennet on the Daily Politics trying to look like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth and denying that UAF were a violent organisation. Whatever misgivings some nationalists have about UKIP, I think it is helpful that at last a media spotlight is being caused to be shone upon these state-sponsored, rabble-rousing rentamob scum. They have been getting away with it for far too long. Yes, it is galling that true nationalists have suffered far more from these people than UKIP (so far), but better late than never that it is brought to wider attention.
I think word is gradually getting round that violent ‘left-wing’ groups are largely state controlled and effectively ‘pseudo gangs’. Their naive and often mad supporters – who imagine they are trying to bring down the system – are really working for it.
Even when it comes to public notice that cash is coming from the state they appear unable to put two and two together and imagine they are running rings round the system.
This is all surprisingly easy to arrange with a little bit of money put in and a few agent provocateurs. What is intended is not to stop the activities of left-wing lunatics but to direct them. A sufficient degree of violence and intmidation to hopefully deter people not fully committed to politics from supporting patriotic organisations – but not so much that it becomes obvious that the police are turning a blind eye.
If these violent organisations were on the right of politics there would be a huge police operation to finish them off.
“If these violent ‘left-wing’ organisations were on the right of politics there would be a huge police operation to finish them off.” : Too true, Michael, too true.
I fully support Andrew’s analysis of the action of the police who are now obviously becoming part of the establishment’s own version of the ‘Gestapo’.
BTW,It does not mean that I have suddenly become a supporter of the Green Party – also known as the water melon party: green on the outside, red inside.
(Party Member) These two violent commie organisations have been able to attack Patriots and get away with it for years. The establishment ‘ blind eye ‘ will no longer be turned as we have reached critical mass now. All we need now is some tory vicar or a ukip one, to get attacked for wearing a little Union Flag lapel badge and there will be hell to pay!
Hope not Hate is not a “commie organisation”. It is a Zionist organisation spawned out of Searchlight to con the “anti-racist” gullible into providing the foot soldiers for street campaigns against nationalists. Searchlight tried to do this but failed because too many “anti-racists” (SWP for instance) also equated Zionism/Israel with “racism” and wanted no part of Searchlight. Hence the need for an “anti-racist” group not obviously linked to Searchlight to counter nationalist and some Islamic “extremist” groups. Interestingly although Hope not Hate condemns and reports upon nationalists all over Europe and on some anti-Israel Islamic outfits, it never attacks either Zionist groups or Israel – need I say more?
Think about it this way:
Scenario 1 – BDP member gets Police visit for tweeting anti-labour memes
Public Response: The public indirectly views Labour in a negative fashion because someone has been dealt with in a repressive fashion for opposing labour.
Communicate negatively about Labour = Visit from the police
Now look at it from the current UKIP position. Left wing Green Party member tweets a negative meme on UKIP policies. He gets a visit from the police. The public then view UKIP indirectly in a negative light.
Communicate negatively about UKIP = Visit from the police
This gives the voter the impression that UKIP is part of the repressive system and so is not breaking the establishment (whether we believe it is a establishment safety valve is irrelevant). After all look how much NEGATIVE publicity UKIP have got from this despite them having 0 involvement in this. UKIP’s image relies on being the underdog however in this case it indirectly makes them to appear to be the bully.
Is this a whopping great blow to UKIP? Not really. However it is death by a thousand cuts. A negative story from one angle, then another negative story from a different angle. One story like this does not break them but 1% or 2% here or there and a dose of demoralisation does a lot to their election chances and the spirit of supporters and activists.
People should not be too quick to make judgement on the media narrative which is deliberate. Liberals and Nationalists are all too happy to bite at this chomp to discredit UKIP when the whole affair is meaningless. We should use it to expose how the media works rather than following the narrative they want us to follow.
I’ve been putting lots of comments on the Telegraph web site which are strident in opinion but within their guidelines. They’ve suddenly banned me from commenting without explanation and removed past posts.
Not very encouraging is it? The Telegraph has been pretty liberal in what it carries. Perhaps they are now cracking down on dissent.
This bloke from the vile Greens copied a mock up of a UKIP leaflet online, with a list of ‘bad’ policies on it. A casual reader might have been deceived into thinking it was genuine.
The article is a bit misleading in that it was not an issue about ‘criticism’, it was an issue of misleading voters. If these leaflets had been printed and distributed, they may have broken electoral laws. We have numerous reasons to criticise this rigged ‘democratic’ system, this case is a fairly minor one.