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Abhorrent Racist: Qui, Moi?
The Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland is Mr Anas Sarwar; he’s a Muslim, as a matter of fact. In August 2019, Mr Sarwar labelled me “an abhorrent racist” which several newspapers at the time, including ‘The National’ (the Scottish nationalists’ news organ of choice), made public. In other words, I was ‘cancelled’ to use the modern parlance. The idea of ‘cancelling’ somebody is to evade engaging one’s interlocutor on the subject matter and, instead, take the cowardly route of using one’s power to shut down the person with whose views you disagree. It’s an assault on freedom of speech. Mr Sarwar was unwilling to challenge my publicly declared views on the potential threat posed by Islam to our centuries-old British way of life. Instead, Mr Sarwar used his power to defame me. It won’t surprise you to know that by any objective or legal measure I’m not, in fact, a racist. I’m as cosmopolitan as they come; I could provide the evidence here, but I’ll do that another time perhaps.
The point is that Mr Sarwar achieved his objective of silencing a critic of his religion, for that was his aim. Indeed, this is the reason why the Labour Party intends to stigmatise people formally and publicly if they dare to criticise Islam. The issue will be dressed up under the non-statutory charge of “anti-Muslim hostility …” which will mean little more than policing blasphemy through the back door. In other words, the Labour Party is striving to ensure that Islam and its followers will be beyond criticism of any and all sorts. One might argue that the Labour Party is seeking to protect its hefty Muslim voter base because after all, “most Muslims see the Labour Party as their natural home”.
Reform UK Fears Being Blasphemous
At the time of me being defamed by Mr Sarwar, I’d been selected as the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) for the Brexit Party in the Scottish constituency of Moray in the 2019 General Election. As it happens, Nigel Farage stood down a phalanx of Brexit Party PPCs to make way for the Conservative Party to win that Election. Boris Johnson then proceeded to squander his victory, but that’s another story. In my case, the Brexit Party dropped me like a hot potato because the mere accusation of being a bounder, allegedly, meant you were shown the door – as, indeed, I was. No ifs, no buts, no objective investigation. It’s no different today: Reform UK wouldn’t touch me with a barge pole as a PPC on the basis of Anas Sarwar’s opinion. Ironically, a Muslim politician carries more sway with the Reform UK PPC recruitment team than do my concerns about the pernicious effects of Islam on the British way of life. That says more about Reform UK’s fear of being accused of “anti-Muslim hostility” than it does about Reform UK’s supposed intention to make the UK a reformed, ie better place to live and work. The unelected, unaccountable Muslim Council of Britain is becoming an ever more powerful player in British society to the extent that even a right-of-centre political party like Reform UK daren’t even begin to question Islam’s role in potentially threatening all that is good about life on this sceptred isle. Declaration of Interest: I’m a fully paid up member of Reform UK and an unreconstructed admirer of Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s Head of Policy.
Getting Real People Into Politics
To be fair, you might consider Islam to be a thoroughgoing benefit to British society or, at worst, a benign influence on our culture. Live and let live and all that. If so, you may wish to research a little more closely Islam, its teachings, the behavioural expectations of its adherents, its fanatical fringes and its demographic trajectory to understand what’s coming down the tracks towards us, like it or not.
In any case, these days real people like you and me aren’t supposed to enter the world of politics, which is arguably one of the reasons why the UK’s political landscape is such an unmitigated shitshow. One has to be simultaneously angelic (and, in particular, whatever you do, don’t criticise the religion of Islam) and quite often rather weird (Ed Davey, Keir Starmer, Zack Polanski, Nicola Sturgeon, Sadiq Kahn and Ed Miliband come immediately to mind) to stand any chance of representing a constituency in Parliament these days. On this basis, Winston Churchill – who was certainly no angel – would probably never have made it into the Palace of Westminster had he stood for Parliament today.
Conclusion
I wanted to get the “abhorrent racist” thing off my chest before resurrecting this, my Moraymint Chatter blog, and henceforth moving on to reflect from time to time on life, the universe and everything. Why do I do this? Well, I write for predominantly selfish reasons. I find that when I decide to explore a subject, I feel compelled to investigate the facts and circumstances of the matter, analyse those details and then endeavour to draw conclusions from my research. It’s a bit like the judicial process, I suppose, but without a jury (eliciting “Hooray!” from our Secretary of State for Justice, Mr David Lammy, who’s had quite enough of pesky juries). I strive to judge what’s going on and I find that if I then articulate my thought process in writing, I understand better what’s happening around me. Then, just to be clear, posting my thoughts here on my blog doesn’t mean that I’m trying to change your mind about something; rather, it means simply that I’m letting you have a point of view with which you may or may not agree. Ultimately, it’s about freedom of speech which, as it happens, will quite soon pseudo-legally exclude the freedom to criticise the religion of Islam. Anas Sarwar will be delighted.
Postscript
Incidentally, within days of Anas Sarwar concluding that I was “an abhorrent racist”, and ensuring that his opinion was made public, I lost my job. I was working as a business consultant at the time, delivering against several commercial contracts. In each case, my contracts were terminated summarily by the respective clients. No ifs, no buts, no objective investigations. This is what happens when one is ‘cancelled’ and is also the price one pays for being foolish enough to dip one’s toe into the ocean of politics. We live in a topsy-turvy era when the general rule in the sphere of public discourse is that you’re guilty unless and until you can prove you’re innocent. Lucy Connolly is a prime example. In my case, some Muslim bloke had the power to make public his unsubstantiated view that I was “an abhorrent racist”. You’ll appreciate that I was never charged with any alleged criminal offence, still less prosecuted or convicted. Nonetheless, I was then in the eyes of the world, de facto, “an abhorrent racist” and, therefore, deserved to be anathematised as such. Simples. So, in August 2019, in an instant, I was no longer a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate and I was unemployed. You’ll realise that ‘cancelling’ someone is not only an assault on freedom of speech, but also it’s a form of bullying. You can draw your own conclusions about the character of Mr Anas Sarwar in the context of this post. In many ways now I’m pleased I never became a member of Mr Sarwar’s sordid club.
Moraymint Chatter 
I am very pleased to see that your are back. Your posts help to give a considered view or your topic and importantly give me food for thought. It is easy to remain within one’s own echo chamber and exploring other well researched views are helpful in trying to make sense of the present world. You certainly help to form my views, for which, I am very grateful. Looking forward to more posts in the coming year!
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Thank you, and thanks for looking in …
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excellent post and good to at last get it off your chest in public.
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Welcome back Mr Moraymint. I’ve seen your occasional comment in the DT and wondered why you suddenly stopped blogging. It’s good to hear from you again.
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Thank you. It feels good to be back. For me, this is a form of harmlessly letting off steam in these fraught times …
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Great to see you writing like this again. I am so sorry that you suffered in the way you described, but it does illustrate well what is in store for us all if the pernicious definition of anti-Islam hate proposed by this disastrous and authoritarian government actually comes into being. The future on our present trajectory is chilling.
I am also disappointed with the reaction of the Reform Party to your troubles; they of all people should understand the implications of accepting unsubstantiated allegations of this kind at face value because they have been the victims of them enough themselves. It makes me question my continued support, but surveying the present political landscape I can’t see too many viable alternatives at the moment, and the priority for me, and I suspect millions like me, is to ensure that the establishment parties which have let us all down so badly do not see the levers of power again.
I look forward to your renewed postings. You have been missed!
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Not sure I would/could have remained as sanguine as yourself for the past 5+ years !
In Sarwar you have the very epitome of reverse racism so prevalent in discourse today.
Lets hope this never gets taken down……..
http://www.youtube.com/shorts/F9rqUyne2R8
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Initially I was both angry and frustrated at the actions of both Sarwar and the Brexit Party. Time heals and today I look back on the episode as just one more step along the road of experience. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger as they say. The main thing is to keep buggering on and, moreover, to participate in the arena of public discourse as bloody messy as it is these days. Jaw jaw is better than war war as somebody (you know who) once said …
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There is now a huge difference between the UK and America on the issue of immigration. President Trump has just pulled the USA out of UN’s Human Settlements Programme because the UN has been financing the influx of foreign aliens. For all I know they are doing the same in the UK.
Here’s a 2-minute extract from his recent address to the UN, transcript below: https://x.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2009125229029937234.
“Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often it’s actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time, the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled! Your countries are being ruined.
The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders. In 2024 the UN budgeted $372 million in cash assistance to support an estimated 624,000 migrants to journey into the United States. Think of that. The UN is supporting people that are coming illegally into the United States and then we have to get them out.
The UN also provided food, shelter, transportation and debit cards to illegal aliens. Can you believe that, to infiltrate our Southern border? Millions of people came through that Southern border. Just a year ago millions and millions of people were pouring in, 25 million altogether over the 4 years of the incompetent Biden administration.
And now we have it stopped, totally stopped. In fact they’re not even coming any more because they know they can’t get through. But what took place is totally unacceptable. The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them.
In the United States we reject the idea that massed numbers of people from foreign lands can be permitted to travel halfway round the world, trample our borders, violate our sovereignty, cause unmitigated crime and deplete our social safety net.”
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I’ve always been wary of unelected, unaccountable institutions like the UN et al. Small wonder I voted for Brexit, eh? I’m appalled at the number of quasi-autonomous non-government organisations (quangos) that now, to all intents and purposes, run this country. The sooner that most, if not all them, are abolished, the better for democracy and the economy …
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Reform have a mountain to climb. I’m a member but I don’t play an active role other than copying them on occasional posts such as this: https://metatron.substack.com/p/dissecting-scotlands-economy-wrecking. I’m hoping they can capitalise on the SNP’s Net Zero lunacy.
I also hope they are planning ahead in detail as Trump obviously did during his interregnum. It’s not just parliament they will have to deal with, as you say it’s also all the quangos and NGOs. It would be good if they could organise a Trump-style DOGE operation to root out all the institutionalised grift.
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I agree completely. The real danger to us and our settled culture is not Putin but the rise of and influence of Islam in our society and politics underpinned by uncontrolled immigration both legal and illegal. Our country has changed beyond all recognition and few of us voted for this. Worse too at least for me brought up by a very liberal minded Mother I have moved so far the the right of politics that I too would vote for change that began to redress the damage done to our settled culture. Poland and Hungary have protected theirs. Why can’t we?
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Yes, I think Islam is inimical to the Judeo-Christian culture which has evolved slowly on these isles over 2,000 years. It’s not necessarily been a smooth ride, but we are where we are, as they say, and we now live in an Enlightened society with a set of norms, values and beliefs which, on balance, make me feel comfortable and safe. Or they did until relatively recently. My fear is that the norms, values and beliefs that underpin Islam challenge what he have here today. Furthermore, I don’t feel threatened by Catholic extremists, or Hindu extremists or Sikh extremists and so on.
However, I do feel deeply concerned at the possibility of Islamic extremism gaining a larger and larger foothold within these shores and, in the fullness, of time exploding (literally) into our communities. Call me paranoid if you like, but the evidence supports my thesis. I don’t personalise this issue, by the way. I just think that The Powers That Be are gaslighting us about the trajectory of Islam in our society. After all, to criticise Islam is to be “hostile” to Muslims and demonstrates that you’re a racist, of course. So, do not under any circumstances question the value of Islam to our way of life. Rather, you are required to suck it up …
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Good to see you back in play. Most sensible people now know the Labour Party is abhorrently racist, in hock to the Muslim vote, is anti British and run by a bunch of clowns (apologies to clowns).
Reform have to play the long game. The Establishment is desperate to cancel Farage, the reason for the pathetic allegations about comments he made as a schoolboy. He doesn’t need to directly take on some of his enemies; they’re doing the job for him with their increasingly deranged rants and actions.
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Good to be back in touch with you too, John …
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Labour’s ‘hefty Muslim voter base’? If Labour believe that, they are foolish and naïve. Once all those babies with the UK’s most popular name are old enough to vote in twenty years or so, there will be the Islam UK Party for them to vote for, and that’s how they will all vote. Remember, Starmer got a huge majority of 140+ with only 19% of the electorate voting Labour.
Once we have a Muslim government, everything will change, and not in a good way for ethnic Brits.
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See my reply to Paul Diplock above …
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Welcome back, Mr. Chatter! I saw your occasional Telegraph comments and you have been missed. That is an absolute belter of a comeback. I’m deeply sorry for what you have been through, of course, and am asking myself whether you have any legal redress against Mr Sarwar, for defamation / libel / slander / loss of earnings. As always, though, this will involve lawyers (who are bottom-feeding scum, not only part of the problem but so often the cause of it, a parasitical constituency that needs to be severely curbed), money spent, much time taken and with no actual guarantee of success.
I am still bitter how Farage stood down my Reform candidate at the time, leaving me with nobody to vote for and allowing Johnson, for whom I refused to vote, to sail home. We know how that one turned out. But in my constituency a donkey with a red rosette would get in as long as it promised to free Palestine. A friend later stood as the Reform candidate, had to all but self-fund and do the legwork himself. He made a decent showing but that is like saying the last man to go down at Custer’s Last Stand also did so as well, for all the good that did.
I’m a member of Reform but have grave doubts about Farage and would rather see Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib at the helm. But reality says that this is our last chance at the Democracy Saloon given our already pre-civil war condition and then it becomes whether Farage can / will deliver (I doubt both) and the fight is going to be bloody indeed! Bring it on!
Here, my ex-East German partner Julia is talking about prepping and last stands, bless! We have decided to throw in our lot with the local Vietnamese community since they have most likely got the tunnels and booby traps already good to go and the food during the lulls in the fighting will be delicious.
Best wishes,
Simon Kingsley
>
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Great to hear from you too, Simon …
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In my opinion you were wronged by a person who has frequently displayed far more racist comments than you. Having known you for over 40 years, I know you enjoy a good, robust discussion but always very polite and well reasoned.
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meant to say – something you are NOT telling!
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Thanks very much for your comment Steve. No, there’s no secret here. Just click on the link in the post above – ‘my publicly declared views’ – which will take you to the post that mortally offended Mr Sarwar. It was that post and that post alone which elicited Mr Sarwar’s accusation of me being “an abhorrent racist”. There’s nothing else in the cupboard.
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First, I am very sorry to hear about your cancellation and the economic impact on your life. This is exactly what we need to stop and the Reform Party should be a key party in that battle, along with The Free Speech Union, The Together Declaration and The Academy of Ideas. My wife and I are doing our bit by having set up Politics in Pubs – a free speech discussion group with meetings in Newcastle and Manchester pubs. Regarding Reform, I would be happy to help you out if I can as I don’t understand why they would reject you now unless there is something you are telling!? I am helping our local branch out as secretary, and I can’t think of a reason from memory why you wouldn’t make an excellent candidate. Of course, I may be losing it! If you want to follow up please DM me with your mobile number.
And bloody hell this site is asking me to log in again to leave a comment even though I am already logged in – grrr!
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Have Registered for your ‘Politics in Pubs’ Newsletter …
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