Okay I do not really support the Socialist Workers Party. They are so nutso that they make even the Cottage Burners of Plaid Cymru, who are bonkers, look like rational and sane human beings. But that said, I stand shoulder to shoulder with the comrades.
You may remember that over the past months, big tech has been acting as a censor on behalf of the liberal left media and political class. You want to publish inconvenient facts about the Biden crime family, question why folks born in 1865 get to vote in US Presidential elections in the swing states or ask questions about lockdown policy? Too bad. Big media has cancelled your tweets, your facebook page or taken down your youtube channel.
We on the right have said this is wrong because a) it is only happening to us and b) it sets a dangerous precedent which we should all be very wary of and wish to roll back. And on the left there was silence. They did not remember Pastor Niemoller and they said nothing because it was we conservatives in the firing line. Wind forward to ten days ago and suddenly it is the SWP in the firing line. It issued a release stating:
“Facebook has shut down the accounts of one of the biggest left wing organisations in Britain, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The Socialist Workers Party Facebook page – as well as account of local pages – have been removed from Facebook with no explanation given. Those targeted say it amounts to a silencing of political activists.
Facebook took the action on Friday, shutting down the Socialist Workers Party page and removing dozens of leading SWP activists from the platform.
The SWP Facebook page regularly posts in support of Palestine, Black Lives Matter and against Boris Johnson’s Covid policies. It also hosts dozens of online events every week that activists across the country take part in. The SWP say they have been silenced for speaking out on these issues and that the action taken by Facebook amounts to an attack on political activists to organise. They are demanding to be reinstated immediately.
This is the second time Facebook has removed SWP accounts. In December, Facebook disabled the accounts of 45 SWP activists but admitted they had done so in ‘error’ and reinstated the majority of those accounts.”
As you might guess, I suspect that I am not in favour of the SWP’s stance on the mythical country of Palestine or on an organisation that wants to defund the Police, end capitalism and the nuclear family but it is almost certainly its critique of the government’s covid and lockdown policies that has landed it in the soup. I do not know what the SWP said but surely we all have a right to challenge our government?
Like most of the right, my initial reaction might have been a private snigger and a “told y’all” but then it was to say “I stand with the SWP.” You see we believe in free speech and that means even for nutters such as the SWP. The problem the left, increasingly, has is that it only supports free speech for those it agrees with and if you go down that route you end up in a mess like the SWP. One senses that the SWP did not oppose twitter censoring links to the NY Post Biden exposes or taking down Donald Trump’s twitter account. But both the Post and Trump would almost certainly stand up for the SWP.
It is a funny old world.
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