Last week as the residents of Southport were holding a vigil in memory of the three little girls who were killed and of those kids who are still in hospital, Southport was invaded by racist thugs who tried attacking the vigil and also tried attacking the mosque.
There was no indication that the murderer was a muslim; the instigators just assumed that.
There was no indication that the murdered was an asylum seeker; the instigators just assumed that.
The false name of the murdered was invented to make it sound muslim; it’s rumoured that it actually translates as “My Apartment”. The instigators didn’t care about that.
The Instigators
It’s all very well blaming the “useful idiots” who were rioting in Southport last night – and they certainly deserve to be locked up. But who instigated their visit?
There are plenty of possible candidates who posted vile assumptions about the murderer on 𝕏 clearly trying to sway the narrative in the direction of inciting hatred for immigrants and asylum seekers. I won’t name them here except to say they are easily recognisable as frothing at the mouth loons of the far-right.
Yes, far-right.
They may attempt to deny it, and the “useful idiots” at the riot may well claim they’re ordinary British working-class (they’re not), but the instigators are definitely far-right.
The EDL
Some of the reports name the EDL as being behind the riots yet some will instantly point out that the EDL no longer exists as an organisation.
Well, perhaps.
But the easiest way to keep an organisation from being banned is to “disband” it; an organisation doesn’t need a public face, a web site, or a corporate identity. Particularly if it is intent on pursuing illegal activities – such as rioting.
Russian Involvement?
This is pure speculation, but it is interesting to see that Europe (and the USA) has a problem with far-right thugs just when it would be helpful to distract us from what the Russians are doing to Ukraine. And we know that the Russians like interfering in the West.
If any of those instigators are taking money from the Russians (and to be fair, I don’t know that they are), then they’re not just guilty of incitement to riot, but also guilty of treason.
But there is alleged links between the “News” channel that first published the disinformation on the murderer : here, here, and probably other places too.
Conclusion
Unless we want thugs fueled up on cheap lager touring the country rioting in random places, we need to take action. And not just locking up the thugs – whilst their actions are inexcusable, they are still just “useful idiots”.
No, we need to go after those who incited the violence by spreading disinformation … and no, an apology isn’t enough. They should be charged with “incitement to riot” and for certain of those in parliament, also “mafeasance in office”.
And we need a far more in depth investigation of just what the Russian intelligence services are up to in our country.
Just recently (and possibly triggered by the £45 million pound share of the Crown Estate income that the monarchy is getting), there has been a lot of republican jumping up and down about how the king owns the sea (i.e. off-shore wind farms pay rent to the Crown Estate).
I get it. Although I’m not an active republican, I do think selecting the head of state by being the first-born into the right family is a bloody daft way of picking one. I just think there are more important matters to sort out first. Just remember, if we elect a head of state we could wind up with a lettuce.
Well, I say first-born child of the monarch, but in reality parliament decides who gets the crown even if it is the first-born by default. It has been that way since parliament demoted the first Charlie with an ax.
Ever since that time, control over the Crown Estate has effectively been under parliament’s control. That control became explicit when George III explicitly passed control over the Crown Estate to parliament in return for no longer being responsible for the expenses of government.
That last bit is significant – the third Charlie has two fortunes – his private fortune and the Crown Estate. Why two? Because the Crown Estate is supposed to serve a special purpose – it is supposed to be used to pay for government.
And it does. The overwhelming majority of the Crown Estate income goes into the Treasury; Charlie gets 15% supposedly to pay his expenses as head of state. Now this may well be too much (especially as it has risen to £45 million), but some is perfectly reasonable. If we were to pick a random person to be the monarch (perhaps not a bad idea), paying them something out of the Crown Estate would be only sensible.
An attack on the Crown Estate is not an attack on the monarchy; if we abolish the monarchy, the crown estate will still exist. It might go through a name change and it might not be quite so generous to the head of state, but it exists independently of the monarchy.