Yes, there really do seem to be ‘reds under the bed’ in Britain today, and some of them seem to have found a home in the National Secular Society.
Entryism by the far-Left has been an ongoing problem for Britain for half a century at least, and has starting from avowed Communists joining or attempting to join the Labour Party in the 1950’s. Since then we’ve seen Trotskyites attempt to similarly infiltrate the Labour Party, the post 1968 generation of Leftists infiltration of our local councils right through to today where ostensibly apolitical or broadly liberal groups, get captured by the far-Left.
A shocking example of how the far Left has managed to gain influence in organisations that many would not immediately associate with the far-Left is contained in a new piece from Anne-Marie Waters. In this article she said that despite being a senior member of the National Secular Society she found herself sidelined when she publicly supported the United Kingdom Independence Party.
Ms Waters, in a piece on Brietbart spoke of how she was elected to the NSS governing council and said:
“A secular society is one where religion can be mocked, ridiculed, and heavily criticised without any retribution from the religion itself (other than the right of its followers to respond to criticism), or from the state. It is certainly a fundamental facet of secularism that religious violence can and must be challenged, as well as any threat of religious violence.
The National Secular Society has however shown that the issues central to secularism are not always in fact its priority; the NSS is heavily influenced, and sometimes (in my opinion at least) bases its decisions upon, bullying and pressure from extreme leftist groups.
Over the past year or so the NSS has revealed left-wing bias on a few notable occasions. One example was the so-called “secularism” conference organised by the communist Maryam Namazie last October. Billed as a “Conference of a lifetime on the Religious-Right, Secularism and Civil Rights”, it had the financial support of the NSS, and its President Terry Sanderson was a guest-speaker.
This was the same conference to which Charlie Klendjian, Secretary of the Lawyers’ Secular Society, and I had previously been invited as speakers, but were immediately dis-invited when I joined UKIP and Charlie spoke alongside me at an event.”
Ms Waters also described one particular event funded by the National Secular Society as: “An echo-chamber of left-wing self-congratulation, with a speakers’ list of open communists and left-wing activists exclusively. Not a single freedom or democracy campaigner was included. “
This is not a good thing to happen to an organisation that should be broadly apolitical. Support for secularism including the rights to both practise a religion and to be free of religion is something that cuts across party political lines. There are people from both the political right and the political Left who are atheists or agnostics as well as those who believe in the separation of religion and state. What Ms Waters is alleging is happening at the NSS is that the organisation now has a left wing, pro-immigration bias and is seemingly doing all it can do to not offend Islam. In my opinion t is highly possible that the NSS has been the subject of Leftist entryism and pressure from Leftist groups outside of NSS.
This is what finally caused Ms Waters to speak out about what is happening with the NSS.
“Following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the NSS, like many others, declared ‘Je Suis Charlie’. It made no such declaration of solidarity with Pamela Geller some months later however (just like other left-wing hypocrites), when attackers at her Mohammed event were killed by police and there was a plot to behead her. Why? Because she’s a conservative, and for no other reason.
But here’s the kicker, and the reason I write this today.
Last week, the National Secular Society stated that it has no wish to be “in any way involved or associated” with the Mohammed cartoon exhibition planned for London in September. This was a unanimous decision by its governing council.
Why “Britain’s only national organisation working exclusively towards a secular society” will not support the most important act of secular defiance to occur in Britain for several years, and why it will not demonstrate unswerving solidarity with those oppressed by religious rule, should by now be obvious – because the exhibition isn’t left-wing, and because it has been so dishonestly attacked by extreme leftists and communists.
The dividing line in all this can be summed up with one word: immigration.
Leftist “secularists” will allow you to talk about Islamism (or even Islam if they’re feeling particularly generous), but as soon as you mention immigration, or the impact Islamic immigration is having on Western nations (most significantly, secularism in Western nations) you are to be permanently shunned. The left wants to keep its naïve borderless utopian fantasy alive at all costs, and it will sink to any depths to do so.
When the rest of the world is cowering in fear of bloodthirsty jihadis, one small group of people in the UK is taking a brave stand against religio-political oppression, and the most important secular group in the country has decided to turn its back.”
Read the rest of this excellent and thought provoking article here:
Ms Waters is correct, the Left are hanging onto their ‘border-less utopian fantasy’ like a shipwrecked man clings to a piece of currently buoyant flotsam. Just as our imaginary floating sailor may kick out at others attempting to cling onto their makeshift raft and sink it, the Left in their panic and desire to protect their utopian ideology, are also kicking out and silencing or attempting to silence anybody who speaks against the Leftist view of immigration. Equally worrying the far Left are going to great lengths to stop the mouths of anyone who questions the Leftist view of Islam, even though many sensible Leftists and non-Leftists sometimes agree that we all face a threat from the theological fascism that lurks close beneath the surface of the ideology of Islam.
