As many readers of this blog will know, I am neither a member or a supporter of the Britain First organisation. Although I share their justifiable hostility towards Islam as an ideology, their style of activism and some of their policies are quite frankly, not for me. However, I do support the right of Britain First to peacefully protest against Islam and to have a voice in the political arena. Some may find the views and policies of Britain First offensive, or upsetting or wrong, I completely disagree with them for example on their policy of press censorship, but like any other subject or political entity they should, in a free society, have a right to express their views in every peaceful way. If people wish to challenge properly the views of groups like Britain First is via open debate. This is because in open debate good ideas can rise and bad ones sink into oblivion. It is by debating with groups like Britain First that their views are examined properly and any good ideas they may have may rise and the not so good ones rightly discarded.
However, the concept of open debate and a logical examination of opposing ideas, is as usual passing by our friends on the political Left. The Left seems dead intent on destroying Britain First’s voice and if possible the organisation itself and, according to a contact that this blog has in Leftist politics that has supplied the following information, have embarked on a campaign to try to get payment processors to stop handling Britain First’s transactions.
The campaign, run by a group called Sumofus which is partially funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, is emailing presumed supporters, including this blog’s contact, trying to get them to put pressure on payment processors to drop Britain First as a customer. Sumofus is a very well funded organisation supported by a number of left leaning grant foundations as well as by private donations. Although I’m no great fan of BF, there is something very nasty and bullying about a bunch of well connected left wingers like Sumofus, targeting a group with considerably less resources than they have access to, in order to silence them.
Below is the letter that this blog’s contact received recently. You will notice that much of the information that they’ve put up in the campaign letter about BF really may not ring true for many people who are more familiar with BF, it certainly doesn’t ring true for me. Sumofus have really spun this campaign hard and are also being dishonest as they are attributing things to BF that I have not come across myself in my observation of this group, such as the allegation that BF were planning violent attacks on mosques. Of course if I am wrong on this I will stand to be corrected, but it’s also notable that Sumofus failed to tell the truth about the emotive ‘shouting at a child’ incident. This incident did not take place at a restaurant as Sumofus claim, but at the house of a dangerous member of a Muslim Rape Gang. Strange isn’t it that Sumofus chose to leave this particular fact out? You will also notice that I have of course redacted any data that could identify my contact.
The letter from Sumofus reads:
Dear (Redacted)
Content Warning – descriptions of islamophobic and racist violence.
Facebook has removed the page of violent fascist organisation Britain First — which had posted videos comparing immigrants to animals and describes its leaders as “islamophobic and proud”.
Two of Britain First’s leaders are currently in jail for racist hate crimes. Yet, Mastercard, Visa and American Express continue to process donations for the hate group.
Racist groups can’t operate without money.
SumOfUs members have already pushed Paypal to stop processing funding for the violent French white supremacist group Génération Identitaire. Now, let’s make the credit card giants take responsibility and cut all ties with Britain First.
Britain First is a UK-based fascist group that organises racist attacks and aggressive street demos. It’s known for sharing videos of its attacks online, aiming to stir up hate and division.
The racist group recently hit the headlines after Donald Trump retweeted two of its hate-filled propaganda videos, to the dismay of the global political community.
One of Britain First’s leaders is in jail for screaming racially-motivated abuse at Muslims in a restaurant, which left children inside terrified and crying.
It doesn’t end there. An inside source recently told the press how Britain First members planned large-scale violent attacks against mosques all over the UK.
Facebook removed the fascist group’s page as it had “repeatedly posted content designed to incite animosity and hatred against minority groups”. So why are donations to Britain First still being allowed by card companies?
The far-right is on the rise globally — emboldened by what it perceives as victories in Europe and the US.
But SumOfUs members like you are fighting hate and discrimination all over the world – and we know that when we work together we can make a real impact.
Britain First may be just one UK-based group but – if we can push credit card companies to cut ties with the organisation – it will send a strong global message that funding and profiting from hate is not acceptable.
Last year, as well as pushing Paypal to cut its ties with a French far-right group, action by SumOfUs members drove nearly 2,600 advertisers to pull out of the white supremacist news site Breitbart.
All the major credit card companies have precedent for restricting transactions on issues they deem to be important, for example gambling or online pornography. There is no excuse for them to continue profiting from and funding racist hate groups like Britain First.
This campaign by Sumofus is an indication of the lengths that the Left will go in order to shut down freedom of speech and freedom of information. It is also an example of the totalitarian nature of the modern Left, a Left that cannot cope with such a thing as a marketplace of ideas and instead seeks to censor those views that run counter to theirs. If groups like Sumofus, think that by censoring groups like BF the problems that are driving populism will go away, then they are wrong. The reasons why groups like BF exist will continue, problems such as Islam and its affect on non Muslims for example and neither censorship nor the dirty politics of wealthy groups like Sumofus will make these problems nor the reaction to them magically go away.
