As promised, although a day late due to me having other stuff to deal with yesterday, is a slightly fuller account of the Day For Freedom rally that took place on Sunday 6th May.
First of all I’d like to say thank you to the organisers of a demonstraton that I felt morally compelled to make every effort to attend. If felt this moral compulsion to stand up for the right of British subjects to speak freely because it is an issue that affects all of us, no matter what our political or religious views or whatever or station in life. I also believed that I should stand up for free speech as the current situation where we are assailed with censorious ‘hate speech’ laws benefits nobldy apart from extremists. This is because bad ideas, such as neo-Nazism or Communism need to be taken out into the open and picked apart and suppressing these views just drives them underground where they fester and become even more extreme. I found myself agreeing with those free speech fundamentalists out there who say that they want to see Nazis on the mainstream television channels being debated because it is only via debate that the ideas that these people propagate and believe in can be shown to be bad. ‘Hate speech’ laws in my opinion do not make people safer, all they do is hide bad feelings away and sweep them under the carpet possibly to burst out at a later date in ways that may be difficult to control. Free speech is a societal safety valve and only a foolish society would break or lock it.
But, on to the content of the rally. The event was skillfully compared by Raheem Kassam of Breitbart London, an ex Muslim who, when interviewed by various mainstream media types, often elegantly skewers biased reporters. He called for freedom of speech for everyone, even for the relatively tiny contingent of ‘Hope not Hate’ / ‘Antifa’ counterprotesters who were corralled by the police up by Portcullis House.
The first speaker to take the stage was a guy called Liam who was sweary, passionate and hilarious in his calls for freedom of speech to be returned and in his observatons about how oppressive ‘hate speech’ laws had degraded the nation.
Next up was the consistently good speaker Shazia Hobbs an ex Muslim writer and campaigner. She tore into Greater London’s Muslim mayor Sadiq ‘Saracen’ Khan, a man who appears to be turning London into a complete shithole. Under his watch London has seen censorship of advertising on public transport become a thing and millions of pounds wasted by the police on chasing down online ‘speech offenders’ whilst London’s murder rate exceeds that of New York City.
Gerald Batten the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party took the stage next. In his speech to the rally he pointed out that there was a huge difference between the peaceful decent individuals who turned out protest for free speech and the masked thugs of Hope Not Hate / Antifa, who were opposing free speech. He talked about the problems of censorship on social and mainstream media, the horrible namecalling by the political and media establishment and how ‘hate speech’ laws had contributed to a culture of self censorship and fear in public life. i must admit that I was so impressed by Mr Batten’s performance that I would vote again for UKIP if the party is going to be a party for freedom rather than a party of unfreedom like so many others.
Anne Marie Waters of the For Britain party was the next speaker who, like others, was gobsmacked by the size of the crowd. She remarked sadly that Britain used to be a nation about which one could use the phrase’it’s a free country isn’t it?’. However, Ms Waters pointed out that this is not the case today. ‘Hate speech’ laws have eviscerated many of the rights to speak freely that generations of Britons had fought for and who presumed were safe forever. Such rights were to a large extent taken for granted by British subjects but these rights were taken away by both Tory and Labour governments. Ms Waters pointed out that the whole concept of hate speech laws was cooked up in the mid 20th century by Communist governments that wished to control or torture their dissidents. Unfortunately, as Ms Waters said, the left never went away and merely morphed into campaigners for ‘hate speech’ laws, the same type of laws that criminalise dissent here in Britain just as they criminalised dissent in the old Iron Curtain nations.
When Tommy Robinson took the stage there where cheers of ‘Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Robinson’ from the massive crowd. This was the first of a number of appearances by Mr Robinson on the stage but on this instance he pointed out that due to a clash of dates he had to pull out of a charity walk in China for the Amelia Mae Foundation which supports families who have children with Neuroblastoma and appealed for those attending the demonstration to stick money in the buckets for the Foundaiton. If people want to contribute online to the Amelia Mae Foundation then you can do so by clicking on the link below.
http://www.ameliamaefoundation.co.uk/
Mr Robinson pointed out that because we were gathering in Whitehall, outside the Prime MInister’s residence at Downing Street, there was no reason for Mrs May the Prime Minister not to hear the assembled throng demand their rights to speak freely again. ‘She’s watching this’ said Tommy Robinson and I hope for all our sakes that Mr Robinson is correct and that Mrs May can see the anger that oppressive ‘hate speech’ laws have caused.
There were other speakers from diverse intellectual positions, backgrounds and points of view. This was by no means a straight, white male event even though I know that this is how the mainstream media will and have painted it. The speakers at this event were an eclectic bunch ranging from built like a brick outhouse ex service personell to the camp as a row of tents Milo Yiannopolous. There was also, surprisingly, a drag act who defied the current left wing domination of the UK LGB and T communities to speak up and sing for free speech. As this drag queen put it, it was free speech that helped to liberate gay people from oppression and this showed the power that free speech can have on a society. I must admit that it is this transformative power of free speech which terrifies both of those twin evils that threaten our society, Islam and the political Left.
There were other speakers who told harrowing tales of crimes that had been brushed under the carpet by police eager to appease the followers of Islam and desperate not to be tarred with the brush of ‘racism’. All the speakers, especially those with tales of tragedy, oppression and silencing, were moving and very appropriate for the situaiton.
There were two speakers who I was personally pleased to see, the first was the YouTuber Sargon of Akkad who put the liberal case for bringing back free speech to Britian and the internet comedian Count Dankula. Sargon has been one of these people who has consistently and eleoquently called on his own platform for the right for Britons to speak freely. There was an immense cheer when Count Dankula took to the stage accompanied by a Scots Piper. As many people will know Count Dankula has suffered greatly under Britain’s iniquitous ‘hate speech’ laws and was recently fined £800 by a Scottish court for his ‘Nazi pug’ joke. Count Dankula, real name Mark Meechan, was dragged through the courts for this joke in a trial lasting two years, which as he pointed out was a trial that lasted a year longer than the original Nuremberg trials of the real Nazis in 1946.
Some speakers of course, could not make the demonstraton in person. This is because, like Lauren Southern, they are forbidden from entering the United Kingdom on the grounds that the government has declared them to be ‘contrary to the public good’. Unfortunately the government doesn’t take the same attitude to the hundreds of Islamic hate preachers who are allowed virtual free access to the UK. It should be a matter of shame for Britons that Islamic clerics who call for the murder of Jews and gays and for the imposition of Shariah law in Britain are allowed entry by the government, but thse who oppose such horrors are kept out.
Over the years, especially when I was a ‘man of the Left’ I have attended many different demonstrations for a variety of causes. However this one struck me as significantly different from many other similar protests. This was not so much a demonstration but a festival celebrating freedom of speech and there was an almost carnival atmosphere about it despite the seriousness of the reasons why all of us where there. There was music, humour, serious political comment and, something I’ve never encountered before on a demonstration, the lusty singing of the National Anthem at the conclusion of the demonstration. As said this was markedly different from other demonstrations that I have attended that is going to leave abiding images in my mind, one of which was at the very end after the National Anthem had been sung, when David Bowie’s ‘Rebel rebel’was put on the PA system and we were treated to the sight of masses of people, including myself, jigging up and down to the tune.
I hope that this demonstration is a stepping stone to further activism in the cause of free speech as we are as a nation in grave danger of losing this important right, a right that generations of Britons and their allies fought and sometimes died for. I don’t want this fantastic demonstration to be a ‘one off’ as these sorts of singular demonstrations can be easily shrugged off by government and the issue of free speech is so important and so much under threat that there should be continual pressure put on the government to give us back our voices. Personally I’d like to see hundreds of free speech meetings, not necessarily big demonstrations like this one, but smaller ones in pubs or community halls across the country so that the message of free speech and information about the threats to it can be promulgated throughout the land.
We need to fight back to reclaim the speech rights that have been stolen from us by ‘hate speech laws’ and to do that will take far more than just one demonstration in London. People need to get together in every town and city and fight not just the government, but the petty censors of the Left and those in local government who are all too willing to tell us ‘you can’t say that’. Well, it’s about time that we told such censorious types where to get off and tell them and the world that we will say what we damn well like and not let smears or name calling or threats shut us up.
