[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

Boris Johnson is standing by his comparison of the EU's aims to Hitler's, saying a row over the issue is an "artificial media twit storm".

The pro-Brexit Tory MP said both the Nazi leader and Napoleon had failed at unification and the EU was "an attempt to do this by different methods".

Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn, who backs Remain, said the comparison was "offensive and desperate".

Tory Leave campaigner Jacob Rees Mogg said Mr Johnson's analysis was correct.

BBC, 2016

I didn't hear of this specific incident, but both the EU and Hitler want(/ed) to unite the continent as one superstate, so it's not an insane comparison.

[Twosugars]

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

I didn't hear of this specific incident, but both the EU and Hitler want(/ed) to unite the continent as one superstate, so it's not an insane comparison.

Yup
One man wants to better his life so he goes to uni
Another one wants to better his life so he murders his annoying wife

Both want the same so it's not an insane comparison


Ollie, you can do better, don't descend to insanity
You can still support your brexit without that

[The Slim Reaper]

https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...anti-abuse-cam

'Both sides'. It's one of the most pernicious phrases in modern politics. It sounds so reasonable. But what it does is not reasonable. It aims to prevent the allocation of blame and the diagnosis of problems.

Since Boris Johnson waded into the Commons on Wednesday and promoted a nightmare agenda of division and hatred, we've heard a lot about 'both sides'.

"There are members on both sides of the House and both sides of the Brexit argument who have been personally threatened and whose families have been threatened," Speaker John Bercow said during the debate. That's been eagerly taken up. Every time a Brexiter touches on this subject, they never fail to point out that 'both sides' are responsible for abuse. There are "serious threats" of violence against both sides, Dominic Cummings, the mastermind behind Johnson's bullying strategy, insisted yesterday,

The problem with 'both sides ' is not that it is completely false. There is some truth to it. Jacob Rees-Mogg has had his private home targeted by activists, for instance. Brexiter MPs are sometimes shouted at when they walk from parliament to College Green to do TV interviews.

Admittedly, it is occasionally flagrantly nonsensical. On Newsnight on Wednesday night, Tory MP Bernard Jenkins tried to compare the death threats MPs receive to the strain Boris Johnson is under. Brexit campaigner Isabel Oakshott asked why it was OK to be outraged by abuse but still call Johnson a "liar" or a "racist".

This is how it always goes with the subject of abuse. For a few fleeting moments you feel a sense of hope, like the spotlight being shone on it might actually lead to change. But then things start to dribble away.

It begins with the comments about 'both sides', then it moves on to straight-up whataboutery. And before you know it, the whole thing has been neutralised. Nothing can be changed, because everyone is culpable. It becomes a failure of the human condition rather than a kind of political behaviour footed in specific circumstances and the actions of individuals.

The whataboutery is not worth considering. It is OK to call people racist when they make racist comments and liars when they lie. That is a critical description, not abuse. Only a fool would conflate them.

The 'both sides' argument is stronger. It has a kind of colouring-in quality. It takes lots of different comments in different contexts and makes them appear the same.

But they are not the same. They are distinct. And it is by spotting what makes them distinct that you might possibly come to a way of minimising them.

Remainers are responsible for some abuse, there's no doubt about it. It's much parroted but true that they can instinctively think of all Leavers as racists. And the frustration over watching intellectual arguments about trade or security be ignored means they very often treat all Leavers as stupid. Sometimes the online Remain movement targets Brexit supporters with the grim dehumanising tactic of pile-ons. It's grim and it shouldn't happen.

Labour have a significant problems with abuse too. Its online presence is a nest of angry entitled horrors, full of people who see any deviation from the true path as heresy.

The powerful moral argument of the left, particularly since the 2008 crash, has created a kind of justificatory instinct for abuse. Have people died as a result of austerity? Yes. Was it necessary? No. These facts activate a sense of moral fury. And they allow some parts of the Labour movement to treat any opponent as a kind of murderous, cold-hearted monster.

The Corbynites' emphasis on media control and 'dark money' - both arguments have a strain of truth in them, but are massively overstated - means they treat opponents not as people who think differently but as agents of a hostile political camp operating under a cloak of deception: liars with bad motives.

Brexit abuse comes from a completely different place. It was there right from the beginning. The public were split into two groups: the people and the elite. Neither of these categories exist in real life. You might as well call them goodies and baddies. They were then set to war with one another. Cummings was the chief orchestrator of this in the campaign and he is the chief orchestrator of it now.

It didn't need to be this way. Brexit could have been discussed, and even implemented, as a fundamentally logistical exercise. But once that happened, the case grew weak. So instead it was turned into culture war. It was about out-of-touch metropolitan elites and the left-behind real people, even though most of its advocates were wealthy and made these comments from London. Those who opposed it were treated as traitors. Immigrants were treated as a threat. The core functions of a liberal society, including the judiciary and parliament, were treated as sabotage agents.

Almost as soon as it came into existence, it showed how dangerous it was. Jo Cox was stabbed to death during the campaign by a man chanting "Britain first". Yesterday, a man tried to break into the constituency office of the Labour MP Jo Phillips. Jolyon Maughn, who helped bring the case against the government's suspension of parliament, confirmed he now has extra security around his home and was advised to wear a stab vest.

No.10 threatens it for the future. Yesterday, an unnamed source - presumably Cummings - revelled in the fact a second referendum would be "one massive campaign of total abuse".

The links are clear and uncontroversial. As Phillips said, the abuse often uses the exact same language the prime minister uses: Surrender, betrayal, and the rest of his nakedly cynical lexicon. As Lib Dem MP Luciana Berger pointed out, Johnson's comments in parliament are often clipped and then put online on far-right Brexiter networks.

The Brexiter abuse is not just different by quality. It is different by severity. It rides roughshod over everything. No matter what you might think of Corbynism, it is not trying to attack the institution of parliament.

The Brexit movement daily attacks parliament with the illogical and degenerate slur that it is somehow against the people who elected it. It attacks the judiciary for ruling that parliament must be protected, with Brexit commentators in politics and the media demanding to know the voting record of judges, branding it a "coup" or threatening to publish the addresses of those involved in the case.

'Both sides' are not doing this. Could we really credibly claim that, if the result had gone the other way, Remainers would have spent this week attacking the independence of the judiciary? It's absurd. We need to be honest about what different groups are doing if we want to address what is happening.

The Brexiter abuse is also different by status. It comes from the very top, from the highest position in the land. Vote Leave unleashed the most poisonous rhetoric seen in British politics in our lifetime. And now it has been installed at the heart of government, with all the validation and respectability that affords.

The 'both sides' talk is not reasonable. The reasonable thing is to stop abuse before it turns into violence. That's what reasonable looks like: identifying the potential for trouble and acting to prevent it. By reverting to this 'both sides' argument, we are preventing targeted action against abuse and therefore making it more likely that violence will follow.

It is the Brexit movement which is challenging the fundamental underpinnings of liberal democracy. It is the prime minister who is actively whipping up hatred because he thinks it might win him an election. He is doing that. He is responsible.

[Twosugars]

TSR

[Twosugars]

Police in Lewes in East Sussex are investigating a spate of suspected hate crimes committed overnight on Thursday, including the bricking of an anti-Brexit campaigner’s window, antisemitic graffiti on a garden fence and Nazi symbols daubed on a house.

Eugene Gill woke up to find a half brick had been thrown through his kitchen window where he was displaying a “Stop Brexit” poster, residents in The Avenue found “**** the Jews Soros’s *****s Traitor’s [sic]” sprayed in 2ft-high red letters along a fence, and a wall on Paddock Close was sprayed with the slogan: “Save Old Sussex Kill a DFL SOS” with the S’s written in the style of the Nazi SS logo. DFL is a derogatory term for someone who has moved down from London to the South Downs market town
Gill said the attacker struck his kitchen window at 1.20am but he could not see who it was when he went into the dark street.

“The brick was on the worktop and scrawled on it was the word ‘traitor’ on one side and on the other ‘stop this brick’,” he said. While his son was very upset, he said he was not intimidated.

“We are heading towards an environment where this is the norm,” he said. “It’s being built up with this language about surrender. [In parliament on Wednesday] Boris Johnson looked like a school bully, goading. It’s disgusting. The timing is relevant because I have had the poster up since May.”

A spokesperson for Sussex police said: “The three incidents are being treated as politically motivated and are believed to be linked.”

Lewes voted 52% to remain in the 2016 EU referendum, but re-elected a pro-Brexit Conservative MP, Maria Caulfield, in 2017.

Pam Thurschwell, 53, a Jewish resident, said: “What goes on on the streets and what goes on in parliament are not separate. We have a divided country and this is the fallout. I feel like we are in some version of Germany. This is not about my Jewishness, it’s happening to everyone in this country and it is chilling. There is a problem in No 10 and everybody needs to calm down.”

“Lewes is known for being a creative and open market town,” said Oli Henman, the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Lewes. “But some people have been left behind and have been deliberately targeted by the Brexit messaging and have gone along with the notion of blaming outsiders. Boris Johnson’s recent language has served to reduce trust in our democracy and intensify divisions, creating an uncivil atmosphere which emboldens extremist views.”

The Guardian


Here we are.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by jet

It's called 'robust political discussion' or a 'war of words' that have been going on for centuries in Parliament between parties. To try make out it is literally dangerous now to suit an agenda is absurd. People are losing all sense of perspective over this Brexit malarkey.
No guns or bombs involved.

There was a gun involved..it killed Jo Cox, it was mentioned a couple of days ago, you may have missed it.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Twosugars

TSR

I'll add my to yours ..oof tsr bet you had a lie down in a dark room after that one, nice post!

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by jet

I've never said they were okay exactly, but my goodness, the over - reaction has been ridiculous. Still, it has given the drama queens, the BBC, the gutter press a few days of something to smack their lips over.
Lets just hope the nutters weren't listening or watching...I doubt it though, it was impossible to miss...

Erm, I know I said I was done with this thread, but lurking and reading this am..well astounded that such attitudes exist in this day and age? So, the problematic language being used in the first place, not exactly ok but whatever. But those reporting on it, and discussing how it is problematic, are the ones who will bring it to the attention of nutters. So, if/when there is an attack, its officially the fault of those who were against such language being used, as they spoke about it? Rather than letting it all pass with no comment, which would be basically condoning it and even possibly empowering those doing wrong to do it even more as noone has an issue with it. So, condone/ignore 'bad behaviour' else its your fault if 'something bad' happens?!

Just..wow. Tbh.

And I also am not really on the 'right bad, left good!' side either, as you will see by my posts in here before leaving. But this post really got to me for some reason..just seeing the justification process that those willing to blame anyone but the one at fault use to convince themselves (and possibly others) that its really the others at fault, not the one who did it in the first place..really. Fascinating.


Editing to add:

Spoiler:

Mind thinking about it, ignoring Boris' 'bad behaviour' completely might possibly work to shut him up a bit, given the majority of stuff he says I figure he does it specifically for the attention it brings him. Like an overgrown child, just desperate for a reaction..hmm.

[bots]

someone talked about it earlier, but the HoC does remind me a lot of BB at the moment with people playing up to the camera knowing exactly what to do to get a reaction. It's just a pity we don't get the chance to evict every week

[Kizzy]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9123376.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9121201.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9113396.html

[jet]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Erm, I know I said I was done with this thread, but lurking and reading this am..well astounded that such attitudes exist in this day and age? So, the problematic language being used in the first place, not exactly ok but whatever. But those reporting on it, and discussing how it is problematic, are the ones who will bring it to the attention of nutters. So, if/when there is an attack, its officially the fault of those who were against such language being used, as they spoke about it? Rather than letting it all pass with no comment, which would be basically condoning it and even possibly empowering those doing wrong to do it even more as noone has an issue with it. So, condone/ignore 'bad behaviour' else its your fault if 'something bad' happens?!

Just..wow. Tbh.

And I also am not really on the 'right bad, left good!' side either, as you will see by my posts in here before leaving. But this post really got to me for some reason..just seeing the justification process that those willing to blame anyone but the one at fault use to convince themselves (and possibly others) that its really the others at fault, not the one who did it in the first place..really. Fascinating.


Editing to add:

Spoiler:

Mind thinking about it, ignoring Boris' 'bad behaviour' completely might possibly work to shut him up a bit, given the majority of stuff he says I figure he does it specifically for the attention it brings him. Like an overgrown child, just desperate for a reaction..hmm.

Nope Vicky, don't ignore it and don't condone it. By all means condemn and report it. Just don't run with it over and over on a loop on TV and in the media and on Twitter etc etc until people get acclimatised and numbed by it and some attention seeking nutter wants a piece of the action.
Over - reaction is as bad as no action imo. If everyone is to calm it down, perspective is everything.

[jet]

I admit the problem for me too is the hypocrisy of condemning an instance of inciteful language on continuous loop as if it it was something brand new and those doing the condemning were lily white. It's like using Johnson as the scapegoat for what has gone before when it has been happening continuously on both 'sides' of the political arena. I'm not a Boris fan but I really don't like witch hunts.

During Wednesday's heated exchanges in the Commons, that didn't stop Labour MP Paula Sherriff from describing Boris Johnson's language as 'offensive, dangerous and inflammatory' — all because he had described Parliament's demand that he seek another extension from the EU as the 'Surrender Act'.
But if the Left really cares about offensive and inflammatory remarks, it need only look at its own — as the shocking callousness of Mr Corbyn's supposedly 'gentle' supporters shown here demonstrates.


'I should have come down here with a bat and smashed your face in.'
Former Shadow International Development Secretary Kate Osamor talking last year to a reporter from The Times who had asked her for a comment on a story about her employing her son in her parliamentary office. She threw a bucket of water over the reporter, told him to '******* off' and rang the police to accuse him of stalking her.

'The day that... you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won't knife you in the back, I'll knife you in the front.'
Labour MP Jess Phillips on Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 — using violent language in spite of condemning John McDonnell for using it. Yesterday, she criticised the Prime Minister for using language that inflamed 'hatred and division'.

'Just watched The Riot Club and it's genuinely left me wanting to burn every single Oxford college to the ground... preferably with every single Tory MP inside one at the time. The Conservative Party is a cancer on this country.'
Labour councillor Owen Collins, writing earlier this month. He later apologised.

'You can ******* all the way off. Then, just when you think you've ********* off as much as it's possible to ******* off, I'm gonna need you to dig deep and ******* off a little bit more.'
Kerry-Anne Mendoza, editor of the Corbyn-supporting Canary website, responding to a suggestion by Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell that he might return to Labour following his expulsion earlier this year.

'There was a whole group in the audience that completely kicked off ... they were arguing, 'Why are we sacking her? Why aren't we lynching the bitch?' '
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, discussing a 'sack Esther McVey day' organised in 2014 by Labour activists opposed to the then Cabinet minister. Fellow Labour MP Jess Phillips said the comments were 'utterly despicable'.

'It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA.'
John McDonnell again, using his blog to 'honour' IRA terrorists in 2015.

'My answer is hate… make the Left hate again. I'm full of hate these days.'
Dr Paolo Gerbaudo, a lecturer at King's College, London, at a conference of Corbyn-supporting Momentum in 2017.

'Mr Cameron has known pain and failure in his life but it has always been limited failure and privileged pain... had he been trying to get the system to look after a dying parent rather than a dying child, he might have understood a little of the damage that his policies have done.'
Guardian editorial published online this month. After an outcry, the words were removed and the paper apologised. But it was not the first time a Guardian writer had used the death of David Cameron's son Ivan to score political points
.
'Sit down, you *******.'
Andrew Stafford, a longstanding Labour councillor in Enfield, North London, speaking to a young Conservative during a 2015 debate. He apologised but rejected calls to step down.

'Drive-by shooting.'
Deputy Leader Tom Watson at the Labour conference this week, responding to Jon Lansman's attempt to abolish his position.

'They don't understand English irony.'
Jeremy Corbyn, discussing 'British Zionists' in 2013. The Chief Rabbi described the Labour leader's comments as the most disgraceful made by a senior politician since Enoch Powell's infamous 'rivers of blood' speech in 1968.

'[David Cameron] uses stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric to legitimise selling our NHS to his friends.'
Guardian commentator and food writer Jack Monroe in a 2014 tweet. She was disowned by Sainsbury's as the face of an advertising campaign but insisted: 'I stand by comment the PM uses his experience.'

'We will have a hell of a time. We will have comedians on and bands and we are going to enjoy ourselves. There will be a lot of men wanting to have a drink and celebrate.'
David Hopper, General Secretary of the Durham Miners' Association, speaking after the death of Lady Thatcher in 2013.

'He surrendered to the Brexit Party and he's ready to surrender our NHS to Donald Trump.'
Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), talking about Boris Johnson in her speech to the TUC earlier this month. Not very offensive in itself, yet it uses the same word — 'surrendered' — which Labour MPs yesterday claimed was 'inflammatory' when the Prime Minister himself used it.

'People often ask us what it is that makes us tick — it's Boris Johnson's head upon a stick, stick, stick.'
A mob of Left-wing supporters holding signs demanding 'Tories out' in a video published online last month.

Were using the words 'Surrender and 'Capitulation' really horrific enough for that lady to lash out at him publicly using the awful atrocity of Jo Coxes death to beat him with?

And for the record I don't want a no deal either in case my thoughts are interpreted as me being a rabid leaver.

[Twosugars]

The army and police are investigating after a soldier sent a death threat to the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, defence officials have said.

The commander of the British field army, Lt Gen Ivan Jones, and the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, denounced the message, which was posted on Twitter on Wednesday, as MPs pleaded with the prime minister to tone down his Brexit rhetoric, saying they feared it would incite violence against them.

Posting an image of the message online on Thursday, Rayner said it was just an example of the “usual vile tweet I get daily”. It read that she will “perish when civil war comes”, suggesting that people who voted for Brexit would be “gunning for blood if we don’t leave”.

Jones apologised and confirmed his belief that the tweet was posted by a serving soldier.
The Guardian

Here we go again

[jet]

We are living in awful times.

[Ammi]

...I think with Boris, it extends beyond any incitement of words...it’s how his words combine with his actions, for me...he has placed himself and his ego above the law...the law which is the foundation of our society...the law which in these ‘uncertain times’ the country needs more than ever...but he defies and manipulates that law and while he’s doing that, his ‘contingency report’ is showing that his manipulation and lies are to those who support him as well...he’s way beyond any level of weighty words...others in parliament may have used incite full language also..and that’s never to be condoned in any way whatsoever...wrong is wrong is wrong and very unwise and careless...but Boris Johnson combines so many more dangerous things with his words and his lies, sadly...and that cannot or should not be ignored...

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

someone talked about it earlier, but the HoC does remind me a lot of BB at the moment with people playing up to the camera knowing exactly what to do to get a reaction. It's just a pity we don't get the chance to evict every week

Parliament is worse than panto now, wouldn’t surprise me if they start releasing viewing stats

[smudgie]

Originally Posted by Cherie

Parliament is worse than panto now, wouldn’t surprise me if they start releasing viewing stats

They already did.
Massive increase when parliament went back.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...I think with Boris, it extends beyond any incitement of words...it’s how his words combine with his actions, for me...he has placed himself and his ego above the law...the law which is the foundation of our society...the law which in these ‘uncertain times’ the country needs more than ever...but he defies and manipulates that law and while he’s doing that, his ‘contingency report’ is showing that his manipulation and lies are to those who support him as well...he’s way beyond any level of weighty words...others in parliament may have used incite full language also..and that’s never to be condoned in any way whatsoever...wrong is wrong is wrong and very unwise and careless...but Boris Johnson combines so many more dangerous things with his words and his lies, sadly...and that cannot or should not be ignored...

His words are absolutely fine, not a thing wrong with them, it's the reaction to them that's the problem. People trying to make something out of nothing.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by jet

Were using the words 'Surrender and 'Capitulation' really horrific enough for that lady to lash out at him publicly using the awful atrocity of Jo Coxes death to beat him with?

And for the record I don't want a no deal either in case my thoughts are interpreted as me being a rabid leaver.

Was her distressed request really horrific enough that you intimate they are akin to actual violence?

Why wouldn't they raise that tragedy?
If MPs are receiving death threats, knowing Jo Cox was actually murdered by an extreme right wing terrorist, when the actual words of the PM are being used in the threats they receive from right wing extremists.

Why is it wrong to suggest a correlation that his use of language is having a direct impact and potentially putting the lives of MPs at risk?

I don't believe the bumbling denials by him that his words are of no consequence, he's well aware of the power of rhetoric. Which can only mean that in the last desperate push for no deal he just doesn't care at this point what actions his words inspire.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Alf

His words are absolutely fine, not a thing wrong with them, it's the reaction to them that's the problem. People trying to make something out of nothing.

Ah... Yes exactly, it's the reaction to them that's the problem! Thank you for agreeing with my point alf.

If they are fine and it's nothing then why are the extremists reacting to them by quoting them back to mps in their threats?

[Alf]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Ah... Yes exactly, it's the reaction to them that's the problem! Thank you for agreeing with my point alf.

If they are fine and it's nothing then why are the extremists reacting to them by quoting them back to mps in their threats?

You might have jumped to the wrong conclusions there. It's the likes of Jess Phillips, and others, that only know how to play the victim that are magnifying anything Boris says, for their regular victimhood fix.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Alf

You might have jumped to the wrong conclusions there. It's the likes of Jess Phillips, and others, that only know how to play the victim that are magnifying anything Boris says, for their regular victimhood fix.

Nope, you can walk around with your fingers in your ears if you like but the 'people v parliament ' tub thumping is being ramped up..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...nifesto-corbyn

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/201...anti-abuse-cam

'Both sides'. It's one of the most pernicious phrases in modern politics. It sounds so reasonable. But what it does is not reasonable. It aims to prevent the allocation of blame and the diagnosis of problems.

Since Boris Johnson waded into the Commons on Wednesday and promoted a nightmare agenda of division and hatred, we've heard a lot about 'both sides'.

"There are members on both sides of the House and both sides of the Brexit argument who have been personally threatened and whose families have been threatened," Speaker John Bercow said during the debate. That's been eagerly taken up. Every time a Brexiter touches on this subject, they never fail to point out that 'both sides' are responsible for abuse. There are "serious threats" of violence against both sides, Dominic Cummings, the mastermind behind Johnson's bullying strategy, insisted yesterday,

The problem with 'both sides ' is not that it is completely false. There is some truth to it. Jacob Rees-Mogg has had his private home targeted by activists, for instance. Brexiter MPs are sometimes shouted at when they walk from parliament to College Green to do TV interviews.

Admittedly, it is occasionally flagrantly nonsensical. On Newsnight on Wednesday night, Tory MP Bernard Jenkins tried to compare the death threats MPs receive to the strain Boris Johnson is under. Brexit campaigner Isabel Oakshott asked why it was OK to be outraged by abuse but still call Johnson a "liar" or a "racist".

This is how it always goes with the subject of abuse. For a few fleeting moments you feel a sense of hope, like the spotlight being shone on it might actually lead to change. But then things start to dribble away.

It begins with the comments about 'both sides', then it moves on to straight-up whataboutery. And before you know it, the whole thing has been neutralised. Nothing can be changed, because everyone is culpable. It becomes a failure of the human condition rather than a kind of political behaviour footed in specific circumstances and the actions of individuals.

The whataboutery is not worth considering. It is OK to call people racist when they make racist comments and liars when they lie. That is a critical description, not abuse. Only a fool would conflate them.

The 'both sides' argument is stronger. It has a kind of colouring-in quality. It takes lots of different comments in different contexts and makes them appear the same.

But they are not the same. They are distinct. And it is by spotting what makes them distinct that you might possibly come to a way of minimising them.

Remainers are responsible for some abuse, there's no doubt about it. It's much parroted but true that they can instinctively think of all Leavers as racists. And the frustration over watching intellectual arguments about trade or security be ignored means they very often treat all Leavers as stupid. Sometimes the online Remain movement targets Brexit supporters with the grim dehumanising tactic of pile-ons. It's grim and it shouldn't happen.

Labour have a significant problems with abuse too. Its online presence is a nest of angry entitled horrors, full of people who see any deviation from the true path as heresy.

The powerful moral argument of the left, particularly since the 2008 crash, has created a kind of justificatory instinct for abuse. Have people died as a result of austerity? Yes. Was it necessary? No. These facts activate a sense of moral fury. And they allow some parts of the Labour movement to treat any opponent as a kind of murderous, cold-hearted monster.

The Corbynites' emphasis on media control and 'dark money' - both arguments have a strain of truth in them, but are massively overstated - means they treat opponents not as people who think differently but as agents of a hostile political camp operating under a cloak of deception: liars with bad motives.

Brexit abuse comes from a completely different place. It was there right from the beginning. The public were split into two groups: the people and the elite. Neither of these categories exist in real life. You might as well call them goodies and baddies. They were then set to war with one another. Cummings was the chief orchestrator of this in the campaign and he is the chief orchestrator of it now.

It didn't need to be this way. Brexit could have been discussed, and even implemented, as a fundamentally logistical exercise. But once that happened, the case grew weak. So instead it was turned into culture war. It was about out-of-touch metropolitan elites and the left-behind real people, even though most of its advocates were wealthy and made these comments from London. Those who opposed it were treated as traitors. Immigrants were treated as a threat. The core functions of a liberal society, including the judiciary and parliament, were treated as sabotage agents.

Almost as soon as it came into existence, it showed how dangerous it was. Jo Cox was stabbed to death during the campaign by a man chanting "Britain first". Yesterday, a man tried to break into the constituency office of the Labour MP Jo Phillips. Jolyon Maughn, who helped bring the case against the government's suspension of parliament, confirmed he now has extra security around his home and was advised to wear a stab vest.

No.10 threatens it for the future. Yesterday, an unnamed source - presumably Cummings - revelled in the fact a second referendum would be "one massive campaign of total abuse".

The links are clear and uncontroversial. As Phillips said, the abuse often uses the exact same language the prime minister uses: Surrender, betrayal, and the rest of his nakedly cynical lexicon. As Lib Dem MP Luciana Berger pointed out, Johnson's comments in parliament are often clipped and then put online on far-right Brexiter networks.

The Brexiter abuse is not just different by quality. It is different by severity. It rides roughshod over everything. No matter what you might think of Corbynism, it is not trying to attack the institution of parliament.

The Brexit movement daily attacks parliament with the illogical and degenerate slur that it is somehow against the people who elected it. It attacks the judiciary for ruling that parliament must be protected, with Brexit commentators in politics and the media demanding to know the voting record of judges, branding it a "coup" or threatening to publish the addresses of those involved in the case.

'Both sides' are not doing this. Could we really credibly claim that, if the result had gone the other way, Remainers would have spent this week attacking the independence of the judiciary? It's absurd. We need to be honest about what different groups are doing if we want to address what is happening.

The Brexiter abuse is also different by status. It comes from the very top, from the highest position in the land. Vote Leave unleashed the most poisonous rhetoric seen in British politics in our lifetime. And now it has been installed at the heart of government, with all the validation and respectability that affords.

The 'both sides' talk is not reasonable. The reasonable thing is to stop abuse before it turns into violence. That's what reasonable looks like: identifying the potential for trouble and acting to prevent it. By reverting to this 'both sides' argument, we are preventing targeted action against abuse and therefore making it more likely that violence will follow.

It is the Brexit movement which is challenging the fundamental underpinnings of liberal democracy. It is the prime minister who is actively whipping up hatred because he thinks it might win him an election. He is doing that. He is responsible.

A fascinating read all through slimreaper.
Really strong.
Thank you for it.

[Alf]

I think it's amazing how tolerant Leavers are, or the UK in general for that matter. If this was in France, they'd have been a violent revolution by now.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Nope, you can walk around with your fingers in your ears if you like but the 'people v parliament ' tub thumping is being ramped up..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...nifesto-corbyn

Being ramped up by who?

The people voted out, the Parliament has yet to implement it and are actively trying to overturn the result of the people.

I'd say it's definitely the people vs not just Parliament, but all the elites, including the mainstream media and academia.

If they'd have just done what they were told to do when they asked us, we wouldn't be having this discussion now.