Digest #22 - Farage is not a racist, Mahmood is a P**i & Mamdani loves Trump

Realpolitik came to town as old positions change when faced with the reality of power.

Political Alchemy Digest is a look at a selection of news stories from a Muslim viewpoint. If you haven’t subscribed for updates please do.

This digest should be more like an encyclopaedia for how long it has taken to get around to writing it. However, this is the world we live in, the cost of everything is going up, you are expected to work harder so you can pay higher taxes for the government to use them to fund genocide abroad. Having time to critique the system is not always possible.

There is a racial slur used liberally in this article, it is for illustrative purposes only.

Nigel isn’t a racist

Woke up to the news today that Nigel Farage isn’t a racist, or in his words he hasn’t “directly racially abused” anyone. All of this is based on a Guardian article in which former pupils at Dulwich College have alleged both racist and anti semitic abuse from Farage when he was a pupil there. This included saying things such as “Hitler was right” or “Gas them”, engaging in Nazi salutes, putting Asian kids in detention for no reason, and calling others “Paki” or “Wog”.

Farage, when questioned by the BBC, defended himself, stating that it was 49 years ago, followed by some carefully choreographed wordplay, stating “I would never ever do it in a hurtful or insulting way”. It all sounds a little like Sayeeda Warsi accusing the Tories of their dinner table Islamophobia. It’s all good banter!

I recommend you watch the video on the link and see for yourself. His defence is right up there with Andrew, the man formerly known as Prince, and Bill Clinton’s infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” comment. Oh but Billy, we all know you did. As Red (Morgan Freeman) said in The Shawshank Redemption, “Everyone is innocent in here.”

All this will make Farage a hero to his followers, those who come onto the streets shouting “our streets”. You don’t need to be racist to lead a bunch of racists, Drew isn’t even a minion, yet there he is leading them

If you can’t do a job yourself get a Paki to do it

If being racist is a problem, how do you pass policy which could be deemed as racist?

That’s right, you get a Paki to do it.

Enter stage right Shabana Mahmood, woman, driven, ambitious and, more importantly, in her own words has to go round this country being called a “Paki”. Whitehall is a nasty place, it seems.

Mahmood was quick to point out that her parents were legal immigrants, which begs the question: why is she being abused? Maybe, just maybe, there is fundamentally something broken in British society that has nothing to do with immigration, legal or otherwise.

This is her defence (remember everyone is innocent) for policies towards immigration that mean the ability to settle in the UK will now take decades instead of years. No white politician could have proposed these policies so soon after becoming Home Secretary without real scrutiny.

The policies she is proposing will mean that asylum seekers, those on low skilled visas and others will have a sliding scale on how long they need to be in the UK to get “leave to remain”. The numbers range from 15 to 20 years, with asylum seekers only allowed to stay while conditions in their home countries have not improved. The timescales will change depending on whether benefits have been claimed and over how long a period.

Mahmood’s reasoning for these changes is that asylum and immigration policies are dividing British society. How making immigration her one and only policy will bring Britain back together I’m not sure. But this is the realpolitik of democracy, political principles and previous positions quickly change with the quest for power.

Remember this when the Pakistani politician knocks on your door claiming that he is one of you and has the interests of the community at heart. These are the same words that would have got Mahmood elected.

I can imagine the conversation that the Labour hierarchy had with Mahmood: do this one thing, bring all the racists back to voting Labour and “Rome will be yours”.

Rome minus the immigrants, of course.

In other news

In other news over the last few weeks and in another example of realpolitik, Mamdani became mayor of New York, all was well and then he met Trump and they became best friends. There goes the revolution.

Mandani then called Trump a fascist again days after meeting him, you can just hear Trump shouting “say it to my face”.

The Western world has continued to turn a blind eye to the genocide in Palestine. Despite the ceasefire, Palestinians are still being killed, the Muslim rulers have continued their cosying up to Trump and the Zionists, whilst backing killings in Sudan. The Russians are testing Britain’s defence capabilities and plans, which apparently are not that great.

The BBC carried out a hatchet job on Donald Trump, using edited clips out of context to paint a picture of Trump suggesting he egged on the Capitol Hill rioters. The reality is the two clips stitched together were an hour apart. A slew of resignations at the BBC followed, with Trump saying he would sue.

Like much of Britain’s great institutions and society in general the BBC is so broken you simply don’t know where to start.

This week Dutch writer Rutger Bregman said he was invited by the BBC to give one of their Reith Lectures only to be told that one line from his address stating that Trump “was the most openly corrupt president in US history”, was removed.

We live in an era where the news is less about information and more about theatre.

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