>Tommy Robinson has been accused of misusing supporters’ money, as he declares himself bankrupt despite receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations and funding, The Independent can reveal.
>The Independent has seen financial documents indicating the huge scale of funding given to Robinson since announcing “going independent” in 2018. In little over two months, he received almost £425,000 in donations from his supporters, documents suggest. He is also believed to have raised a significantly larger amount after being jailed for contempt of court in May 2018, though an American group called Middle East Forum said it had funded his defence.
>“Tommy is a liar. The way he treated me, a lot of it, was just a front. It was an act to grow and make a lot of money. I thought he cared about saving Britain, saving young girls from being raped in Rotherham, but it was about making money."
Do you believe most people in the public domain actually believe what they say or knowing spout bollocks and mislead people because it's very lucrative for them? It seems to happen right across the political spectrum.
>>94039 And your mindset is indicative of you being a massive racist, so you're saying I can dismiss your argument for that. Maybe you're not, who knows? It doesn't matter! Your typing is indicative of being a carpet-bagger. Anyone can say anything is indicative of anything and it be totally irrelevant to the conversation.
Quite honestly? I think we have come to a position where the edgiest and most abrasive thing you can possibly do is to wholeheartedly and unquestioningly agree with and argue in favour of the media/establishment status quo.
It is very plainly and obviously true that the BLM, critical race theory, etc cultural zeitgeist has surpassed any genuine revolutionary intent it once had, and has been assimilated into the machinations of the establishment political machine. That alone is enough to mistrust it and the ideological zealotry it promotes.
Being part of the vocal minority promoting shite like white fragility (gosh, look how much of it there is in this thread) and the ingrained original sin of white supremacy is more effective of a trolling technique than any blunt, childish 4channer use of the N-word epic nazi frog memes.
If you really want to see the world burn, pushing woke ideology is where it's at.
>>94042 > If you really want to see the world burn, pushing woke ideology is where it's at.
I've always assumed that's the only reason stuff like that is pushed.
I see where you're coming from, but there's a critical element underpinning all this. I think we have sophisticated media systems that co-opt, neuter, or derail revolutionary messages well before they have a chance to truly take off. The result is that we only see those social movements that are most palatable to the status quo. Only the silliest, most maligned, or misrepresented versions of popular politics are allowed to surface because they make easier targets for criticism.
On a related note, I am fairly sure that whenever there's a demonstration, even those with eminently sensible messages like Extinction Rebellion, corporate media will instinctively go to the weirdest looking crusty and snap that fucker's pic for the website. I don't really care if you're a bloke with a dyed blue beard or a white girl with dreadlocks, but you'd have to be massively naïve not to see what's happening, there.
>>94076 Just the worst, most embarrassing kind of post right here. Too many angles for me tackle it all before bed so I'll just say it's shite; don't be this poster.
>>94048 Extinction Rebellion really was all crusties and children though. I know because I had to deal with them last year in 2019 every time I left the office. Even if you took the position that it was normal people you wouldn't be looking normal after a week living in some bush in St James's Park.
>>94078 Extinction Rebellion in London wasn't even crusties, it was frankly embarassing. It was social media fuelled junkies doing stunts that would get them attention. The kind of people that had the time to be arseholes. No solutions in sight, just "protest" for its own sake.
It's a daft meme posted with no small dose of irony, accompanied by a question. I'm not sure what exactly you think is so deep about it to require "tackling", but whatever it is, I would wager is almost entirely projection.
I just thought it was a nice jab at people who care too much about imported American issues without acknowledging or seeming to even be aware of the wildly different circumstances over here.
>>94079 We've known what the solutions are for decades, what's missing is political will to do anything about it, which comes from public pressure to do it.
Of the ones I know personally rather than just glancing at them and making assumptions, they're mostly teachers, academics, social and healthcare workers. Some are obviously retired but most aren't, working incredibly hard to fit it around their schedules. Obviously the Fridays 4 Future kids are more photogenic.
>>94082 Because effective public pressure is contingent on the public having free time. Canning Town lads wouldn't have been so fucked off at the people on the train if they weren't mostly living week to week. The prominent members of XR wouldn't all be middle class media darlings if those weren't the only group that could really sack off work for a few weeks.
Is effective public pressure even possible in this current climate, where so many people are basically unable to protest and living in what equates to indentured servitude?
>>94076 I'm sure he's lurking around, working on his next clapback tweet.
>>94083 Not what I saw at all, especially the ones trying to give me flyers. Unless you mean academics as-in students in which case there were plenty.
>Obviously the Fridays 4 Future kids are more photogenic.
Those were actually the properly young sort in college at most, especially at the start when it was 6-7 kids showing off to the girls in their group by laying in the road and that - well, the assigned older boy laid in the road, the other's looked bemused and then police escorted them away.
I get that you want to defend the movement but I'm saying there's a reason they looked the way they did on the news. If it was some city men waddling over with spreadsheets and bags of cocaine things would've gone and looked very differently.
>I'm saying there's a reason they looked the way they did on the news
Didn't someone make a rather stating-the-obvious post yesterday about how the news deliberately picks and chooses things to fit their own narrative and to drive hate clicks/views? No? Maybe I dreamed that.
>>94087 >Is effective public pressure even possible in this current climate, where so many people are basically unable to protest and living in what equates to indentured servitude?
I'm inclined to think that even if people were better off, it wouldn't be very effective. Before the social media era you had those in power building their worldview around what the media was saying was going on, so a protestor just had to get the attention of the media and it would be relayed to them. They might well see a big crowd protesting in Orkney and think, goodness, we might have a Viking insurrection on our hands if we don't act. But nowadays they can go on Twitter and look behind that protest and see: Oh, actually, 90% of Orkney is getting on with life as usual. And even if 100% of Orkney agree with the protestors, you can then quickly run through that no serious problems will arise from ignoring them. They aren't likely to do direct action, the number of people who do will be lower than the current number of protestors and will be easy to arrest, and they can't even appeal to not voting for you if you're nasty to them, since they're a safe Liberal constituency anyway.
That's before you run into another problem of modern life: who are you protesting to? In the age where nationalisation was a beloved policy solution it was all well and good to protest to the government because something was causing you problems, but nowadays that's often not the government's problem - it's the private sector's. If you go out protesting gas prices, are you appealing to the government or to the energy companies? For climate change this issue gets even worse because you're appealing to practically every company, and practically every company can say "We're just doing what our shareholders want." Then you can't even really appeal to shareholders because a lot of them are things like pension funds, not individual human beings with consciences and a desire to not die. They've just got their duty deliver pensions for pensioners, most of whom aren't even paying attention to the fund. So you wind up on a climate protest that is ultimately addressed to nobody, because nobody's in charge, and the idea that the government should take charge is viewed as either quaintly antiquated or laughably insane.
And even with that all said, it's possible you can put this sort of cynicism back a bit further - if you look at the Iraq War protests for example. A pretty simple, reasonable demand (don't attack Iraq) clearly addressed to the entity responsible (the Government) and the government still correctly calculated that it would easily remain in office if it pursued this unpopular policy despite massive protests against it.
>>94092 >No, I mean university professors and scientists.
We're talking about whether they looked like they did on the news, which I was able to find first hand that they in fact did. Stop trying to gaslight me you filthy communist.
>>94094 >who's being protested to?
The XR protests caused enough economic disruption that the MET knowingly made thousands of unlawful arrests after being pressured to end it, then more recently the chief constable of Hertfordshire police was put in a position where he's had to destroy evidence to avoid a court seeing that he was acting on behalf of Patel rather than his actual job. If it were able to continue with that momentum (and the government was remotely accountable - remember this started before the Tories got properly into power).
The tactic from the start was to get so many people arrested that they jam up the courts, forcing action to be taken so the judicial system can go back to normal, not simply protesting in the way you're describing. It got quite close to working.
I saw protesters in suits on more than one occasion. If they had all been in suits, that would also be used to "other" them, same as this is.
It's really unimportant what you think of the way they dress, the question that actually matters is if action needs taking. We know what needs doing, we know how to do it, but the narrative is just getting upset that they're cringe when you need them to be poggers to be seen with them. The general public's too busy going to football or anti-lockdown protests or protecting the plaque put up of Lord Gibbonswick in the Frinton-on-sea village hall.
>It's really unimportant what you think of the way they dress, the question that actually matters is if action needs taking.
Yeah, that's exactly why no-one reacted to Ed Milliband and the bacon, it's all about the issues and not the optics. Regardless of how worthless the optics are objectively, they have a huge impact on how anything is perceived.
Now granted I've not been paying attention and could only be bothered to follow this back several posts, but you seem to be saying that the optics don't matter. They shouldn't, but they absolutely do.
>>94101 I wonder if they'd has less Canning Town incidents they would have annoyed fewer of the wrong people and actually had a bit of success. But clearly if they are annoying they are doing something right, even if that 'something' is shooting their own movement in the foot.
That said, if you hate XR, then you hate the environment. They are a manifestation of Mother Gaia and if you are annoyed then that is merely your privilege showing. If you're annoyed or inconvenienced, well then that's your fault for being privileged.
I'm saying the issue matters. If you think the optics need to be different then do it yourself instead of whining that the people putting in the effort aren't doing it the way you want them to.
>>94103 Are you kidding? I can criticise Jason Statham's diving form without putting on a bald cap and some speedos, why are you getting snitty about someone daring to point out that XR fucked up? 1) XR needed public opinion on side, 2) public opinion is influenced by the 'optics', 3) their optics were gash. I'm sorry if you see acknowledging fundamental facts of life as 'whining'.
>>94104 I was pissing on BLM lad for saying that if you don't like BLM, you're a racist. Your ire is well deserved, it's an utterly moronic stance.
We're not even talking about that you thick twat. We're talking about how the news distorts protests by the people they choose to interview in this example I am talking about right now I noted that, contrary to the original claim, it was broadly representative of what I was able to see on the ground.
If he had claimed that the news distorted Britain First protests by interviewing people in tracksuits then we would be talking about how that is actually what they're like. Mods need to wordfilter XR to something else, it's become like the words 'age of consent' mysteriously attracting pedos.
>>94102 I have it on good authority that if we throw tantrums and generally act like arseholes then people will cave just to shut us up - it works with my parents and on twitter.
More briefly, it includes four major 'Drop the NHS bill' protests in the heart of London, one of which was led by doctors, and another of which blocked traffic for an hour in Whitehall. These kind of things can't possibly be missed.
Contrast this with footage of the XR protest in which angry, stressed commuters pulled people off the top of a tube train was repeated ad nauseum.
The point I'm making is that popular unrest will not be presented favourably in the news (or, indeed, at all) unless it is in the interests of government and corporate power to do so. This can cut both ways politically, as earlier in the thread in which a journalist was being chased about by a scary mob. That footage is made available because it harms no one to present the public as a thick mob that needs to be controlled for its own good, and journalists are poor truthsayers being hounded just for doing their brave, brave work.
>>94106 >I have it on good authority that if we throw tantrums and generally act like arseholes then people will cave just to shut us up - it works with my parents and on twitter.
I have my reservations about the scalability of this tactic, but I'm prepared to offer you 5,000 bones if you can prove that this works.
>Mods need to wordfilter XR to something else, it's become like the words 'age of consent' mysteriously attracting pedos.
I don't want to be a prick, but filtering 'BLM' to 'ALM' would trigger the shit out of some people and that would greatly amuse me.
>>94111 Even our most prolific right wing poster, stormfag, turned out to be some sort of loony psyops false flag, which was fun. I assume you're the newlad and just don't really understand this site yet.
People here don't typically rage about political world filters. People only really seem to be angry when the filters pop up in the middle of other words.
>>94106 >I have it on good authority that if we throw tantrums and generally act like arseholes then people will cave just to shut us up - it works with my parents and on twitter.
It worked with the poll tax.
> in this example I am talking about right now I noted that, contrary to the original claim, it was broadly representative of what I was able to see on the ground.
That's weird because the other poster noted that it wasn't crusties. Unless you're able to guarantee that nobody will ever take a telephoto picture of you eating a sandwich in which you look a bit awkward, which they'll then use to frame a narrative, it's all a bit moot. "Optics" in this context are, as people seem to be agreeing, basically uncontrollable from the side of the public. You can't show me the photos of Miliband beside the one of Johnson dangling from that high wire waving flags and tell me it's about the subject of the photo and not the narrative around it.
>>94116 Fair enough. How come you think it's a trolling tactic then? I've only been here a few months, I thought the board seemed full of irreverent lefties who have a specific sense of humour.
>Tommy Robinson has been given a five-year stalking protection order after he shouted abuse outside the home of a journalist and threatened to repeatedly return to her address. The founder of the English Defence League, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, went to the property of the Independent’s home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden and her boyfriend, Samuel Partridge, in January of this year.
>The deputy chief magistrate Tan Ikram said Robinson’s behaviour “crossed the line between mere harassment and stalking” at a hearing on Wednesday. The court previously heard Robinson had hired a private investigator to find information out about Dearden after a request for comment she made, through his solicitors, on a story alleging that he misused money donated by his supporters. Ikram said that after obtaining Dearden’s address, Robinson had arrived around 10pm, calling for her to come to the door and shouting claims that Partridge was a paedophile.
>The magistrate “wholly rejected” that Robinson had attended the address to “exercise his right to reply” to the article, saying that he had been there to intimidate her and adding there was “not a shred of evidence” that the claims about Partridge were true. “The complainant refused to come out or engage with the defendant,” he said. The defendant reacted by saying that he would come back to her address ‘every night’. In my judgment, that crosses the line in this case between mere harassment and acts associated with stalking in that he threatened to repeatedly return to her home address. The defendant was arrested before he could carry out his threat. I find that the intention of the defendant turning up at a journalist’s house at past 10pm was clear: to intimidate her.”
>Ikram also rejected Robinson’s claim he had been “calm” throughout the incident, saying that it contradicted other undisputed witness accounts from neighbours.
