Not a Racist?

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Vision, moral courage and compassion – these are the qualities found in great leaders.

All of these qualities are lacking in virtually all Western leaders today; Trump, Macron, Merz, van der Lyon, Starmer. Trump is a particularly egregious example of moral cowardice, narcissism and short-sightedness. He lacks any redeeming qualities. Any.

In the UK, we have Starmer, Badenoch and Farage to choose from; all of them cynical, self-serving, insincere, mendacious and cruel.

Starmer’s Ten Pledges are long forsaken and long forgotten. Pledges that were made to get elected as Labour leader and then ditched – they had served their purpose.

Another scoundrel, the people Dr Johnson despised so much, is about to launch a new party. Ben Habib is preparing to launch his Advance UK party.

Habib’s venue for launching the party backed out days before the launch, due to pressure from un-named complainants. That is appalling. Whoever complained to the hotel about the party launch was wrong to do so.

There are mindless morons in every community. Muslims have their Anjem Chowdherys, Christians their Tommy Robinsons. Indians have their Suella Bravermans, the English their Robert Lowes. Bigots exist in all communities; people who are so insecure in themselves they have to belittle others to feel good about themselves.

Staff at Crowne Plaza should not have been subjected to threats, real or implied. But nor should migrants who are lodged in hotels, come under siege from a mob. The fact that asylum seekers are fleeing war-zones (created in large part by Britain) should not make them targets of far-right mobs.

Ben Habib said the migrants were being given “preferential treatment”, while Britons suffer. The migrant hotels are, in Habib’s opinion, evidence of a “complete collapse” of the government’s duty to Britons.

Habib portrays the immigrants as “breaking and entering”, and their arrival as an “assault” on Britain.

This menacing language, delivered even as protesters rioted outside the hotels, shows the brazen hypocrisy of the man. He says that Advance UK comes with only “love and peace”. He complains that staff at the Crown Hotel felt threatened, but he has no problem framing asylum seekers as burglars and a threat about to assault Britons. His language is deliberate and calculated to move people to anger.

This is the man who recommends migrants be left to drown in the English Channel. So much for “love and peace”.

There is a nastiness about Habib that is despicable, a malicious streak beneath the façade of the Kiplingesque gentleman. The mere image of people drowning in the English Channel is repellent, but to suggest that as policy is nothing short of psychopathy.

One can’t help but believe that Habib would approve of this ICE agent in America, who throws a distraught wife to the ground – what is that when compared to drowning? It puts Habib’s disgusting statement about drowning migrants into perspective. A man so lacking in compassion or empathy will fit right into the political landscape dotted with Trumps and Starmers; van der Lyons and Netanyahus.

Habib says he is not a racist, and brings his “Muslim Pakistani” father as proof, and his Pakistani relatives in Karachi. How could he be racist? We have only to look at the likes of Kanye West and Jesse Lee Peterson to realise the multitude of contradictions that make up humanity. Peterson, a black, far-right pastor, has described blacks as “morally corrupt”. Who knows what childhood traumas compel people to hate.

Habib has defended Tommy Robinson, a member of Habib’s Advance UK. He dismisses Robinson’s membership as inconsequential; just one man among thousands of sympathisers. Never mind that Robinson organised a march considered by many as a celebration of intolerance. Tommy Robinson shared the stage with the likes of Katie Hopkins, Eva Vlaardingerbroek and other European far-right politicians.

Habib protests that he does not judge people on the colour of their skin, but rather the content of their character. Has he checked out Tommy Robinson’s character?

Tommy Robinson is not “one of many” in Advance UK; he is a recruiting sergeant, and Habib knows it. Peace and love are not what drive Advance UK, but conflict and hate; they rely on it and will thrive on it.

It is interesting that Habib’s first fundamental principle of Advance UK is that Britain has a Christian constitutional make up and a Christian culture. That would seem to exclude his “Muslim” father, but that’s a different matter entirely.

Is Ben Habib ignorant of English history and its bloody past with religion? Catholics were persecuted for more than 200 years, and before 1829 they were not allowed to sit in Parliament. The Anglicans regarded England as constitutionally and culturally Protestant. How is that different from Habib describing England as “constitutionally and culturally” Christian?

Norther Ireland still suffers from the “troubles” that go back to the Anglican/Catholic divide.

Habib alleges that the threats of violence against Crowne Plaza were made by the “far-left”, having protested that his party is not “far-right”. So much for consistency.

Habib implies that violence is a far-left problem: “they are the ones who are prejudiced; they are the ones who are causing political, physical disturbance to the fabric of this country. They are the problem. Not Advance UK”.

Advance UK is taking Britain to where America is today. And we should all be afraid. Very afraid.