Brexiteers Start Compiling Lists Of Traitors. Fascism knocking at the door.

A couple of days ago news broke of a letter that a pro-Brexit MP had sent out to all Universities "asking them to declare what they are teaching their students about Brexit and to provide a list of teachers’ names."

This is the letter that began it:




Do not be fooled by the polite wording. This is how Britishers hack and slash at each other verbally and through written text.

This has caused a storm, with accusations of a McCarthyite witch hunt:

Guardian Article



Prof David Green, vice-chancellor of Worcester University, felt a chill down his spine when he read the “sinister” request: “This letter just asking for information appears so innocent but is really so, so dangerous,” he says. “Here is the first step to the thought police, the political censor and newspeak, naturally justified as ‘the will of the British people’, a phrase to be found on Mr Heaton-Harris’s website.” Green will be replying to the MP but not be providing the information requested.

Prof Kevin Featherstone, head of the European Institute at the LSE, is also outraged: “The letter reflects a past of a McCarthyite nature. It smacks of asking: are you or have you ever been in favour of remain? There is clearly an implied threat that universities will somehow be challenged for their bias.” Featherstone says LSE academics had already feared Brexit censorship after the Electoral Commission made inquiries during last year’s referendum campaign about academics’ debates and research, following a complaint by Bernard Jenkin, another Tory MP.


From Scientists for EU

The letter from Tory Eurosceptic whip Chis Heaton-Harris to University V-Cs demanding "names of professors" that lecture on Brexit is sinister. What could the purpose of his efforts be, if not to make some kind of report to attack universities or individuals? For example, though the tabloid press? This is a classic totalitarian tactic, from Lenin to McCarthy, to politically go after and remove wider societal resistance to a government line. Universities are a common target to both left & right-wing totalitarianism because of their public voice. To drive public opinion against universities for political/power expedience is damaging both to trust across wider society and to the independence of universities. We already saw this during the referendum when Daniel Hannan peddled the notion that British Universities are paid off "sock puppets" of the EU and part of an elite, not part of "the people".


Number 10 and Boris Johnsons sister issued mealy mouthed 'Oh well this is nothing to do with us' type statements. But then today this appeared in Right-Wing fascist rag Daily Mail, thus demonstrating that somebody in the Conservative party leaked some of the findings:





Where they name and shame lecturers who have dared to have pro-EU stances:



Heavens, that woman put up a Remain poster! TRAITOR, screams the Daily Mail.

Governments compiling lists about Universities and disloyal academics?


Or as the Daily THump put it:

Government surprised to find places where nation’s brightest minds study information are against Brexit.

Institutions attended and run by the most intelligent people in the country have inexplicably come out in favour of remaining in the European Union, it has emerged.

‘Universities’, where brilliant young minds are sent to study facts about a broad range of subjects and disciplines, are reportedly expressing views that suggest Brexit might be a terrible idea.

A Daily Mail exposé has sensationally revealed that university professors, who clearly know nothing, are brazenly explaining that Brexit could harm the country – using despicable facts and sickening, extensive research to poison the minds of the British people.

“Anyone who even hints that Brexit is not the best idea of all time must be strung up in Trafalgar Square,” said passionate leave voter, Simon Williams.

“That these so-called experts are coming out with opinions of their own, using logical reasoning and deduction based on facts and statistics, truly sickens me to my core.

“I’m stunned that they are not following the lead of our noble, impartial press and espousing the clear benefits of leaving the EU, like getting more blue passports and less brown people.

“The sooner these places are shut down the better.”



But not to worry, Lord Buckethead is on the case:





Now, tell me, how would Brexiteers feel if the Daily Mail was running pictures of Farage and the people who voted for him, labelling them 'traitors'? You'd be a bit worried, right?

I get what you are saying, it smacks of totalitarianism. It really does.
There is already another form of totalitarianism in play though, the pro EU people teaching in Umiversities, writing their OP EDs, editing the news and so on trying to push a narrative to allow the will of the people to not just be ignored, but overturned, this kind of thing is just a natural consequence of one side seeing the other as completely without merit or justification.

Perhaps if remainers hadn't been so insulting, so underhanded, unfair and condescending then there would be no appetite for this kind of action at all.

a reply to: Painterz

Thank God for Lord Bucketehead though - at least SOMEONE has some sense!

That's a really broken mailing system that it takes 7 days to get from one part of a tiny island to another.

a reply to: Painterz

I voted leave, and I totally disagree with the compilation of any such list, for any reason, by any appendage or personages involved with, reporting to, or in any kind of love with the British government.

This behaviour is deeply suspicious, and ought to result in an immediate investigation into the MP in question. The member for Daventry has overstepped his reach here, in rather a significant fashion. Regardless of what Remain voters have done, how they have behaved toward those who voted out of the EU, there can be no justification for this, and while I respect the position that SprocketUK has taken on the matter, saying that the appetite for this nonsense would be less, if there had not been so much vitriol, I have to disagree with that position.

Noble, decent people, cannot be induced to do ignoble and indecent things by provocation, by being placed under hardship or bad press. Noble and decent people do not have any justification for permitting themselves to gain an appetite for any totalitarian behaviour on anyones part, leave alone a government or a member of a parliament, which has caused this country so much hardship, enforced ideologically driven austerity on the population, despite having a billion or so handy to offload on the religious radical fundamentalists, of the DUP, just to prop up their wizened, decrepit government (a billion pounds I might add, which have been demonstrably poorly spent, given the fact that the DUP, for all that they are scum, have at least allowed their better natures to come to the fore in many of the parliamentary votes which the Tories would have liked to have their support in, and voted with the Labour Party instead, much to the embarrassment of the Conservatives).

a reply to: TrueBrit

I wasn't defending it, merely pointing out that the massive con job by those who would rule us has pretty much fractured our society to the point of us all being enemies and thus generally not imposing rules of civilised behaviour upon ourselves.



There will be more of this, hell, my wife and two of her teacher mates can't openly admit they voted to leave in the staff room because of the cr@p that comes the other at from the brainwashed.

It definitely isn't a one way street.

My god, that is a very scary precedent to set isnt it?

The will of the people isnt what the people in power want, so lets find out who they are. Im sure that sort of thing happens here in the US to an extent.

Just want you to know there are a lot of us here in the US that are watching whats going on in your country too, we are sister countries!

We seem to be going through the same situations, at varying degrees, I wonder how long this will continue before something unfortunate happens.

a reply to: SprocketUK

I agree with that sentiment.

I think its a very stupid con, because we will, by way of it, be able to focus all our ire in future, on the governance of this country exclusively, rather than having any bucks, stopping anywhere, other than there. Not only will our government be unable to use the EU as an excuse for every other thing, but the people will have no direction to aim their protests in, but the proper one. Very fitting, that these entitled classists will be hoisting themselves with this particular petard.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Hope you are right. I was reading Tom Paine again the other day, he'd be locked up now cos this lot would make him even angrier, I think.

What am I missing here?

I mean, is it because he is a Tory, or Leave MP, that there is such a fuss over this? Would we have the same fuss if he was Labour or remain?

What if, as an MP, he just wanted to get a flavour of the opinions regarding Brexit, within universities and the student body?

I just don't understand the outrage.

ETA - I suppose the fact that he has asked specifically for names is kind of insidious to be fair.

a reply to: SprocketUK

I fear you are probably right.

I think a large sum of his anger, would be consolidated around the point that we, as societies, have had hundreds more years to consider history, than his peers had back in the day, and still we seem on a societal basis, to have learned none of the essential lessons which the past teaches us about the importance of liberty, the shape and state of law, the purpose of law and the notion of justice.

Another portion of his anger would probably be aimed toward those who, despite knowing the ills that affect society and who most benefits from and propagates them, do nothing to combat them, even to save their own skin, leave alone the future of the country.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Quite. And you can cut some slack for a society just crawling out from the rule of a tyrant or other form of monarch. Much less so though when that society espouses democracy and representation while seeking to deny such to the people.

a reply to: Dem0nc1eaner

Uh, yes, we would have the same fuss if the situations were somehow reversed. In fact, when the New Labour, centre right government was still in power, there was a massive protest against tuition fees, which, under pressure from the police, became a riot. That incident involved a great deal of professors, teachers, and students, as well as groups representing these groups of people, being added to several different lists, held by several different branches of the bloody security services, no less!

It was a bloody travesty, all the more so because the only people who opposed the student body at the time were the entitled clods who had already had a free university education, and were sitting pretty on six figure salaries, having done virtually no actual graft to get them.

a reply to: SprocketUK

Precisely.

That is the very crux of the issue. Governments, successive British governments have touted freedom and democracy to the rest of the world, at the point of a gun or worse often enough, that to even GLANCE toward the slightest compression, repression or oppression of resistance to a governments agenda, SHOULD result in that government being dethroned and its advocacy burned on a pyre for their insolence.

Freedom for the people, means the government must be their hostage, not their jailer.

But this is in no way demanding anything is it? I'm sure the gov would have there way of getting this info if they were compiling a list.

To me it read more like research and that's also what he has said it was for. He is just asking for names and opinions, shouldn't we want MP's to be interested in the opinions of the people?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Dem0nc1eaner

Uh, yes, we would have the same fuss if the situations were somehow reversed. In fact, when the New Labour, centre right government was still in power, there was a massive protest against tuition fees, which, under pressure from the police, became a riot. That incident involved a great deal of professors, teachers, and students, as well as groups representing these groups of people, being added to several different lists, held by several different branches of the bloody security services, no less!

It was a bloody travesty, all the more so because the only people who opposed the student body at the time were the entitled clods who had already had a free university education, and were sitting pretty on six figure salaries, having done virtually no actual graft to get them.

Well I would agree that compiling lists of "dissidents" in such clandastine manner is appalling, but how is that anything like this situation? He is asking for voluntarily provided information

All we are seeing here is what has always been going on, but we are surprised by it. Let's grow up a bit and realize we have all been living in fantasy land. It makes me laugh really, we just don't want to believe that the I spy game has been going on. What is worse is it has been going on in all levels of society.a reply to: Painterz

a reply to: Dem0nc1eaner

First of all, this is exactly how a member of parliament demands something. They do it politely, in the form of a request, because it is understood by persons of a certain calibre, that when one receives such a "request" it is to be expedited with all possible haste, and to the most exacting of standards of completeness and comprehensiveness, and is, in fact, a demand, not a request.

The government, of course, do have ways and means of getting information, but in order to use those means, like the security services for example, they normally have to have some sort of investigation running, and convince the security service heads that the work needs to be done (because, obviously, those folk are rather busy with other, pre-existing matters, which put pressure on their working time somewhat, interruptions of which, require certain justifications).

And one persons research, by the way, is another persons hit list. We should want MPs to be interested in the opinions of the people... of their constituency. In case this is not clear, Worcester University is not in Daventry, nor is it within the constituency of Daventry. Worcester itself, is a constituency of its own, with its very own MP, who would STILL be out of bounds in asking the question. The Education Minister is the only parliamentary figure, who ought to be "requesting" information from university VCs, about the material taught on the grounds of the University, and even then, only to assure that students are getting their moneys worth out of the system, not to make certain that the agenda the minister might have, is echoed in the education being received by the pupils.

You dont go to school/collage/university to be educated on your teachers/lectures personal beliefs be it political or religious.
This list would expose those who are trying to push there personal beliefs onto there students when they should be be teaching them the set curriculum.

originally posted by: Dem0nc1eaner
But this is in no way demanding anything is it? I'm sure the gov would have there way of getting this info if they were compiling a list.

To me it read more like research and that's also what he has said it was for. He is just asking for names and opinions, shouldn't we want MP's to be interested in the opinions of the people?

If he was after that he'd read one of the many opinion polls and research that has been already published and is freely available on the matter. This is a blatant attempt to break the law and integrity of education.

Having exposed a few hundred millions in illegal laundering/overseas developments/wmd proliferation by the Uni I used to work for and having written for Times Higher/BBC on the issue, UK University management is incredibly corrupt, does not work in the interests of staff, students or the pursuit of knowledge or research.

They're run as a business first. The government have slashed funding, Brexit has robbed extra billions. The mealy worded letter seeking to break privacy law, integrity of course material for no reason (other than the obvious to be used as a hit piece/try and enforce some government mandate on HE course content).