Bartholomew's Notes

From the Evening Standard, a week ago:

Farmers will stage another tractor protest outside Parliament on Monday as they continue their campaign against changes to inheritance tax rules.

The tractor rally, organised by Save British Farming, comes as MPs debate an e-petition with more than 148,000 signatures calling to keep the current inheritance tax exemptions for working farms.

…Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is expected to address farmers making a pit stop on their way into London on Monday morning.

That “pit stop” was actually a distinct event called “Battle for Britain”; DeSmog has further details:

Monday’s event, which preceded over a thousand tractors descending on Westminster, was organised by the anti-vax campaign group Together Declaration and the protest organisation Farmers To Action.

Set up in 2021 to oppose mandatory Covid-19 protection measures, such as lockdowns and vaccines, the Together Declaration has since launched a “no to net zero” campaign that calls for the UK to scrap policies designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Together has also campaigned against London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone scheme, and low traffic neighbourhood schemes across the country designed to combat air pollution.

The group has recently partnered with Farmers To Action, which has used recent anti-inheritance tax campaigns to spread anti-climate views.

The leader of Farmers to Action, Justin Rogers, has spread conspiracy theories across his social media accounts. He has claimed that “climate change is one of the biggest scams that has ever been told”, propagated by “our governments and their puppet masters.”

Rogers has also claimed that oil and gas are renewable, and that carbon dioxide cannot be dangerous because it “feeds plants”.

On Twitter/X, Rogers is known as “The F in Farmer”, and his most recent post exhorts readers to “wake up” to what another poster describes as “hidden plans for a Govt Terror attack to intentionally release Foot & Mouth Disease once again”. He has also affirmed his “100%” “Anti-Zionism” (H/T @_johnbye) in reply to a user who denies anti-semitic intent but who posts claims such as “zionist Jews ran every aspect of the covid ‘pandemic’.”

The “Battle for Britain” event was heavily branded with black Together Declaration placards bearing the message “WITH OUR FARMERS”, flanked by two QR codes; an oversized version of the placard also formed the backdrop to the stage, from which Farage reportedly told the crowd that the government wants to take over farmland “because they’re planning for another five million people to come into the country”.

After the various speeches (1), the tractors made their way to Westminster to join the main protest – the Daily Express, slightly confused, saw this as part of the “Battle for Britain” rather than as a distinct event. However, not everyone was happy with the Together Declaration’s high visibility (although the group’s placards also appeared at earlier protests): conspiracy influencer James Melville of No Farmers No Food (noted for its own bright yellow placards) took to Twitter/X (H/T @_johnbye):

All I care about is the best interests of farmers. I will burn every fucking bridge against any manipulative fucker who seeks to manipulate this horrendous situation for farmers for their own means.

I saw first hand the horrendous difficulties that farmers face within my own family farm. For decades. It’s difficult to fully express how difficult it was. No money. No security. No time off. And all of this was done for the sole purpose of feeding a nation and a love of the land.

I will absolutely not accept have a bunch of non farming politico and campaign group grifters exploiting the perils of farmers for nefarious agendas that include slapping on QR codes at protests to drive folk to sign up as paid members

Curiously, however, Melville is also himself involved with #together, as a member of the group’s “cabinet”. When John Bye asked him whether he would be resigning he got a block, but Melville then also deleted the post.

I previously noted conspiracist involvement with farmers’ protests here.

Note

1. According to a flyer, the line-up comprised “Nigel Farage, Justin Rogers, Alan Miller, June Mummery, Liam Halligan, Fred Roberts, Adam Brooks, Phil Barnes, Tess Wheldon, Matt Hellyer, David Irwin, Rhianna Deeble, Darren Selkus, Marc Harvey”.

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From Mary Dejevsky at the Spectator:

Let me put my own cards on the table. I have no view on, or sense of, Letby’s innocence or guilt. I was not in the courtroom; I followed the case through media reports. As an ingrained sceptic and questioner of conventional wisdom, however, I am wary of the cast-iron certainties that marked this case, and the circumstantial nature of the evidence. It seemed to me that a consensus had been formed early on about Letby and her guilt that would have been very difficult for any trial to dislodge.

Most people like to regard themselves as sceptical and critically minded when it comes to “conventional wisdom”, although in some cases this is more likely to express itself as kneejerk rejectionism and conspiracism rather than genuine engagement with the details of some issue. But in the case of Lucy Letby, the “consensus” position since the trial tends more towards the view that her conviction is at the very least unsafe, as expressed in articles in sources ranging from the Guardian to the Telegraph; the Mail on Sunday even recently ran a front-page splash headlined “Police File Raises New Doubt Over Letby Guilt”.

In the past, journalists and campaigners who argued that someone convicted of some particuarly terrible crime might in fact be innocent would be met with a barrage of hostily, with accusations that they were morally defective and heedless of distress caused to the relatives of victims. Here, though, it seems more stigmatising to express confidence in the verdict, with calls for a book called Unmasking Lucy Letby to be withdrawn for sale. This reflects the general mood of Britain in 2025, not least with the Post Office scandal still very fresh in people’s minds. (1)

Meanwhile, articles supportive of the conviction can be found on the contrarian website Spiked!: there is a long article by the IEA’s Christopher Snowdon, which has been followed with a piece by Luke Gittos; both take a critical view of the recent press conference in Parliament, in which a panel of medical experts presented arguments that the conviction is unsafe (Snowden: “It is much easier to present a hypothesis at a press conference in a hotel in front of Peter Hitchens and Nadine Dorries than it is to be cross-examined in a court of law”).

Less polemical but still analytical assessments of the press conference can meanwhile be found from David James Smith the Independent and from Liz Hull in the Daily Mail (with a headline that overeggs her “DAMNING VERDICT”). On social media, the issues are being discussed critically by Dr Susan Oliver (who has also done a lot of work debunking anti-vax disinformation) and Deb Roberts.

Tortoise Media ran a piece on the case last September; on Twitter/X, Tortoise’s Ceri Thomas described the reaction to the conviction as “fascinating”, and asked whether “a trial which could have been run better (and left room for worries about its fairness) nevertheless delivered the right verdict?”

Note

1. The conspiracy milieu, of course, is certan of Letby’s innocence, but it frames itself in opposition to the media despite the slew of mainstream articles expressing doubts about the conviction. One example here is that of Dan Wootton, who writes that “If you have only followed the MSM on the case of nurse Lucy Letby and believe the narrative that somehow this beautiful blonde young woman turned into an angel of death, despite having no motive and there being no evidence of her murdering any baby, then please listen to me now”. The suggestion that Letby’s physical appearance has evidential value is probably just a troll, but it’s a particualrly grotesque and contemptible one.

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From the Daily Express:

Sky News uproar as star ‘tells producers to cut audio’ during Southport interview

Sky News’ Sarah-Jane Mee sparked outrage after she was caught ordering her producer to cut a conversation as she reported live outside Liverpool Crown Court.

Sky News presenter Sarah-Jane Mee has sparked controversy after being caught telling her producer to cut her audio as she interviewed a guest outside the Southport murder trial.

A clip is circulating on social media which shows Sarah-Jane Mee off camera, listening to a guest who blamed the police and government Prevent programme for failing to stop Axel Rudakubana before the Southport murders.

The camera then cut back to Sarah-Jane as she made a cut gesture across her neck, before rolling her eyes with exasperation as she realised she was on air.

Sky News have seen clarified that earlier in the programme, Sarah-Jane explained that her mic was live and she was signalling to the gallery to cut her audio so her mic wouldn’t interfere with the interview, before she was accidently shown on screen, rather than ordering her producer to cut the interview.

That last paragraph is poorly written, but it gets the point across and shows up the headline as misleading. “Cut audio” refers to her own mic rather than to the interviewee’s, and she did not “cut a conversation”. Here’s what she says immediately after the social media clip:

Sorry Nazir, I was just asking for my mic to be cut because I can’t actually hear what you’re saying. We’ve got a slight technical difficulty. So, I’m going to ask you another question, I know you can hear me.

The interview then continues. Don’t take my word for it: Sky News has uploaded its coverage for the entire day to YouTube here, and the relevant segment can be seen at 10.17:15 (I’ve also uploaded it here). It didn’t take long to find: one version of the social media clip included the on-screen caption for the segment (1), meaning it was easy to skim along the YouTube progress bar to find the right place without trawling through hours of material (it was also dark at the time of the interview, indicating it would be near the end). Mee had actually worked conscientiously throughout a gruelling day during which at times she became tearful due to the distressing details of the attacks on children.

We know that the Express hack didn’t bother to check the source, because she refers only to a “guest”: the short clip was heavily cropped, meaning that it wasn’t possible to see that the right side of the screen showed that she was interviewing the high-profile former CPS prosecutor Nazir Afzal. Instead, the Express focused on examples of the contrived “outrage” culled from Twitter/X, all saying much the same thing (links added):

Connor Tomlinson penned: “Sarah Jane signals to cut the feed as a guest blames the police and government Prevent programme for failing to stop Axel Rudakubana before the Southport murders. Sky News are containment agents. They silence this, to tell you ‘Diversity is our strength.'”

…Rael Braverman agreed: “Sky News’s Sarah Jane was caught signaling to cut an interview the moment it exposed the authorities’ incompetence in the Axel Rudakubana affair. It’s not surprising anymore, just another day in the life of a media that can’t handle the truth.”

Rael Braverman, of course, is the husband of the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman – he joined Nigel Farage’s Reform amid some fanfare last month. The Express also quotes Chris Rose and Matt Gubba, but there were many others promoting the same misleading clip: Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton (of course), David Atherton, Nile Gardiner and Visegrád24; and internationally the likes of Ian Miles Cheong. Between them, they have racked up millions of views.

The “censorship” interpretation of the clip never made any sense: the onscreen caption says “Why were the warnings missed?” and this was something that Keir Starmer had spoken about previously in some detail. Why have such a segment, if the subject is to be suppressed? However, a bogus “cover up” narrative about Southport has gained momentum despite the lack of any coherent case, and many people would rather look for confirmatory signs, no matter how implausible, than reconsider whether they are less clever than high-profile charlatans make them feel. And those who have responded to the posts by expressing anger against Mee (in some cases descending into crude abuse) won’t want to face what the real context means for their self-image.

More broadly, it’s not exactly news that social media is awash with false claims and misleading clips that people share in a spirit of self-righteous outrage without checking or later correcting. Social media influencers and commentators are often superspreaders: anything that might resonate with their followers is grist to the mill; their own information streams are corrupted with trash, which they pick from without discernment; and I suspect many of them primarily use phones and tablets, which are more fiddly when it comes to doing research and sifting through sources than a desktop computer, even if they were ever minded to do a bit of due diligence before sounding off.

Note

1. There are two versions of the misleading clip: one is 12 seconds long and shows half the TV screen; the other is just one second long and is a close-up that crops out the Sky News caption and which added accusatory text.

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From a statement by Reform leader Nigel Farage MP:

Reform UK are today calling for the Director of Public Prosecutions at the CPS to resign.

The judge made clear in his sentencing that Axel Rudakubana had a detailed interest in genocides and massacres and that he was in possession of an Al-Qaeda manual.

This barbaric and senseless attack was clearly both political and ideological.

Many crimes of much less severity have been declared as terrorism within 24 hours of the incident taking place.

The British public needs to have confidence in the CPS and our police forces. Tens of millions of British citizens will find it incomprehensible how the CPS decided this was a non terror incident and maintained that position.

The word “clearly” there is intended to convey a sense that the point is so obvious that it doesn’t need spelling out, and that anyone expressing doubt is either colluding in a “cover up” or else foolish. As such, he doesn’t bother even to acknowledge what the judge actually said on this point:

Justice Goose confirmed the offences did not reach the legal definition of terrorism because he did not kill to further a political, religious or ideological cause.

However, he told the packed courtroom that whether the “motivation was terrorism or not misses the point”.

“What he did on 29 July last year has caused such shock and revulsion to the whole nation, that it must be viewed as being at the extreme level of crime”, the judge said.

“His culpability, and the harm he caused and intended, were at the highest.”

Farage’s implicit argument is that the Al-Qaeda manual explains everything, while evidence pointing elsewhere is irrelevant. He infers nothing from the the very obvious problem that the killer did not refer to Islam either when he was arrested (1) or when he appeared in court, or the from fact that there were no signs out outward Muslim identity (I recall prejudicial speculation online that in earlier hearings he had hidden his face to obscure a beard). There certainly are “mixed motive” terrorists, in which someone identifies with a cause to give their violent urges some spurious grandiosity, but this particular massacre has much more in common with the psychopathic actions of US school shooters.

According to the Guardian:

Police believe he may have copied the stabbing methods he used in the Southport attack from an al-Qaida training manual he admitted possessing. He is also believed to have used it to attempt to make ricin.

The above suggests that he consulted the manual as a “how to” guide rather than for ideological instruction.

It is notable that Farage does not reference Islam directly, despite dropping heavy hints. This fits a pattern of hedging: in July he referred to “reports” suggesting that the killer was being “monitored by the security services”, which gave spurious credibility to the internet rumour that the killer was an asylum seeker who was on an “MI6 watchlist” without investing his credibility in the claim (there were no “reports”, just a couple of news scraper sites that had churned Bernie Spofforth’s Tweet into a story). Then in November he said that “I know a hell of a lot more than the British public know” and that “We are witnessing one of the biggest cover ups we’ve ever seen in our lives” – whatever he meant by this, the effect was to give fuel to another bogus online rumour, that the killer’s father was a Rwandan war criminal who had been settled in the UK with the personal assistance of Keir Starmer (why the family would have kept their original name was not explained). After Rudakubana pleaded guilty, Farage’s underwhelming big reveal was that he had known before the public that the killer had been excluded from school for bringing in a knife.

Elsewhere, however, “radicalised by al-Qaeda” is the explicit narrative, promoted by the likes of Farage’s former Reform associate Ben Habib (in conversation with Jeremy Kyle on Talk TV) and by Dan Wootton. Apparently Tommy Robinson has told Wootton from inside Belmarsh Prison that Rudakubana attends Islamic prayers, and Wootton also claims that the attacks were attempted beheadings. According to the judge a pathologist thought that in one case the injuries suggested an attempt (2), but Wootton’s claim is an extrapolation that does not take into account the generalised stabbing spree that occurred. Wootton also claims to have seen messages between Rudakubana and former classmates, but he doesn’t provide any information from them that might support a “radicalisation” thesis.

Also on board is Douglas Murray, who made a video statement claiming that the trial had been “pre-emptively” halted by the killer’s guilty plea. Murray’s lack of care for details (seen before) was typified by his misidentifcation of Rudakubana as “the son of Nigerian immigrants to the UK” (a significant error given that half of Nigeria’s population is Muslim, compared to a very small minority in Rwanda).

Alongside this is a more generalised cover-up narrative, based on reporting restrictions that applied before the killer turned 18 years old and then before the trial. In response to the false claim that the killer was an asylum seeker who had arrived last year, the police made a statement in early August that he had been born in Wales – accusers claim that this deliberately misrepresented him as a “Welshman”, or as a “Welsh choirboy”. Previous instances where a terrorist context was self-evident and described as such are presented as proof that things could and should have been done differently; there is also an incoherent claim that details were suppressed that somehow exonerate rioters who targeted mosques and asylum seekers. A grotesque and trivialising cartoon posted online shows Starmer as Rudakubana, wearing a jumper that is pulled up partially over his face. The issues around the legal restrictions are discussed by Joshua Rozenberg here and by Dan Hodges in the Daily Mail here.

Notes

1. Since the summer a screenshot of a WhatApp message has been circulated on Twitter/X, in which an unnamed “retired bissy [police officer] in Formby” supposedly claims to have information that Rudakubana had “been radicalized recently” and on arrest had said “Ive done what Allah wanted , please don’t hurt me”. This anonymous claim is not reflected in what has now been reported:

Deanna Heer KC, leading the prosecution, now says…There is no evidence that he ascribed to any particular political or religious ideology – he wasn’t fighting for a cause.

…While under arrest at the police station after the incident, Rudakubana was heard to say: “It’s a good thing those children are dead… I’m so glad… so happy.”

2. That detail from the judge was noted on Twitter/X by GB News, although their on-the-ground reporter Mark White said that they had taken the decision “not to go into a great deal of detail about exactly what this man did inside that building” – Wootton, who was previously fired by the channel, sneered that “GB News joins the Southport Massacre cover up”. In fact White, who later choked up during a live segment, was respecting the wishes of the victims’ families. Wootton also found time to abuse the presenters of the News Agents podcast for not having done a show about Southport, taking his lead from Mike Graham (the podcast for that day was entitled “Has Prince Harry had the last laugh over Rupert Murdoch?”, which was a reference to Graham’s employer).

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From a recent Times TV review (as quoted by Broadcast):

Naturally, even before Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal aired, there were people on Twitter/X accusing C4 of focusing on this rare and terrible case of a young woman who fabricated abuse claims rather than the victims of the many very real crimes in Rochdale, Oldham and elsewhere. You can understand the thinking, but the truth is this three-part documentary was executed with professionalism and skill, and demonstrated the virtues of closely examining the whole story, while also showing the real danger of online vigilantism.

The three-part documentary, made for Channel 4 by Expectation TV, can be watched in the UK here. It concerns the high-profile case of Ellie Williams, a resident of Barrow-on-Furness whose conviction for perverting the course of justice at the start of 2023 was based on overwhelming evidence.

On Twitter/X, prominent denunciations came from Dan Wootton, who said that it “tells you everything you need to know about the UK’s corrupt state-owned broadcast media” and from GB News panellist Adam Brooks, who described Channel 4 as “filth” in a post pitched at Elon Musk. Brooks said that the documentary ought to have been pulled “for now”, doubtless referring to the current climate, but it’s unclear when he thinks there would be a more appropriate time. Given the lack of any actual critique, the objections were simply calls for censorship and for the victims of false accusations to be kept off-air for some supposed greater good.

Meanwhile, the Daily Express ran an article headlined “Channel 4 sparks Ofcom fury over ‘offensive’ grooming gang series after inquiry” – one might interpret “Ofcom fury” to mean that the broadcast regulator had issued some kind of censure, but the text clarifies that the phrase refers to public compaints to Ofcom rather than any Ofcom finding:

Channel 4’s latest documentary, Accused: The Fake Grooming Gang Scandal, has sparked 66 complaints to Ofcom following its broadcast on January 7.

…Ofcom confirmed viewers were left infuriated by the program’s timing and as they claimed the content were offensive to victims of genuine grooming gangs.

However, the paper did not go so far as to endorse the objections, instead quoting the positive Times review and noting that “the inclusion of a harrowing interview with Rochdale abuse survivor Nathalie underscored the seriousness of genuine crimes”.

Objections that the documentary is disproportionate attention compared to real grooming gangs is also poorly grounded: as with Carl Beech, it is natural that high-profile false allegations should receive a correspondingly high-profile media reaction when they fall apart.

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From disgraced former MP Andrew Bridgen, in interview with William Coleshill of “GB Resistance”:

I passed details of people who are engaged in child trafficking into the UK. Names, names of all those. Nobody wants to act about it. It’s big, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds… They’re flying them in to small airports that haven’t got fences round them. Lots of them in the UK. I gave the government the names of the  people, and the name of the company they’re laundering the money through, where the children are being taken to have their photographs taken. They thought they were going to go to school. These were for selling them to paedophiles. Nothing. It’s gone to MI5, it’s gone to the National Crime Agency, no-one will act. And when you see the names, you see why. They are known names. I’m told that they use them in the sex trade for about three years and then they’re worn out and then they organ harvest them.

This is par for the course from Bridgen, who has a history of making extravagant claims that are never backed up with evidence or even plausible details. Back in January 2023, for instance, he asserted that “people who’ve recently left security services around the world” had told him that they had been warned in September 2019 that Covid was going happen, and they should avoid the vaccine – that one was reported in The Times, although there was less media interest when two months later he followed up with social media posts in which he claimed to have been “informed that the US DoD were responsible for both the virus and the vaccines” and that “many politicians and officials” would be facing criminal proceedings “by the end of the month”.

Just before losing his seat in the July 2024 general election (which he has attributed to the result being “rigged” rather than the fact that he ran as a discredited independent rather than as the official Conservative Party candidate, as previously) he claimed that “intelligence sources” had told him that NATO would be waging war in eastern Europe within “days or weeks”; his assertion was amplified by US nepo-baby politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who cited it as evidence that “The White House seems to be on autopilot heading for a hot war with Russia”.

Bridgen’s interview with Coleshill has also now received an American boost – this time from Alex Jones, who currently remains at the helm at InfoWars despite the Sandy Hook defamation judgment. The interview clip had been circulating since the summer (passed around social media by the likes of David Atherton), but a recent re-upload by Jones with added commentary has brought in more than 20 million extra views so far.

It seems likely that renewed interest in the clip owes something to Elon Musk’s recent campaign of vilification against British Labour Party politicians. Musk’s intervention was welcomed by the Conservative Party, but Kemi Bedenoch’s strategic deployment of the grooming-gang “cover-up” smear (even adding a wrecking “reasoned amendment” to the second reading of the Children’s Welbeing Bill so that she could afterwards say that Labour had voted against a national inquiry) was always going to unleash new waves of conspiracising. However, given that Jones has also claimed from “British sources” that young girls were murdered in the presence of former Conservative PM Edward Heath (inevitably, procured for him by Jimmy Savile), this perhaps isn’t something they can keep control over.

UPDATE: The Bridgen interview clip has also now been promoted by Dan Wootton (uploaded via a “VIP paedophile” conspiracist, whose Twitter/X username is shown at one point), who complains that there was “total silence” from the media about it. Wootton also cites a number of old media reports about Labour councillors and workers being convicted for child sex-related offences as evidence that the media covers up such crimes and that Labour is “a party of paedophiles”, and he alleges that this explains the lack of a national inquiry.

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From the Independent:

Nigel Farage has launched a defence of Elon Musk’s incendiary social media attacks on Keir Starmer, claiming that “free speech is back” under the Tesla tycoon’s ownership of X (Twitter).

The Reform UK leader said that “tough things get said” in public life after Mr Musk described safeguarding minister Jess Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” who should be in jail.

Farage’s deputy Richard Tice adopted the same line on LBC, framing Musk’s accusation in terms of free speech and “the right to offend”, and accusing the interviewer of being “more worried about a bit of language than exposing the facts of what happened” as regards historic grooming gang cases.

As has been widely reported, Musk’s attack on Phillips came in the wake of news that she had previously written to the chief executive of Oldham Council to convey the government position that a local inquiry into grooming gangs would have more legitimacy than a national one. Her letter was apparently sent at the end of October, and was published online as page 203 of a “public reports pack” for an Oldham Council meeting for 18 December here. (1)

GB News reported her response under the headline “Labour REJECTS Oldham’s call for Government inquiry into grooming gangs scandal” on 1 January; the channel’s Twitter/X post was then amplified by Liz Truss, with the added commentary

This is @jessphillips, the same Home Office Minister who excused masked Islamist thugs.

Her title “Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls” is a perversion of the English language.

It’s clear whose side she is on.

One of Musk’s initial comments that Phillips ought to be in prison was posted in response to that, while his “rape apologist” accusation was a reaction to a post by a user calling himself “Lord Talbot”. (2)

In fact, Phillips’s letter was consistent with the position of that of the previous government, and as such is quite explicable without resorting to the allegation that she supports sex criminals of any kind.

The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, saw scope for a different line of attack, as expressed in the headline “Labour blocks grooming gang inquiry into Starmer’s conduct as CPS head”. This morphing of the proposed inquiry’s purpose extrapolates from a comment by shadow home secretary Chris Philp, that “the conduct of the Crown Prosecution Service, including during the time when Keir Starmer was the director of public prosecutions, would be one of the things that this inquiry should certainly be looking at”. The article was complemented by second piece, headlined “How Starmer was forced to admit CPS let down child victims of grooming gangs”, which raked over comments by Starmer reported by Andrew Norfolk at The Times in 2012.

The Telegraph also followed up with a piece titled “Starmer ‘guilty as anyone I know’, says grooming gang whistleblower”, which refers to an off-the-cuff Twitter/X post by Maggie Oliver. Her post also formed the basis for a Daily Mail front-page splash. However, Telegraph includes a fuller quote, including the folllowing:

Those leading these ‘enquiries’ have always wanted to cover up the truth, to hide it. And I’d say it’s become even worse in recent months with those who dare to speak out finding themselves in prison within a couple of days… when victims wait 6/7/8 years for a trial! Corrupt and just wrong.

One can see why the Mail left that bit out, and why the Telegraph fails to unpack its significance as an extraordinary attack on the integrity of Alexis Jay and the work of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham. Oliver’s moral authority as a “whistleblower” tends to put her above criticism, but there is reason to be sceptical of her judgement here and on other matters (for instance, her one-time association with Jon Wedger, and more recently her endorsement of Covid-vaccine misinformation spreader Aseem Malhotra).

The GB News article about Phillips’ letter to Oldham council happened to coincide with the viral circulation on Twitter/X of a screenshot of sentencing remarks from the Oxford grooming sex case in 2013, which describe in grim detail sadistic sex abuse inflicted on a girl under the age of 13.

Notes

1. UPDATE: Background to to the request from Oldam council is provided by Joshi Herrmann at The Mill here. Herrmann notes the role of a local activist named Raja Miah, who turned to the subject after the local council drew attention to “major failings” in two schools he had run. Miah has accused an “assurance review” covering Oldham of being a cover-up, and suggested that politicians may have been personally involved in sex offences. He also claims to have a dossier, but when asked to produce it set unreasonable conditions. However:

The 2024 local election was coming into view and after Miah’s campaigning had helped to unseat three council leaders already, some councillors were panicking. Many insiders saw no merit in the calls for another inquiry but felt the pressure was becoming unbearable. Officers who worked for the council were getting threats – one says she was told via email by one of Miah’s followers that she was a child rape apologist and wasn’t fit to have kids…

…When [Labour leader Arooj] Shah’s party lost control of the council last year, she needed the support of some of the independents to get things done. And that support came with a price: backing the call for a new public inquiry. It was that request to the government, made last year, that was rejected recently by the safeguarding minister Phillips, setting off the current controversy.

2. Truss’s reference to “masked Islamist thugs” alludes to an incident in August, when Sky News abandoned a live report from Birmingham about local Muslims forming a protective ring around a mosque over rumours that it would be targeted following the Southport killings. As reported by the Telegraph:

In a clip shared online, a man sped up on a motorbike behind the Sky News presenter Becky Johnson…

The man shouted “yo, free Palestine, f— the EDL” before three others approached the camera, prompting Sky News to cut away and send security to the reporter.

Tice cited the clip as evidence of “two-tier policing”, prompting Phillips to reply that “These people came to this location because it has been spread that racists were coming to attack them”. Phillips was accused of “excusing masked thugs”, and she subsequently admitted that she had made a mistake. The rumours about “racists coming to attack” derived from a far-right target list of 39 locations that had been posted online anonymously [UPDATE: the creator of the list has been identified as one Andrew McIntyre, a far-right activist who has been sentenced to seven and half years for encouraging violent disorder]

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From London Economic:

In leaked messages seen exclusively by The London Economic, Robert Jenrick has said he is a “great admirer” of Inevitable West, a far-right X account with over 120,000 followers.

The shadow justice secretary also said he agrees with the account on “what needs to happen”.

In leaked messages, Mr Jenrick said: “I am a great admirer of your tweets. You are right to hold me to account, like any politician. I think we agree however on what needs to happen.”

Inevitable West replied: “I have deleted the comment. I’m glad we’re on the same terms. I still don’t believe you have any credibility while being in the Tory party.”

A follow-up article has critical comment from Zara Mohammed of the Muslim Council of Britain and from Labour MP Oliver Ryan, with the added detail that “the Muslim Council of Britain is submitting an official complaint to the Conservative Party regarding Mr Jenrick’s conduct”. I previously noted the nature of Inevitable West here; Jenrick’s “admiration” is discreditable and shows either lack of discernment or cynicism.

The story has not spread to mainstream media, perhaps due to wariness about authenticity. London Economic‘s screenshot shows what appear to be the messages as received by Inevitable West as DMs, but an alleged leak from an anonymous account with a history of spreading disinformation requires caution. However, we’re told that “Jenrick’s spokesperson has declined to comment”, and it is reasonable to draw the inference that the messages are genuine. Inevitable West recently promoted rumours that Jenrick “is on the verge of joining Reform UK”, and the account owner perhaps thought that leaking the messages would work towards bringing this about.

Last month, Jenrick came close to becoming the leader of the Conservative Party, and he may yet achieve his goal should Kemi Badenoch falter – his campaign was endorsed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, who in turn is involved with Lord Cruddas’s Conservative Democratic Organisation.

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An early complaint as the first reports appeared about a murderous attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg was that headlines referred to “car driven into crowd” or “car drives into crowd”.  A collage of such headlines posted to Twitter/X was amplifed by Elon Musk as evidence of why “you don’t hate the lying legacy media enough”, while J.D. Vance asked pointedly “Who was driving the car?”. The inference was that the media was obscuring the identity of the attacker and downplaying the nature of what had happened. (1)

Such objections might have validity in some contexts, but not when news is breaking and details remain unconfirmed. As verified information has emerged numerous profiles of the suspect have been published, as well as headlines that give his name and/or his status as a “Saudi refugee” living in Germany. The suspicion is that Musk and Vance assumed that the attack was as an example “Islamic terrorism” and wanted to see headlines that reflected that. However, media caution was vindicated when it was discovered that suspect had a long history as an anti-Islam atheist. As reported by the Telegraph:

The man suspected of driving a car into a Christmas market in Germany is an exiled Saudi doctor who praised far-Right politicians for combating the “Islamisation” of Europe and pledged to take “revenge” for the “harassment” of female refugees.

…In a five-minute audio message posted online shortly before the terror attack, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen said he held the German nation responsible for crimes including the killing of Socrates in Athens in 399 BC.

He went on to compare socialism and liberalism and accused the German authorities of stealing a USB stick from his post box.

Signing off the message on his X, formerly Twitter, account, Abdulmohsen said he held “the Germans responsible for what I am facing”.

…He also voiced support for Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson and Alternative for Germany, the far-right anti-immigration party.

Al-Abdulmohsen had also recently expounded some of his views in an interview for an American organisation called the “RAIR Foundation”, and his activism feaured in a BBC report in 2019. This prior media exposure must have been frustrating for other activist ex-Muslims who had reportedly found him difficult or unstable.

It’s always distasteful when someone’s opinions or writings achieve prominence due to an act of violence, and there’s a risk that disturbed individuals will take away the message that killing is a way to achieve instant significance. However, unless the facts are established false narratives will take hold.

Relevant analysis has been posted online by an ex-Muslim named Ridvan Aydemir (here) and by an academic terrorism expert named Peter R. Neumann (here). Ayedmir addresses speculation that the explanation is that al-Abdulmohsen was secretly an Islamic extremist all along: it is not correct that al-Abdulmohsen shouted “Allahu Akbar” when he was arrested, while a comment he posted online that referred to Hamas “seems like a mocking response to someone who supports Hamas” (plus of course praising Hamas would hardly be consistent with an “undercover” identity). Neumann meanwhile suggests that the suspect fits the category of “mixed, unstable or unclear” ideology, an expression of “the growing gray area between political extremism and mental illness” (“die zunehmende Grauzone zwischen politischem Extremismus und psychischer Erkrankung”).

Despite this, though, some online commentators continue to assert not only that Al-Abdulmohsen is an Islamic terrorist, but that such an interpretation is so obvious that doubts or scepticism should be derided. Thus Graham Linehan mocks “the credulousness of the elite liberal class” that “cannot conceive that a man capable of ploughing a car into a crowd could be just as capable of lying about his intentions”, supporting his argument with commentary from conspiracist David Vance and a video from Mahyar Tousi titled “Sleeper Cells Exposed”. Such arguments, though, can be turned back on themselves: if an Islamic extremist could pose as an anti-Islam atheist, might not an anti-Islam atheist pose as an Islamic extremist? Both scenarios seem unlikely given the suspect’s erratic nature, although it can be noted that the attack has boosted the election prospects of the AfD, the party for which Al-Abdulmohsen has expressed support.

Musk himself has taken a different route, expressing the view that “the atheist angle was a scam to avoid extradition” for rape. This version was brought to his attention by Ian Miles Cheong (2), who in turn cited a Saudi commentator named Salman Al-Ansari. This may well be the case, but the distinction between self-interested grifters and true believers can often be difficult to discern and makes very little practical difference.

Note

1. The same thing happened just after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, when Musk alleged that breaking news headlines about “loud noises” at the rally were “pure propaganda”. Helen Lewis dissected Musk’s rhetoric in The Atlantic.

2. Musk’s amplifcation of Cheong is just one example of his polluted information stream. As a source, Cheong is consistently unreliable: a recent example can be seen here, where he commented on a video of an Australian fighter being physically abused by Russian captors in Ukraine. Cheong mocked the captive (reportedly named Oscar Jenkins), called him a “mercenary” when it is more reasonable to regard him as an idealist volunteer, and then gave an account of Russian dialogue in the clip that was completely at odds with a subtitled version.

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A sense of déjà vu at The Times:

How the UK became ‘western capital’ for sharia courts

Muslims are increasingly turning to Britain’s sharia courts, which are not part of UK law and operate as informal bodies

…The number of sharia courts, also known as councils, in Britain has grown to 85 since the first began operating in the country in 1982.

That figure of “85” appeared in a Daily Mail headline nine years ago, which tends to undermine the “increasingly turning” news hook. Either the number of sharia councils (actually the preferred term) has been static for a decade, or else the newspaper of record has simply recycled old information. If the latter, we might suspect that the true figure today is more than 85, but one wonders why The Times hasn’t bothered to look into it. It is also surprising that an article about the “how” of why there so many in the UK makes no mention of the Arbitration Act 1996, which opened the door to voluntary alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

The article is illustrated with an old photo of burka-clad extremist protestors holding banners stating “SHARIAH The solution for the East and the West”, followed by “Democracy go to Hell”. This crudely polemical choice out-Daily Mails the Daily Mail, which in 2015 at least used relevant photos of sharia councils in action.

After describing the UK as the “western capital” for sharia courts (although quotemarks are used, the description is not attributed to anyone), the paper explains that

An investigation by The Times also discovered that polygamy is so normalised that an app for Muslims in England and Wales tocreate Islamic wills has a drop-down menu for men to say how many wives they have. The app,approved by a sharia court, gives daughters half as much inheritance as sons.

“Discovered” in such a context has strong connotations of something hidden from view that has now been exposed, but here it really has no more import than “noticed”. The app is not named, but I quickly found what is billed as “The World’s First Islamic Inheritance App” on the website of a solicitor’s firm in Birmingham.

Much of what follows in the article is – like the “85” figure – a rehash of old information: a notoriously misogynistic 2009 quote from Haitham al-Haddad; criticisms from Sara Khan and Caroline Cox; and how the issue has previously been addressed in Parliament. Also:

Women described how men exploit religious texts to exert control over them. Hadiths, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, are quoted to insist wives must agree to have sex with their husbands and to claim that women’s minds are deficient.

One woman was distressed when an elder suggested she should enter into a religiously sanctioned “pleasure marriage” which allows couples to have sex, then part.

It’s not clear if these women gave their accounts to the journalist or whether they were passed along second hand,  but given the derivative nature of much of the “investigation” one has to suspect the latter.

Of course sharia councils, like any number of things, should continue to come under scrutiny, but it’s not clear why a story that makes such a token effort at originality has appeared now. Perhaps it’s a vehicle  for Nick Timothy MP, who provides a quote:

Nick Timothy, a Tory MP who as [Theresa] May’s chief of staff suggested the sharia review [see below], called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the councils. Sharia marriages “should be criminalised if they are conducted without the protections of an accompanying civil marriage”, he said.

There are also references to a new code of conduct suggested by the Muslim Women’s Network charity, and further criticisms from the chief executive of the National Secular Society:

Our concern is the slide towards privatised justice and parallel legal systems in the UK undermining the principle of one law for all — and the negative impact this has on the rightsof women and children.

As expected, the article has been seized on by the populist right, with Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice describing it (absurdly) as a “SHOCKING EXPOSE” and stating that

We are Christian based nation with our English legal system… As ⁦ @reformparty_uk ⁩ said at Election, this must be banned.

How banning private arrangements would be achieved is not explained, although Reform’s rhetoric in other contexts tends towards regarding legal obstacles as elite impositions. Theresa May’s Home Office review, which appeared in 2018, also addressed the questions of banning:

It should also be noted at the outset that those proposing a ban on sharia councils provide no counter proposal or any solution for anyone seeking a religious divorce. It is clear from all the evidence that sharia councils are fulfilling a need in some Muslim communities. There is a demand for religious divorce and this is currently being answered by the sharia councils. This demand will not end if the sharia councils are banned and closed down and could lead to councils going ‘underground’, making it even harder to ensure good practice and the prospect of discriminatory practices and greater financial costs more likely and harder to detect. It could also result in women needing to travel overseas to obtain divorces, putting themselves at further risk.

We consider the closure of sharia councils is not a viable option. However, given the recommendations also proposed in this report include the registration of all Islamic marriages as well as awareness campaigns it is hoped that the demand for religious divorces from sharia councils will gradually reduce over time. These key recommendations address the issue of current discriminatory practices identified within the sharia councils.

One approach to curbing excesses was suggested way back in 2010 by One Law For All, but that involved human rights legislation that Reform also opposes. It seems to me that legal advances in the concept of coercive control might be relevant.

Follow up

The Times followed up its supposed “investigation” with a piece titled “High Court fatwa ruling raises alarm over sharia courts in UK”:

Haddad’s sharia council issued a fatwa which was used by an English judge in a life-or-death decision involving a sick child. Tafida Raqeeb, then five, was suffering from brain damage with no chance of recovery and was facing withdrawal of treatment by Barts Health NHS Trust in London which would have led to her death.

Her Bangladeshi parents obtained a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe, as it was then called, in 2019 that it was “absolutely impermissible for the parents, or anyone else, to give consent for the removal of the life-supporting machine from their child … This is seen as a great sin that has a multitude of grave consequences for them [in] this life and the hereafter.”

Mr Justice Macdonald said in the High Court he had the benefit from the parents of “a fatwa from the Islamic Council of Europe”. The judge observed that prolonging treatment “permits Tafida to remain alive in accordance with the tenets of the religion in which she was being raised and for which she had begun to demonstrate a basic affinity”.

That “alarm” is somewhat belated given that Raqeeb v Barts NHS Foundation Trust & Anors dates back to October 2019 – the judgment can be seen here. In paragraph 169, the judge wrote:

Turning to the principle of the sanctity of life, the parents have, understandably, placed emphasis on the contents of the fatwa secured from the Muslim Council of Europe. Within the context of these proceedings however, the fatwa is simply a valuable restatement of the sanctity of life, a sanctity recognised by all the great religions and also by those who view life through a secular or scientific prism.

Not unreasonably, it was considered relevant to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Again, why exactly is The Times raking over this old material?

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