I was moved by Sean Corby account of his persecution whilst working for ACAS. As a result I wondered if I could write something that might ease the hurt of being attacked by his former colleagues. An obvious point is that this doesn’t seem to be Sean’s fault. I know he’s admitted to being a white male and a working class northerner, but none of these original sins are actually his fault. However, Sean’s attachment to the teachings of a Christian preacher is a different matter. I doubt the fact that the preacher was black is sufficient to atone for his Christianity. (I assume that to strengthen Sean’s case to ACAS he’d have mentioned any available evidence of the preacher also being transgender, binary etc. or at least partly disabled.)
Instead of taking the attacks personally it may help to view events in a historical context. As we know, Christianity’s domination of Britain began to wane from the Age of Reason onwards. Rationality was attractive, despite our natural irrationality, because it led to inventions that continued to improve people’s standards of living. More recently, though, people have become alienated from science and technology. Technologies unleashed by rationality now seem to be beyond our control, e.g. nuclear proliferation, pollution, climate change and big tech including AI.
We still want to believe in something, or at least to belong to a like minded group where we feel safe. So the decline in Christianity left something of a void. Local communities previously provided a sense of belonging, but this isn’t much use to people who spend some of their formative years in distant universities and make friends with people from far flung places - especially if they then earn enough money to look down on the benighted have-nots they left behind.
The sense of not belonging is worse in Britain because British identity was destroyed. It is not just that British culture was displaced by multiculturalism. It was also the trashing of British history and industry and the institutions Britons took pride in, e.g. British Rail, British Steel, the National Coal Board, the NHS, Royal Mail, policing, banking, fishing, shipping and a navy that was able to defend us. Importantly the shared pride also served to unite the four British nations. But later generations didn’t know how it felt to be British - such as the stiff upper lip and the need to mind one’s own business. Hence they needed a new identity.
Having abandoned the Age of Reason in favour of an age of emotion, the easiest way for diverse citizens of nowhere to agree on a new identity is to define it in opposition to the old one. This meant the waning mix of Christianity and rationality led by straight white men. However the new identity differs from secular ones that co-exist without trying to impose their values on each other. In fact the zeal of the new identity makes me think it is like a cult. So it seems ACAS became a sanctuary for this cult and Sean was seen as a heretic. People with strong principles are always at risk when belief systems change, so Sean might take some comfort from not being burnt at the stake. Through no fault of his own he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cult members had a duty to act against him despite any prior friendship. No one can expect justice at the hands of any group that sees them as a heretic.
The eventual repeal of the blasphemy laws implied an end to centuries of conflict between the two beliefs that had made Britain: Christians had to accept free speech which is a cornerstone of rationality. Although free speech is now very contentious - it being anathema to the cult - the Voltairean idea of “defending until death” the right of people to spread slanderous and dangerous lies strikes me as insane. Instead I support the freedom of truth, or rather the freedom of public truth. There are truths, e.g. official secrets, that do not belong in the public domain. This apart, if someone has reasonable grounds (which a jury could decide) for thinking something is true they should be free to say it. Hearing true statements such as “I wish all ____s were killed” is a price to pay for understanding a nation’s failure zones so that its problems can be addressed. Papering over cracks does not stop structures collapsing.
I suspect support for freedom of speech has been eroded by association with the cult’s slogan of hate speech - the freedom of hate speech being less appealing. But it would be more difficult for the cult to establish the phrase “hate truth” in order to corrupt the idea of freedom of truth. Hence I think freedom of public truth is a better battleground on which to try to regain liberty that the cult has criminalized.
The maximum prison sentence for assault, which can now be purely verbal, is 6 months (1) . It is 2 years if it is religiously or racially aggravated (which is given a wide interpretation). So beating someone up is much less serious than having the wrong motive: the cult has joined the gods in punishing wicked thoughts. However reversing colonization meant politicians became responsible for educating and integrating the immigrants they wanted to mix with the natives (unless the aim was to start centuries of new conflicts). The cult has followed these political failures by criminalizing the thoughts and emotions of those who never wanted to mix.
As most politicians support the cult - at least as regards policing speech rather than burglaries, shoplifting etc. - the slide toward a police state continues. If anyone doesn’t know how far Peelian policing principles have been left behind they should look them up, e.g. “the police are the public”. Yet the police are now distant from the public(2) . Community support officers, who were introduced to return to the original job of walking the streets, have also been falling in numbers since 2010(3) . Numerous studies of course show significant falls in the public’s trust in the police. Criminalizing expressions of emotion in an age of emotion is futile except it serves to convert emotions into violence, so the cult’s victims can be punished more. In connection with the summer 2024 riots, the likelihood of an Asian boy entering higher education by the age of 19 in England in 2021/22 was 73% higher than for a white boy. The figures for black and Chinese boys are 54% and 129% higher than white boys. For the sons of the have-nots, i.e. those eligible for free school meals, 47.8% of Asian, 41.6% of black, 69.6% of Chinese and 14.5% of white boys entered higher education. The figures for girls are higher, e.g. 24.4% for white girls.(4)
Imagine the outrage if poor white boys did a lot better than girls and nearly three times better than black boys. NGOs and media around the world would condemn our institutional misogyny and racism. Luckily it turns out that disadvantages to white males aren’t a problem. Historical social injustices are to be corrected by new ones.
When industries close in the UK so that jobs go to China (where energy mainly comes from coal) we expect not only carbon dioxide emissions to increase but workers in the UK to suffer. People who took pride in their skills and good wages will feel on the scrap heap. As this de-industrialization involved the battle of Orgreave - when miners were attacked by the police then falsely prosecuted - we know trust in the police fell. It fell more when police falsely accused Liverpool fans of causing over 90 deaths and hundreds of injuries at Hillsborough. When news broke of talks to let Liverpool decline after the 1981 riots (5) , the idea of the rulers’ hostility to the North was reinforced (a faint echo of the Harrowing of the North?). When mass immigration was allowed we know the natives suffered even more as wages were depressed and houses more difficult to obtain. When Asian men abused over 1,000 white girls mainly in northern towns for years without prosecution (6) (7) we see why the idea of biased policing took root. When the region with the most asylum seekers in long-term accommodation was the North West (8) we see why this may look like more hostility by rulers. All communities are inclined to be edgy if they think their women and girls are at risk - especially if they don’t trust “two-tier” police to protect them. When people can wait years for a council house but must choose to heat it or eat, yet asylum seekers are promptly fed in heated hotels, we see why this may rankle. When the authorities and mainstream media (who sided with the police over Hillsborough) continue to downplay the suffering of white people we see why the internet may be a more trusted source of news (e.g. Channel3Now).
If people are provoked to breaking point and rioters swiftly imprisoned, why are the politicians responsible for this state of affairs still free? Mass immigration is a weapon used against have-nots. But you may think that injustices to black people mean it is now the turn of whites. Equally, boys should keep going to school at too early an age and be taught mainly by female teachers. Yet it is costly to keep men with poor literacy in prisons. Campaigns can similarly continue to oust men from science and engineering (whilst not doing the same to get men into well paid jobs mainly entered by women) but disaffected men are far more dangerous than women. You can also keep calling men toxic, ignoring their higher suicide rate and having ministers of state for women but not men, but don’t expect feminism to stop the rise in misogyny. And if continued antipathy and injustice lead to carnage in deprived communities, the death cult can truly claim victory.
A L Smith
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