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Reposted by Ben Whitham

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 6h

James Cleverly: "I cannot understand the motivation for protests of this type so regularly"

Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 23h

This analysis can be extended: UK migration politics (e.g. around asylum hotels) are underpinned by a libidinal economy, wherein socio-economic anxieties and contradictions are managed or displaced via investment in fantasised migrant "deviance" and perceived "excess" (including excess enjoyment).

Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 1d

For his (many) faults, Žižek's early work on ideology remains helpful for understanding our politics today. Robert Jenrick's comments, in this analysis, are a racist ideological statement aimed at "structuring symbolic space" so that others will perceive Black and Brown people as "excess" in the UK.

Screenshot of a quotation from a book: ‘One of the fundamental stratagems of ideology is the reference to some self-evidence – ‘Look, you can see for yourself how things are!’. ‘Let the facts speak for themselves’ is perhaps the arch-statement of ideology – the point being, precisely, that facts never ‘speak for themselves’ but are always made to speak by a network of discursive devices. […] Discourse analysis is perhaps at its strongest in answering this precise question: when a racist Englishman says ‘There are too many Pakistanis on our streets!’, how – from what place – does he ‘see’ this – that is how is his symbolic space structured so that he can perceive the fact of a Pakistani strolling along a London street as a disturbing surplus? That is to say, here one must bear in mind Lacan’s motto that nothing is lacking in the real: every perception of a lack or a surplus (‘not enough of this’, ‘too much of that’) always involves a symbolic universe’. Source: Slavoj Žižek, Mapping Ideology (1994, page 11).

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

When Labour came to power last year it followed 14 years of Tory rule in which international monitors had issued stark warnings about the UK's "authoritarian turn" through crackdowns on political protest and migrants' rights. Starmer is continuing that project.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Police to get new powers to crack down on repeated protests, says Home Office

Move follows arrest of almost 500 people at latest pro-Palestinian demonstration in London on Saturday

www.theguardian.com

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

The local coverage of last night's mosque attack even makes reference to the Manchester synagogue attack, rightly (if implicitly) identifying a continuum of antisemitic and Islamophobic racist violence at work. Yet seemingly the former attack is not deemed worthy of major coverage by the BBC.

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

These cases of extreme, far-right racist violence targeting Muslims and people seeking asylum are being blithely ignored by most media and politicians because they see no political capital in addressing them.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Man arrested after fire at London asylum seekers' hotel

The blaze is being treated as a hate crime by officers investigating.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

Men in balaclavas set fire to a mosque in East Sussex last night. It's only appearing on the BBC's local coverage, rather than its main national headlines, despite coming just a week after the (also under-reported) firebombing of an asylum hotel in London last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime'

Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

"This has real, material consequences for our comrades in the struggle for a better world. The internet that spawned Occupy and Black Lives Matter has become hostile to the maintenance of radical political movements and is inimical to the founding of new ones" www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?

Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

www.theguardian.com

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Tanja Bueltmann @tanjabueltmann.net · 3d

It’s easy to say that this is the last desperate hurrah of a dying party, but can we be clear: Trump’s ICE agents are literally kidnapping people, detaining them without due process in concentration camps (yes, this is the right term) and 1000s have disappeared. These are fascist practices.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 3d

Tories to pledge to create immigration taskforce modelled on Trump’s Ice

Proposed ‘removals force’ will be tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year in bid to tackle illegal immigration The Conservatives will pledge to create a new immigration taskforce modelled on Donald Trump’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency, the Guardian understands. The party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, is expected to announce the policy on Sunday as it heads into its annual conference following a year of historic low poll ratings. The proposed “removals force” will be tasked with deporting 150,000 people a year in a bid to tackle illegal immigration. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 4d

🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 4d

It struck me that if this brilliant young man in front of me had died in the protest, or had been killed by his abusive father, or had perished on the journey it would have been "normal" - national systems would likely not even register his death.

So how dare he travel to safety? Get an education?

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 4d

Yesterday I interviewed a 20yo from senegal whose parents were dead, best friend was killed in a protest & who spent a year running to safety only to arrive to this version of America.

And it struck me that what this country is punishing his insistence on surviving. +

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 5d

After a horrific antisemitic atrocity that took two lives yesterday, the Met essentially commits to devoting more resources to arresting pensioners protesting genocide than protecting Jewish communities and "focusing on serious crimes"
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Screenshot from Guardian story: "Following the horrific and tragic events that have taken place in Manchester this morning, the details of which are still developing, the Met is stepping up reassurance and protective security operations across the capital with a particular focus on London’s Jewish and Muslim communities,” said the letter, which was signed in the name of the deputy assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan"

Screenshot from Guardian story continues: “However, as you know, your previous large-scale events and other concurrent protests place a significant pressure on policing and draw officers away from the communities they serve to be in central London. This means less neighbourhood and response officers in their communities and less officers focusing on serious crimes"

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ECRE @theecre.bsky.social · 5d

#ECREWeekly Updates on UK:
▪️Launch of ‘One in, one out’ people transfer scheme
▪️Channel crossings and deaths
▪️Lawyers and NGOs call out threats from far-right
▪️NGOs urge the government to stop scapegoating people on the move
▪️Migration and asylum-related policy announcements

shorturl.at/4sgMp

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 6d

dissembling and idiotic genocide denial by an MP of the UK's ruling party, hand-picked for office by the current leadership

Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 6d

Apparently Israel’s genocidal acts are just “daft”.

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Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 6d

Apparently Israel’s genocidal acts are just “daft”.

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Noreen Masud @noreenmasud.bsky.social · 7d

found the last remaining pure place on the Internet and it seems to be a livestream of a waterhole in Namibia www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydYD...

Namibia: Live stream in the Namib Desert

YouTube video by NamibiaCam

www.youtube.com

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 7d

Pretty sure this has always been the philosophy underpinning British private schools (and consequently also the entire political, military, media, legal and business elite).

In her letter, Deakin said that during the lengthy meeting about the selection of prefects, a colleague had remarked that Farage was a “fascist but that was no reason why he would not make a good prefect”.

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 7d

Same energy

Reposted by Ben Whitham

Dr Nafeez Ahmed @nafeez.bsky.social · 10d

EXCLUSIVE: Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel behind Trump exporting MAGA playbook to Britain - embedding across three parties: Blue Labour, Tories, Reform - via a network of race science believers. By me with @peterjukes.bsky.social via @bylinetimes.bsky.social
bylinetimes.com/2025/09/25/b...

'Blue Labour' and the Thiel Effect: How MAGA Is Making In-Roads Into British Politics

The ideology of the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement, which has transformed politics in the United States, is having an impact in the UK. But how is this influence being transmitted?

bylinetimes.com

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 8d

A confirmed genocidal war criminal and a billionaire white supremacist would-be dictator created what the media uncritically reports as a "peace plan" for their own victims, whose lands they have repeatedly and explicitly stated their intention to annex, occupy and exploit?

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 9d

The last line here might be easier to sell if Labour had itself done anything but launch further brutal assaults on living standards in more than a year in office. The two-child cap, disability benefit cuts, austerity for public services, no new wealth tax... where's the alternative economic offer?

Guardian headline: Reeves says she won’t take economic risks, hints at hard choices, and warns Reform will threaten living standards.

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 9d

But these people are "not racist" according to the government, they merely support racist policies, which is apparently a completely different thing and very important to know.

folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 9d

"the 31-minute video includes protesters comfortably using racial slurs and airing Islamophobic views, stating they would remove all Black people from the UK if they could, and calling for immigrants to be shot and small boats to be sunk."

www.indy100.com/politics/nik...

YouTuber Niko Omilana's exposé of Unite the Kingdom rally branded ‘terrifying’

Niko Omilana - the YouTube prankster, former London mayoral candidate and “supreme leader” of the “Niko Defence League” (NDL) – has made a name for himself exposing and ridiculing members of the Engli...

www.indy100.com

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 9d

On the day of her speech to Labour conference, our letter to the Home Secretary - co-signed by more than 100 orgs across migrants' rights, human rights, workers' rights, racial justice, environment, mental health, and homelessness - is featured in today's Guardian
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Stop blaming migrants and tackle UK’s real problems, 100 charities tell home secretary

A letter warns Shabana Mahmood that ‘targeting refugees will do nothing to tackle’ problems with housing and the NHS

www.theguardian.com

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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 12d

Vichy Labour. Deliberately and repeatedly affirming and amplifying the inflammatory far right *lie* of "uncontrolled migration".

María Ramírez @mariaramirez.bsky.social · 12d

“The belief that uncontrolled legal migration was nothing but good news for an economy should never have been accepted on the Left,” writes Starmer “fighting” populism. What does even mean “uncontrolled” in the case of legal migration? www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f9444c6...

The Left ignored immigration fears for too long. It’s time to give communities back control

Only a plan for patriotic national renewal led by Labour will counter the rise of the populist Right

www.telegraph.co.uk

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