PSA: STW Socialists and Communists

I’m afraid you’ll all have to be referred to Prevent as potential terrorists.

A document from Prevent, the official scheme to stop radicalisation, includes believing in socialism, communism, anti-fascism and anti-abortion in a list of potential signs of ideologies leading to terrorism.

It comes as the Conservative government considers widening what it will consider to be extremism.

The document is part of online Prevent awareness training for those covered by the duty to inform if they suspect radicalisation. That includes teachers and youth workers.

The guidance was updated last year and published with little or no fanfare, after William Shawcross’s controversial government-ordered report on Prevent was released.

A former head of counter-terrorism said it risked damaging Prevent, and human rights groups said the government was playing political games under the guise of stopping terrorism.

In a section on the left wing it states: “Two broad ideologies: socialism and communism. Each are united by a set of grievance narratives which underline their cause.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/07/socialism-anti-fascism-anti-abortion-prevent-list-terrorism-warning-signs

It’s rumoured the next revision to the guidelines will include voting Labour….

Guilt by association as well? (Just asking for a friend whose grandfather stood for local government as a communist, and whose parents were both in the party and remembers party meetings taking place in the house when he was growing up. I’d better get my passport and a grab-bag ready. )

I would proscribe the Conservative party as it has a nasty right wing with fascist and racist leanings.

It just removes all credibility from Prevent and any actual evidence-driven work it does to help stop dangerous radicalisation.

Next they’ll be telling us that the Nazis were actual socialists becuz of the name.

I’ll see you in the Gulag comrades!

They Might Be Giants were right, the communists really do have the best music.

To Have And To Have Not – YouTube

I actually did the course earlier, it does appear to be pretty bad. You have a bit on ‘extreme right wing’ saying it’s all about white nationalism etc, and then you just have “Socialism and communism”. On the face of it teachers have to report it as far as I can see, which is pretty outrageous (going to ask my wife if she’s going to shop herself).

Sing along chaps

The Anti-Fascism inclusion is pretty Trumpian, isn’t it. The rest is just good old McCarthyism. Can we call it the Third Red Scare?

The Anti-Fascism inclusion is pretty Trumpian, isn’t it. The rest is just good old McCarthyism. Can we call it the Third Red Scare?

Sounds like you’re with the Fifth Column, had to report you as well….

I’m saying nothing.

Ernie lynch has been very quiet – maybe he’s being de (or re) programmed.

I’m saying nothing.

You lost the right to stay silent donkeys years ago – another gift from the Tories IIRC, we can simply infer your guilt and convict you regardless 😉

Sounds like you’re with the Fifth Column

Probably. Wanting to cooperate with other people living in liberal democracies outside Great Britain feels like being seen as a traitor more and more. Unless they’re in the USA, and then for some reason that’s all correct and proper… go straight to the top.

Might as well join @Dazh in the Durruti Column.

Ah, Prevent. The same guide that quite quickly manoevered many soldiers into the potential extremist category. A job that requires swearing allegiance to the crown and it’s agents, has a uniform with the flag stitched into it, but then this shite categorises you as a bad actor as a result.

Absolute tosspot piece of work that is about as much use as tits on a fish in preventing anything other than laughing at the authors.

🤣 did Jonathan Gullis write the draft for this?

“Welcome to 1984
Are you ready for the Third World War?!?
You too will meet the secret police
They’ll draft you and they’ll jail your niece”

Does owning a 7″ of “nazi punks **** off”, the one with the armband with the swastika crossed out make me a terrorist??

I’ll hand myself in tomorrow.

Now it is 1984

Knock, knock at your front door

It’s the suede denim secret police

They have come for your uncool niece

They have come for your uncool niece

I always thought that was “they have come for your uncle, niece”!

Long haired niece and 1992, but I’ll accept the change to 1984 😀

As chief STW commissar I have already put many of your on ze list.

As commissar I have also had to put myself on the list! An act I am most proud of and I thank the government for giving me the opportunity to shop myself in!

human rights groups said the government was playing political games under the guise of stopping terrorism.

Surely not…

But didn’t TJ declare none of us were socialists the other day?

Panic over.

Oo er I’m on holiday in Cuba. Just paid my respects at Fidel’s grave, going to visit his birthplace tomorrow.

Hasta la victoria siempre.

The Anti-Fascism inclusion is pretty Trumpian, isn’t it. The rest is just good old McCarthyism. Can we call it the Third Red Scare?

Exactly my thinking. Still, at least we have more than two parties, unlike Amerkkka. We stand some chance, in the not too distant future to vote out the Tories. Although there is some irony in “The Anti-Fascism inclusion is pretty Trumpian, isn’t it.” seeing as the Republicans are so very close to being an autocratic theocracy with every sign of forcing the entire country to become a Nationalist Christian dictatorship, run by Fascists.

Meanwhile I’ll start wearing my Antifa and Anti-Nazi League badges again.

I’m assuming that fascism/being a fascist, is a pretty strong indicator for extremism….. so surely the be an anti-fascist is to be encouraged, particularly by this organization?

Nonsense, cynically designed to normalize right wing views, buy drawing false equivalence with what are effectively centrist, sensible positions.

The sooner this collection of arseholes get given their marching orders by the electorate the better.

So disappointed in this thread. I was hoping to get some top recommendations for champagne.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7E6hKjaYc&si=quaHCB8RhPdu3ufw

We had socialist champagne at our wedding. My brother’s French mother in law bulk purchased it through her union (champagne being a basic human right in France).

We liked it so much that we moved to France. It’s going to be interesting coming back to the UK. We’re probably on the list already…

Looking in from the outside, the UK is becoming less and less recognisable from the country I once knew.

**** the tories.

Sounds like you’re with the Fifth Column, had to report you as well….

The Fifth Column were fighting against the vile Red Hordes, though. They’re the Good Guys.

(OK, minor detail that they were fascists, but still definitely fighting Evil).

Looking in from the outside, the UK is becoming less and less recognisable from the country I once knew.

Looks as bad from the inside too.

Some of the worst extremists in the UK are currently in power.

Some of the worst extremists in the UK are currently in power.

I mentioned it on the Rishi thread, but they’re having a nightmare trying to come up with the harsher definition of etremism that the little fella wants. Apparently, when the lawyers put one in front of him they also point out that the definition would then see many of his own MPs (Braverman, Jenrick, Anderson, Truss et al) deemed as extremists and thus open to prosecution under any new provision

I don’t think that those defined as “extremists” under the new proposal will face prosecution.

In many ways it is more sinister than that and rather insidious. At least with a prosecution it is all above board and obvious to everyone what exactly is happening.

The proposal is that all government bodies, including universities, will be banned from having any links or contacts with individuals or organisations which the government has deemed to be extremist.

And the definition of extremist will be expanded to include any individual or organisation which is perceived to undermine the UK and its institutions of government.

So someone could a member of a perfectly legal organisation but banned from speaking at a university, for example. And perhaps speaking to the BBC?

It will almost certainly include Muslim campaigning organisations and presumably could also include anyone campaigning for the abolition of the Constitutional Monarchy. And I can’t see how they wouldn’t class abolition of the House of Lords as undermining UK government institutions.

IMO this is probably the most worrying proposal that I have heard from a UK government in a while. Particularly worrying imo because it presumably could be implemented relatively easily and its effects kept below the radar.

You’re probably right Ernesto but our civil rights will probably be saved by the sheer weight of incompetence of this lot.

Good at saying stuff, pretty much useless at actually doing it. Like the Rwanda Bill any serious proposal to legislate for this would be batted back and too from the commons to the Lords and back again until they run out of time and are voted out.

Its just more culture war nonsense to try to appeal to the type of people who are presently saying they’ll vote for Reform

Tom Waits and Marc Ribot – Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)..!!!! (youtube.com)