An astonishing exchange took place on GB News earlier this week, following former Labour Party advisor Mike Buckley’s claim not to have heard about the Batley Grammar School teacher, who remains in hiding more than three years on from showing his students a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed during a religious education (RE) class.
When GB News presenter Michelle Dewberry and panellist Matthew Goodwin explained that the teacher’s lesson had provoked several days of demonstrations outside the school gates by a Muslim mob, as well as several credible death threats – ultimately leading to him being placed in police protection – the former Labour advisor rhetorically shrugged his shoulders.
The teacher’s behaviour was “unwise and unnecessary” and “bound to provoke a reaction”, he said.
“If he’s an RE teacher, he must have known that within Islam, it’s blasphemous to depict the Prophet Muhammed in visual form,” he sniffed, before adding: “I’m not glad that he’s in hiding, but he made a mistake.”
But where is it, exactly, that Mr. Buckley and his fellow “progressives”, with similar views about supposedly “offensive” or “hateful” speech, draw the line? Put another way, in the hierarchy of punishment options available for blasphemers, where is the threshold at which they would condemn a “provoked reaction”?
This isn’t just an academic question, either, since earlier this week eight people went on trial in Paris on terrorism charges in connection with the beheading of Samuel Paty, a history teacher who showed pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad after their publication in Charlie Hebdo.
Paty, 47, was killed outside his school in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in broad daylight by an 18 year-old assailant of Chechen origin who arrived in France aged six with his Chechen parents and had been granted asylum.
Abdullah Anzarov stabbed Paty repeatedly, before beheading him and posting a picture of the severed head on social media, with a message from “Abdullah, the servant of Allah” addressed to “Macron, leader of the infidels”.
“I executed one of your hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad,” Anzarov boasted.
So was Paty’s behaviour “unwise and unnecessary”? Should he have known his lesson was likely to “provoke a reaction”? Are Mr Buckley and his like “not glad” that he’s dead, but disappointed in him for making such a culturally insensitive “mistake”?
And in an increasingly complex, interconnected and multicultural society, do progressives acknowledge that their beloved mantra, “free speech does not mean freedom from consequences”, can only ever devolve into appeasement of those prepared to wreak the most extreme forms of violence on those with whom they disagree?
Frederick Attenborough is the Digital Communications Director of the Free Speech Union.
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What a spineless coward. So what this fool is saying is that all of our cultural and social norms are up for deletion, as long as they offend someone enough for them to threaten and/or carry out acts of violence. Yet again, Labour proving that they are unfit to govern.
He’s fibbing. 100%
Meanwhile, this latest stabbing is definitely not terrorist related ( because we know that is not their M.O ), therefore they definitely haven’t found a dangerous substance and a ‘JIhad for Dummies’ manual in his house by now that we won’t hear about for another 3 months;
”Three people stabbed, resulting in one being killed in a stabbing on Remembrance Sunday at East Street Market in South London.
A man and a woman have been hospitalised.
Police “don’t believe it to be terror related”.
https://x.com/TPointUK/status/1855618501374804110
I grew up in the fifties and sixties, I don’t seem to recall many multiple stabbing events being reported before the end of the twentieth century. I wonder what could possibly have happened since then.
Unsurprising, therefore, that Mr Buckley is a former Labour adviser.
Labour’s own Human Rights Act is clear:
Human Rights Act 1998 Article 10
‘Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.’
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1
The official report is also clear.
Dame Sara Khan’s report:
‘The teacher involved faced an online and offline “campaign of intimidation and abuse”, leaving him feeling “incredibly distressed, suicidal and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder”
Despite being cleared of any malicious intent by an independent investigation, he was “not considered a victim of crime” and missed out on access to support under the Victims code.
The agencies involved failed to relay any clear condemnation of those creating “an intimidatory and threatening climate”
It found a disproportionate concern for not causing offence “to the religious sensibilities of those who, unaware of the facts, chose to engage in intimidation”
It highlighted a “poor understanding of cohesion” where protesters were appeased to secure an end to the protests.
The report warned of a wider cultural problem of “self-appointed community faith leaders aggressively interfering in teaching” at some Batley schools.’
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-khan-review-threats-to-social-cohesion-and-democratic-resilience
What is the real problem?
‘The police’s appalling response to the protests is only comprehensible in light of comments made by one anonymous officer to the Khan review, describing how police inadvertently support extremist preachers in the misguided belief that they have a positive relationship with a minority community.’
‘Experienced police officers also criticised the failure to make clear that any threatening, harassing or intimidatory behaviour against the RS teacher and other school staff would not be tolerated, and that perpetrators would be subject to the full force of the law. To date, no arrests have been made for the harassment the Batley RS teacher experienced.’
Systemic reform is required.
‘Until we succeed in denying the concept of blasphemy as one which should have any force in our society, or indeed worldwide, events like those in Batley will continue.
Yet instead of challenging blasphemy-related extremism, political parties, local government, universities, and civil society promote the nebulous and authoritarian concept of ‘Islamophobia’, which opens the door to criticism and discussion of religion being portrayed as attacks upon individuals.
This is little more than a blasphemy law disguised as a diversity and inclusion initiative.’
https://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2024/04/three-years-on-the-lessons-of-batley-are-yet-to-be-learned
I don’t think “systemic reform” will fix this. If there are communities with these attitudes then I am not sure much will change. Perhaps these attitudes are only held by a small minority, but much attention is paid to them. I think we are done for.
The “community with these attitudes” being the Labour Party primarily, it seems.
I was referring to those involved in making the teacher feel like he needed to go into hiding.
As for the Labour Party, the less said the better.
In terms of how bad things are, AnotherDad puts it much better than I could
https://www.unz.com/isteve/trump-calling-attention-to-kamalas-world-war-t-paid-off/#comment-6853667
Interesting take from AnotherDad. It makes a great contrast with those who think that in a sane world nobody would have voted for a criminal misogynist like Trump. Personally I think he overdoes it; he may think Harris was utterly hopeless but there were clearly many people who did not see her as being as vapid and racist as he does. I think in fact that he falls into the same trap as the Trump haters: people don’t vote simply on the personal characteristics of the candidates, they have all sorts of other reasons for voting as they do – such as the economy (stupid!).
Well anyone who votes for the Dems to fix the economy is a bit insane in my book.
A lot of the votes for Harris were probably votes against Trump – but that still strikes me as pretty insane. But I am not a socialist.
People may not see her or her policies or her party’s policies as being racist, but they are. We have been brainwashed regarding “racism”.
For me, immigration trumps every other issue because it is in practice irreversible – you are simply not going to have tens of millions of people being evicted forcibly or with bribery from the country. It’s already too late probably, but anyone who believes in and wants to preserve White European civilisation has to vote for an immigration restrictionist – anything else is suicide.
But then I am doubtless a horrible racist, deplorable, garbage…
The people in those communities who are not so extreme nonetheless feel more affinity or allegiance to their own extremists than they do to western values. So they don’t speak up.
That could well be the case.
I’m terribly pessimistic I’m afraid.
If he really hadn’t heard of it then he’s incompetent and not on top of his brief.
Not to mention the nice bit of victim blaming and extremist appeasement that came afterwards.
Despicable.
What the actual hell? How warped in the head do you have to be to have this amount of hostility and toxicity in your being towards Jews and Israel? Is this level of anti-social behaviour to just be absorbed into every day life in Britain now, like all the stabbings and rapes we’re supposed to be getting immune to because they’ve become so commonplace? Well if people can be jailed for ”inciting violence” merely by posting online I fully expect these trouble-making buggers to get banged up for committing actual violence;
”Pro-Palestine activists are training “cells” of protesters to “disrupt, damage and destroy” Israel-linked targets across the UK.
Palestine Action, the group behind a litany of vandalistic stunts up and down the country, is running several “direct action training days” in a bid to bring Britons together to “bring down Israel”.
The training days run from today until December 8, and are based in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
As part of the training, activists hoping to get together and form protest groups are told to organise in groups of “three to five” trusted people, use burner phones, carry out reconnaissance undercover and pay with cash for sledgehammers.
Palestine Action’s training manual says: “Once you’ve got your cell together, come up with a name… This can be named after a Palestinian freedom fighter, a play on taking action against the war machine, or anything else that’s appropriate.”
Then, would-be protesters are told to “head to our website to find a list of secondary and primary targets who enable and profit from the Israeli weapons industry in Britain”.
“Dream up crazy ideas in your cell… Remember that your action is to disrupt, damage or destroy your target.”
The group advises protesters to use similar techniques to those seen at sites across the UK over the last 13 months: daubing buildings with paint, breaking into off-limits areas and smashing up targets with hammers.
While its list of targets directs activists to Israel-linked defence and logistics firms in the UK, including Elbit Systems, Teledyne and Rafael/Pearson Engineering.
But staff at said firms are furious – one contractor with Elbit told The Times: “Engineers who are going into work every day in sites around the country are being called baby killers and spat at by these activists.
“It’s disgraceful. Many of these people are just engineers trying to go to work, do their jobs and earn a living.”
https://www.gbnews.com/news/palestine-action-pro-palestine-zealots-training-activists-damage-destroy-targets-across-britain-extremist-anti-israel
It was convenient for him to lie so he did. If you’re going to be a panellist you should be knowledgeable about current affairs, even on GB News.
Funny – it’s fine to deride Christianity. Almost compulsory…
I saw this episode as I watch Michelle Dewberry’s slot on GB News at 6 pm every weeknight. I enjoy watching the right and left sides of argument battle it out it. This episode was a perfect example of this clash in full flow! He literally got roasted for his ignorance. Smug, self satisfied and clueless.
I expect these episodes have done wonders for the recruitment of teachers in arts subjects!
If I recall the teacher was leading the class on free speech
Yes, time and time again, these socialist scumbags use the same statement when they know they are on the wrong side of public opinion. In exactly the same way as our feeble, cowardly prime minister uses the phrase that was never on my desk so I have no responsibility for the decision that was taken, when he knew all about it but doesn’t want to be held liable for his abject failures. Of course, he is happy to take the glory for the hard work of others when it does suit him.
This ought to be shocking but somehow it’s become what we expect from contemporary left-liberalism. Let’s consider the possibility that there is some truth in what this guy says – that just maybe the teacher had been told by the boss not to do what he did. Well, so what? Surely the purpose of education is to teach people to think critically, to question and challenge received ideas.
As a former pupil of what was then a respected institution which encouraged us to study and form our own opinions it is clear to me that the school is failing its pupils. I fail completely to see why is allowed to call itself a grammar school.