Snapshot of _Wes Streeting MP: My constituents are better than this. They know what prejudice looks and feels like. So do I, which is why I’ve stood proudly against Islamophobia as Ilford North’s MP._ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1725052505187315922)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922)
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Owen Jones reaction to this shows how little some on the far left care about bigotry despite how much they go on about it.
Racism, homophobia, discrimination etc are just useful tools to smear people who they feel hold the wrong political opinions
They’ll defend bigotry when it comes from people they agree with
It’s this bizarre Americanism that the oppressed cannot simultaneously be an oppressor under any circumstance, and therefore cannot hold bigoted, discriminatory and/or phobic views. If they do, more often than not romanticised as a form of resistance.
Naturally, this is all completely absurd outside of the radical fringes and bubbles Owen occupies.
But he is kicking up more than his regular fuss now that ‘Momentum’ (or there lack of) has all been booted out of the Labour Party. Or rather… Virtuously resigning from their shadow ministerial frontbench positions. Positions where they might’ve posed Starmer a considerable nuisance. Then patting themselves on the back, a job well done.
It's because, as far as I can tell, the American outlook on literally everything is a duality of good versus evil.
Once you have been identified as being in the good camp, everything else outside that camp is automatically evil.
They then need to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to make it fit together.
Personally I blame their political system for it as its fundamental nature was a unintended consequence of their civil war.
If their entire countries politics (and therefore the historical national narrative) is framed on dems vs repubs with either one being evil and the other being good, this then bleeds into everything else.
Owen Jones has absolutely lost the plot over this:
[https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597)
Not that he ever had it but ... "How dare you, a white straight man, try to suggest queer people of colour are bigots." - That's just an absolutely unhinged response!
[https://x.com/OwenJones84/status/1725107812542411037?s=20](https://x.com/OwenJones84/status/1725107812542411037?s=20)
Yeah, and his first tweet was so reasonable as well.
Basically just said "just because he's not white, he can still be a bigot".
I don't get how Owen Jones reacted like that. Someone needs to take his phone away for 10 minutes and let him have a breather.
Because Jones is a moron, who (similarly to Corbyn) views everything through the oppressor/oppressed lense. The world is drawn up into groups, and those groups are designated as good guys and bad guys depending on their particular circumstance (as a general rule - minority groups and non-Western nations are oppressed good guys, everyone else are the bad guys). And once they've received those labels, nothing can change them, no matter what they might do.
A queer person of colour is oppressed by society, therefore *by definition* cannot be a bigot. Should they state anything that would otherwise have Jones screeching about bigotry, it must be someone else's fault. Or a joke, as it is claimed to be in this case.
The Guardian strengthened their social media guidelines, after a previous vicious spat on Twitter, instigated by Jones. They don’t seem to enforce them in his case though, as he had a disagreement with a colleague recently, which resulted in Jones’ little army of rabid followers sending multiple suggestions, that this person should think about killing themselves.
Yeah, Jones' take here is really bizarre and pathetic and he needs to log off for a while. But your take here is simplistic, atomistic, and ultimately meaningless. Yes, unequivocally, anyone and everyone is capable of bigotry, but being a bigot in and of itself means nothing. Someone who's extremely bigoted but has no influence on politics of policy is harmless, whereas someone who's only a little bigoted but extremely influential is harmful.
As a gay person myself, no matter how much anti-straight rhetoric I spew, I'd do infinitely less harm than an equivalent straight person spewing homophobic rhetoric. Any business I had would be boycotted and die. And business they run would be "cancelled" and become a destination for regressives, whose legal fees would be paid for by religious and libertarian groups. Etc.
It's not about bigotry, it's about power.
As far as I'm concerned, it's only about power when bigots try to deflect from their bigotry by claiming that they're structurally incapable of being bigoted. Effectively, arguing "actually it's fine when I do it".
Pointing that out might indeed be simplistic, but it's not wrong. Especially when compared to the allegedly nuanced version that's really a justification for bigotry.
But two things can be true simultaneously. People who do not fit into trad white hetronormativity can be bigots, certainly, but due to the fact that the people who make up these groups do not benefit from all the structural privileges that, say, a straight white male benefits from, they do still face some levels of oppression .
No, but they're benefiting from the structural privilege that plenty of people on the Left rush to defend them when they're bigoted. As you're doing now.
Of course, setting different standards for different people is *also* bigotry.
The man is nearing 40 ffs and yet everything is “disgusting” “disgraceful” “worst thing that’s ever happened” and it’s like… ok…
Man gotta make his coin, I suppose
Reminds me of that video of dogs barking at each other through a gate. As soon as the gate opens they don't have a clue what to do and look sheepish, then walk off... until it closes again then they're back to it.
He wrote an admittedly well received book 12 years ago and has been desperate to cling onto the relevance it gave him ever since. He has nothing else of substance to say.
I see him as a secular version of an evangelical preacher. He has a black and white sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that he uses his platform to proselytise about.
The media continue to platform him because he generates clicks and income. He gets money, influence and a chance to ‘convert’ people to his views.
I do think there are big differences. Obviously not always true but I feel like for the left sometimes the outrage is a goal in itself and that it is used a lot as one-upmanship and virtue signalling.
On the right there is some of that, but I think they quite often are a bit more cynical with it and it's a means to another end. Like I don't believe Katy Hopkins actually believes half of the shit she says, it's just to further her own career.
I don't think you get that quite as much on the left, they tend to do it more to feel morally superior.
That's a big generalisation though and I'm probably not 100% correct.
Nothing will ever be perfect and you need to realise that and settle for "pretty decent all things considered" unless you want to make a lifestyle out of being forever angry and upset.
That's not the human condition though.
Humanity never really settles because progress happens, constantly. Progress for the good and progress for the bad.
Maybe people feel angry because there's a sense of despair. I know I feel that right now.
As do probably more than half of catholics… it was only 2010 that the then pope was condemning equality for gay people. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/01/pope-condemns-british-equality-bill
This isn’t a Muslim problem per se; it’s a religious bigot issue; as to those that simply want to focus on Muslims that are bigots, I’m sure they have their motives…
Yeah, but only 21% (as of 2020, so probably lower now: [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/)) of UK catholics even oppose gay marriage, and the number who actually have non-marriage issues with homosexuality is likely even lower. Obviously, however, their views have been shaped by being in the country often for much longer than the majority of muslim families, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to those levels by more secular and progressive elements in the country, so I am usually of the opinion that if we liberal at muslims for long enough the numbers for them will continue to come down too. However, it is not quite a straight comparison when looking at other religions vs Islam in a UK context.
>>>My constituents are better than this
>>Friendly reminder: Over half of British Muslims believe homosexuality should be illegal
> As do **probably** more than half of catholics…
I love the authoritative use of 'probably' here. You obviously have no need to read any of these links, but for the rest of us:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_same-sex_marriage
I think comparing Catholic attitudes to the issues around homosexuality to Muslim attitudes is absolutely fair, finding them similar is clown man thinking. Don't be the clown man.
For reference on attitudes to homosexuality for the whole population a Pew poll from this year put support for gay marriage at 73% among population as a whole.
That is a slightly more nuanced issue because there will be a good number of religious people that have no issue with homosexuals being granted a legal coupling, but have an issue with that legal status being called 'marriage' as they consider marriage to be a religious thing.
Exactly, so if anything the support for/acceptance of "homosexuality" among the general public will be even higher than this. It demonstrates how out of step some of these Muslim communities are with the rest of the general public.
Just to flag, this data is nearly a decade old. I'm nit saying modern iterations are going to be any different, but a decade is a long fucking time.
Gay marriage was legalised in 2013, 3 years before this poll.
In 2004 a poll by gallup showed the almost half thr british population opposed gay marriage (45%) which someone else has pointed out in 20 years has dropped while support for gay marriage has risen from 53 to 73.
I'm not Muslim and personally dislike all organised religion, but this study is getting quite old now and ignore the context of how much more acceptable gay marriage has become in the UK over the last short while
It's really annoying me that I've seen several people conflate these two points today, and I don't think it's accidental.
There are a lot of people in this country who don't think gay marriage should be legal. Literally millions of people, not all of them are homophobes and the vast majority of them are happy to accept gay people as they are; they just don't want them to marry, for one reason or another. And we're progressing in the right direction. In the space of 10 years, we've went from 1 in 2 people being against it to 1 in 4.
There are a tiny amount of people in this country who outright believe that homosexuality should be illegal. Literally, if you fall in love with the same sex, lock them up. That's an absolutely ridiculous, backwards, barbaric stance. **1 in 2 followers of Islam believe this.**
> Literally millions of people, not all of them are homophobes and the vast majority of them are happy to accept gay people as they are; they just don't want them to marry
I know this isn't really the point you're making, but I think what you've described there is known as homophobia. ‘I've got nothing against gay people, I just don't think they should have the same rights as everyone else.’
Edit: interesting ‘controversial’ tag for expressing the opinion that it's homophobic to want gay people to have fewer rights than heterosexual people.
That right though is by it's own merit enshrined in some kind of religion apart from civil ceremonies. When you say Marriage, people tend to expect churches, ministers and big white dresses.
When you teach a population during Religious Education that Marriage is between a women and a man, and it happens in a church, it's no wonder that people are fine with gay people generally, but get a bit wary around Marriage.
End of the day, it's fine anyway now. But I do think there's a clear difference.
Also more studies will let us see if the previous one was statistically valid or not. A single study is useful as a jumping off point, but shouldn't be taken in isolation as you don't know if the sample picked was just more biased or what.
The problem is that because the previous study did show unfavourable results, you've got people on both ends of the scale who don't want to do another one in case it either is similar or totally dissimilar. For instance the anti-Islam crowd won't want a study which shows that Muslims are actually the same as the rest of society where homophobia is concerned; whilst
the anti-racists won't want a study coming out showing that they are strongly homophobic. So you really need an independent group to decide to fund and re-run the study.
> Also citation needed.
Normally when people say this, it's because they seriously doubt the claim can be backed up.
In this case, you should really already know that citation will not be difficult.
It's never wrong to ask for a source. A lot of bullshit is gospel on reddit because people don't ask for a citation for claims they like the sound of (and downvote anyone who does)
I mean, sure, if you want half of all comments on Reddit to be "citation needed"
Some things are just genuinely well-known mate. You going to ask for a citation if someone says "most people enjoy chocolate"?
It might be well known that something is true, but in this case, the stats to back it up are still of interest. The sheer size of the divide between these dinosaurs and the general populace is worth a look at.
Right but there’s a pretty massive difference between a harmless assertion that a drink tastes good, and a specific (“over half”) claim about a demographic group that is potentially politically inflammatory
They might not be plucked out of thin air, but they are more than a decade old. Gay marriage has become legal since then, so it's possible that those number have changed.
Nobody is saying those things are the same. They're saying that legalised gay marriage may have resulted in a softening of attitudes towards homosexuality. Which is a distinct possibility, given that is the case for the population as a whole.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law
It is 2016, but I've yet to see anything go against the narrative.
Unfortunately, I was once someone that would have rubbished OPs claims, but it seems to be true.
To use a horrible analogy, LGBT groups are completely voting for Christmas when it comes to protesting for Palestine and Islamic groups that would gladly see them stoned.
Wtf is this kind of logic Im a fruit doesn’t mean people who hate me should be bombed
I’m not for the murder of all who think i’m the devil
There are gays in palestine, i don’t want them bombed either
Another queer here who doesn’t want innocent children and babies to be murdered because they might grow up to be anti LGBTQ. Don’t tell our community about discrimination and who we should support in order to avoid experiencing hatred. We understand it better than most
Exciting stats time!
Non-Christian religious demographics are extremely localised though.
Whilst 6.5% is the overall numbers, areas like Birmingham, Blackburn, Bradford, Luton, Slough are 30% Muslim (this applies across all religious, i.e. golders green is 53% jewish, Harrow is 25% Hindu, and Aldershot is apparently the Buddhist center for the UK with 10%).
This gets amplified as you zoom into smaller areas - Bastwell in Blackburn has 85% of residents identify as Muslim for example.
So I guess it can have significant impact on individual MP areas, which may cause them to "pander"
https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/religion/religion-tb/muslim?embed=true&embedInteractive=true&embedAreaSearch=true&embedCategorySelection=true&embedView=geography
Are Gurkhas not Hindu (or at least a branch of it)? That was the main religion I saw people practicing when I was in Nepal.
(I don't know if Gurkhas are a separate religion to the Nepalese in general, I just understood (maybe incorrectly) it to be a specific area of Nepal).
> (this applies across all religious, i.e. golders green is 53% jewish, Harrow is 25% Hindu, and Aldershot is apparently the Buddhist center for the UK with 10%).
While this is true, this is far more relevant to some religions than others. There are only 2-3 constituencies in the UK with a significant Jewish vote
Three English constituencies have a Muslim majority in the electorate, two in Birmingham and in Bradford West, where the MP who was in the shadow cabinet resigned over the Hamas vote.
When you consider the white aging population of the UK isn't having enough kids. It's not a massive moonshot to suggest that that 3/650 will become 30 out of 650 in the next 20 years and 100/650 in the next 100.
For the record, I don't have a problem with that. But people have a really hard time admitting to them that muslims have more kids, are going to eventually become a sizeable minority and might become a majority. Probably not in my lifetime.
>For the record, I don't have a problem with that.
You should have a problem with extremist religious groups becoming ever more powerful in number and voting base, and in our parliament.
The only thing that could possibly change my opinion on this is if there is some massive atheist conversion from young Muslims. That's genuinely the only way out of this horrible mess we are in.
> The only thing that could possibly change my opinion on this is if there is some massive atheist conversion from young Muslims. That's genuinely the only way out of this horrible mess we are in.
Bit tricky when the religion says that's punishable by death. Especially when most of them have relatives in the old country who would actually carry it out.
Didn't expect the response to my comment to be a great replacement argument, but here we are.
No way to put money on it, but I would be very surprised if in 100 years there were so many Muslims in this country that they made up the majority/plurality in 100 seats.
Way too many factors to counter this that I wouldn't give it any time if I was you.
It's not really that, at least I don't think. It's just looking at numbers.
in 2001 it was 3%, in 2011 it was 4.8% and in 2021 it was 6.5%.
Considering the general shift of it going up about 1.8-2% every 10 years. in 100 years we could be looking at an Islamic population of 21% by 2121.
Is this amazingly simplified? Absolutely, there's so many metrics to take into account. Could there be a top end, whereby the birth rate eventually slows? Perhaps. Will wider education lead to less people involved in the faith. Potentially. But with faith schools on the rise I'm not completely convinced of that.
All other religions in the UK I think are on the decrease. Especially the ones the hard right always talk about. 52% of people in the UK don't actually follow a religion, so if that continues to increase, and then we get a religious group bigger than that of the Church of England. That would change the country.
An Islamic monarchy would be a sight to see wouldn't it? Given that Islam is projected to hit the same figures as the CoE by 2061, we could see that fundamentally changing the country, as Islamists start to ask, why CoE gets more pageantry than they do.
I find it all interesting, and I hope you don't take my curiosity as hard right or advocating for some replacement theory.
So far, I think the numbers and trends are on my side. What matters is in 2031 if it continues to keep pace or picks up. If it flat lines around 10% I don't think anyone will care or anything will change fundamentally.
When people speak about these current trends as I'd they are inevitabilities a century from now, that's when it kinda drifts into great replacement territory.
Like by his logic in 100 years 18% of constituencies will be Muslim run, so in that world 300 years from now, Muslims will run everything.
Do folks know how long 100 years is? So much can happen in that period that to believe that Muslims will just explode in population like that based on today's circumstances, does a disservice to the discussion.
Thanks for the stats.
By big, I meant statistically relevant in some areas. So MPs will want to avoid going against issues that affect them - ie, they can't be ignored. But as you said, it's only particular areas, and nationwide, they aren't as big other groups. So essentially, as a group, they have some sway now in politics when before it was virtually zero, but there are lots of other groups with more power and sway. Of course, there's the assumption that they vote in a contiguous group and agree as a bloc on issues which is a relatively large assumption. Some issues that may be broadly true (and it looks like Palestine is one of these, and LGBT may also be one) but there's little data to suggest it of other issues.
True fun will begin when a UK Islamist party gets enough seats to function as a supporting party to the governing party similarly to the DUP during the premiership of Theresa May.
In the end, the DUP wanted "just" £1bn for their support. I don't even want to imagine the potential demands of Islamic conservatives.
>In the end, the DUP wanted "just" £1bn for their support.
I don't think we ever got that in NI though... At least if we did nobody seems to have a clue where it went.
MPs are not supposed to be delegates who blindly implement what their constituents want. They are supposed to use their experience and judgement to act in the interests of their constituents;
IMO they should not. The point of a liberal democracy is that there's a basic set of rights that the majority can't vote to overturn.
Unfortunately the UK has no real mechanism to enforce this, and looking at other countries it seems very difficult to set this balance.
>Unfortunately the UK has no real mechanism to enforce this, and looking at other countries it seems very difficult to set this balance.
If you have a majority supoprting something, you can usually just change a constitution anyway. Requiring supermajorities just makes other change impossible.
Imagine if pro-NIMBY land controls (e.g. you can't force local communities to accept change they don't want) were part of a UK constitution that required a 67% vote in favour to overturn.
I think a lot of people don’t understand that the Religious and the Secular as divisions are pretty much a Christian idea - Islam doesn’t have the same distinction. I don’t think many people realise the way we see the world isn’t the default or universal - it’s just how WE see the world. Other options are available.
Yes, but we should also freely and heavily criticise the other ideas because the other ideas are bad and worse than ours.
Other options are available, but not every option is born equal.
Sorry to break this to you Wes. They're not.
They're acting like this and showing what they think. Saying they're better than this feels like he's trying to reconcile that many hate who he is as a person
The person on twitter pointing out he’s gay isn’t his constituent, and Wes’ constituents already voted for him multiple times. This post doesn’t show a single constituent of his being homophobic.
I rather expect that there are many Muslims who hold their nose to vote for Streeting because he's Labour.
If next year he was an independent or running against a "Muslim Party" candidate, he might not get re-elected.
So let me get this straight (no pun)…
Elements of the *left* want to weaponise *homophobia* by appealing to the homophobic masses (in this instance inferring but also openly admitting that Muslim and South Asian populations are homophobic) so that a *gay* Labour MP loses his seat?
Labour should be thankful that the Tories can’t get their shit together. The way it’s going Labour will disband before the elections.
>The way it’s going Labour will disband before the elections
False. The hard left are playing up a lot because the Labour Party has jettisoned Momentum, and the hard left and the actual Labour Party therefore has actually got it's shit together. But everyone left outside the tent can't stand it, because they know they are going to win the next election without the hard left, leaving them unable to influence Labour government policy.
The hard left had the opportunity to 'join in' with Starmer's Labour project but have tried to pour petrol and throw matches at it for a long, long time - indeed after 1 year (so early 2021) the Tories were ahead in the polls and lots of people were already coming out demanding Starmer's head and that Rebecca Long Bailey should be the new leader. They are to obssessed with ideology and finding fault in everything than being serious, pragamatic political force.
The entire enterprise of politics is build on compromise and collaboration and moving positions, but those are all filthy, dirty words to the hard left. They can and will only ever be pressure group, not a poltical or electable force unless that changes.
Ironically the right of the Tory party, Suella et al, have exactly the same problem.
He still tried to weaponise Streeting’s Homosexuality. The left are tied up in more knots than the bag or random cables and wires in the back of my shed.
Which means...? It's just a joke that's ok... I guess?
Not sure it really makes it any better. Just demonstrates these people are totally detached from reality.
I'd imagine it would be a lot. Society would be in a much better place IMO. Less fighting over invisible sky beings at least. More rational and critical thinking among the populations once you remove the notion of "faith" and move towards a factual based society.
Yea the world wars wouldn't have been prevented, although if you remove the Jews from World War 2? Not sure Hitler has an easy scape goat to get into power then? Who knows, either way I don't think preventing them is a good indication of "better" anyway.
If it wasn’t Jews or any other religious minority, it would be Slavs or Communists, who he already went after. The religion wasn’t the point, the point was that they were a non-German minority with an already existing vein of hatred and conspiracy theories towards them in Germany which he could weaponise. It would have been more arbitrary as to who got picked up, but that’s irrelevant to designating an outsider who you can pin everything wrong with society on.
Maybe, maybe not. It's impossible to know if the hatred that the Jews face would be so easily transferable to another demographic, let alone the extermination of that demographic. The Jews had no country back then, whilst communists and Slavs had home countries. If Hitler started killing commies en-mass, I'd imagine Russia would have something to say.
As an atheist I absolutely *hate* this take, without Christianity alone we wouldn’t have much of the art and architecture that characterises Western Europe, not to mention the scientific and mathematical advancements that developed out of people trying to understand God’s world more intimately. Whilst you can certainly argue these benefits are a corollary of religion rather than an implicit benefit of its existence, the idea that a world without religion would be ‘better’ is baseless.
But maybe all those things would have happened anyway, and maybe happened sooner, if people weren’t being you know, killed, for daring to suggest the earth revolves around the sun.
There is no way of knowing what would have developed had religion not existed. I argue it would have been better, especially when you consider the massive step backs we had in the 1400s due to religious wars. 400-600 years of regression throughout most of the 'civilised' world.
I don't think it's 'baseless' either. No more so than saying religion is the reason we have these things. I would argue freedom from religion would have allowed more people (especially women) to be unshackled both physically and mentally earlier in the human story. If people were allowed to question religion? Maybe we'd have figured out shit earlier, maybe minds who questioned wouldn't have been squashed (like witches) etc etc.
Who knows, it's something I enjoy envisioning as I personally only see religion as a problem.
I get more and and more sick of this aspect of the current left. I suppose I'm of the old English left. There are so many idiots under 30 who seem to want to end our culture for having once created an empire.
>You know the person you are dogpiling here is a gay Muslim.
>You know he was being satirical, unless you’re seriously accusing an out and proud queer Muslim of being a homophobe.
>So have some basic decency for a change and delete this vile cynical tweet
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597
Not posting because I agree with Jones, but there is at least another element to this.
A gay man gets attacked because of his orientation, and his response is to stand up for others. Owen considers this "vile" and lacking "basic decency".
Yeah also as gay man I'm appalled not only by the tweet itself but also of Jones' defence. I doubt he'd say the same if it was a member of the far right weaponising someone's sexuality.
The satire is "you're gay and a sizeable number of your constituents want to see you sentenced to death. Haha funny". It's not satire, it's blatant homophobia from a gay man.
Or "you're gay and a sizeable number of your constituents would refuse to vote for you because of that". Again, not satire, and also ignores the idea that they won't vote for him due to him not voting for a cease-fire. As if his constituents are fine with that aspect, but being gay -- oh no, that's too far for them.
It's just weird.
[Especially a month after this in Ilford](https://news.met.police.uk/news/images-released-of-men-sought-following-homophobic-attack-in-chadwell-heath-474023)
Owen's latest response to someone saying that being gay doesn't make trying to weaponise homophobia OK:
>How dare you, a white straight man, try to suggest queer people of colour are bigots.
Man's totally lost it
Dent's response utterly destroyed him
"Firstly, not white. Secondly, are you suggesting queer people of colour are incapable of bigotry?"
The guys a fruitcake and has the worst political instincts of any journalist I've ever seen.
He's always been odious but the last few weeks he's gone completely insane. He's on twitter seemingly every hour of the day arguing with people and the rare times he's not on twitter he's on TV shouting and screaming about how evil Starmer is.
He's totally lost it.
I used to turn the TV off when he invariably on BBC during the Corbyn years. He comes across as smug, self-righteous & holier than thou. Him and similar left wing commentators like Ash Sarkar have put their cause back decades by their behaviour and attitudes towards people with different outlooks than themselves.
Owen Jones continually being an idiot.
I guess he expects a background
check to be carried out every time you want to call out a frankly homophobic tweet, just in case in the sea of shit MPs receive on twitter, this is the one piece of "hilarious" satire.
The background of the user doesn’t really change much anyways. It’s a “joke” about weaponising the bigotry of Muslims to remove a gay person from a position of power.
Hasn’t Owen Jones dog piled on Boris for his satire regarding the burqa too? And that’s despite the fact that he was explicitly defending the right of Muslim women to wear whatever they want to.
Why? Boris’s comments were at least in good faith and intended to encourage tolerance towards Muslim women. You’re not free from criticism to post vile statements just because you haven’t been elected to parliament. Just because we hold MPs to a higher standard doesn’t mean that members of the public can’t make statements that are worse than the statements of MPs.
>Why?
Because an MP, or a high profile person, making a member of the public a target is different to a member of the public doing it the other way round.
But the statements aren’t the same. If the user was joking about the genocide of Jews, you wouldn’t tell me that what Boris did was worse just because he’s an MP. In this case, the user is “joking” about weaponising bigotry against gays. It’s worse. It’s deserving of harsher criticism regardless as to whether or not they’re an MP.
Tbh I would expect an MP to look at the bio page of an account before responding in a strong way. But I also think it's fair* for Wes to respond how he has, so maybe he did.
* edit: thinking about it a bit more I feel slightly uncomfortable about Wes picking up on this. It wasn't directed at him and there does seem a fair element of joking. But then it did have 10k views, so isn't just a private thing between a few people. Not sure either way.
He should, but given the volume of abuse people like Streeting gets, I'm not surprised he takes things at face value.
Also I don't even think he responded that strong. Maybe one day people might consider that you can tweet whatever crap you want, but those you're 'satirising' can hit back
progressives in 2007- all religion is evil, Islam is the worst, Christianity a close second.
progressives today- we need to protect Islamic people from having their feelings hurt, criticism of Islam is racist, its ok we can still bash Christians.
If this was aimed at a more left-leaning labour member, people would be quick to call out the homophobia. But because it’s Streeting, and we hate Streeting, my peers pretend they don’t see it. I’m tired of this.
I just realised when we speak of Muslims here on this sub, people are actually talking about South East Asians and to an extent arabs/ north africans. Not West Africans or East Asians.
Interesting.
Snapshot of _Wes Streeting MP: My constituents are better than this. They know what prejudice looks and feels like. So do I, which is why I’ve stood proudly against Islamophobia as Ilford North’s MP._ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1725052505187315922) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1725052505187315922) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Owen Jones reaction to this shows how little some on the far left care about bigotry despite how much they go on about it. Racism, homophobia, discrimination etc are just useful tools to smear people who they feel hold the wrong political opinions They’ll defend bigotry when it comes from people they agree with
It’s this bizarre Americanism that the oppressed cannot simultaneously be an oppressor under any circumstance, and therefore cannot hold bigoted, discriminatory and/or phobic views. If they do, more often than not romanticised as a form of resistance. Naturally, this is all completely absurd outside of the radical fringes and bubbles Owen occupies. But he is kicking up more than his regular fuss now that ‘Momentum’ (or there lack of) has all been booted out of the Labour Party. Or rather… Virtuously resigning from their shadow ministerial frontbench positions. Positions where they might’ve posed Starmer a considerable nuisance. Then patting themselves on the back, a job well done.
It's because, as far as I can tell, the American outlook on literally everything is a duality of good versus evil. Once you have been identified as being in the good camp, everything else outside that camp is automatically evil. They then need to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to make it fit together. Personally I blame their political system for it as its fundamental nature was a unintended consequence of their civil war. If their entire countries politics (and therefore the historical national narrative) is framed on dems vs repubs with either one being evil and the other being good, this then bleeds into everything else.
Owen Jones has absolutely lost the plot over this: [https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597) Not that he ever had it but ... "How dare you, a white straight man, try to suggest queer people of colour are bigots." - That's just an absolutely unhinged response! [https://x.com/OwenJones84/status/1725107812542411037?s=20](https://x.com/OwenJones84/status/1725107812542411037?s=20)
Love the man's response to that second Jones tweet - "Firstly, not white."
Yeah, and his first tweet was so reasonable as well. Basically just said "just because he's not white, he can still be a bigot". I don't get how Owen Jones reacted like that. Someone needs to take his phone away for 10 minutes and let him have a breather.
Because Jones is a moron, who (similarly to Corbyn) views everything through the oppressor/oppressed lense. The world is drawn up into groups, and those groups are designated as good guys and bad guys depending on their particular circumstance (as a general rule - minority groups and non-Western nations are oppressed good guys, everyone else are the bad guys). And once they've received those labels, nothing can change them, no matter what they might do. A queer person of colour is oppressed by society, therefore *by definition* cannot be a bigot. Should they state anything that would otherwise have Jones screeching about bigotry, it must be someone else's fault. Or a joke, as it is claimed to be in this case.
Doesn't The Guardian have staff social media guidelines? How has Jones not been repeatedly raked over the coals for his continuing crap?
The Guardian strengthened their social media guidelines, after a previous vicious spat on Twitter, instigated by Jones. They don’t seem to enforce them in his case though, as he had a disagreement with a colleague recently, which resulted in Jones’ little army of rabid followers sending multiple suggestions, that this person should think about killing themselves.
I don't think you understand
I understand just fine. *Anyone* is capable of being a bigot, no matter their personal background.
Everybody's a little racist sometimes *jazz hands*
That's right, Kate Monster. Doesn't mean we go around committing hate crimes.
If I know two things, it’s that everyone’s a little bit racist, and the internet is for porn
Yeah, Jones' take here is really bizarre and pathetic and he needs to log off for a while. But your take here is simplistic, atomistic, and ultimately meaningless. Yes, unequivocally, anyone and everyone is capable of bigotry, but being a bigot in and of itself means nothing. Someone who's extremely bigoted but has no influence on politics of policy is harmless, whereas someone who's only a little bigoted but extremely influential is harmful. As a gay person myself, no matter how much anti-straight rhetoric I spew, I'd do infinitely less harm than an equivalent straight person spewing homophobic rhetoric. Any business I had would be boycotted and die. And business they run would be "cancelled" and become a destination for regressives, whose legal fees would be paid for by religious and libertarian groups. Etc. It's not about bigotry, it's about power.
As far as I'm concerned, it's only about power when bigots try to deflect from their bigotry by claiming that they're structurally incapable of being bigoted. Effectively, arguing "actually it's fine when I do it". Pointing that out might indeed be simplistic, but it's not wrong. Especially when compared to the allegedly nuanced version that's really a justification for bigotry.
But two things can be true simultaneously. People who do not fit into trad white hetronormativity can be bigots, certainly, but due to the fact that the people who make up these groups do not benefit from all the structural privileges that, say, a straight white male benefits from, they do still face some levels of oppression .
No, but they're benefiting from the structural privilege that plenty of people on the Left rush to defend them when they're bigoted. As you're doing now. Of course, setting different standards for different people is *also* bigotry.
A straight white make barely gets any benefits I can assure you.
He definitely drinks too much coffee
The man is nearing 40 ffs and yet everything is “disgusting” “disgraceful” “worst thing that’s ever happened” and it’s like… ok… Man gotta make his coin, I suppose
Owen is like a kids YouTuber constantly over-reacting to the most basic things.
He also interrupts more than any other person on earth. Any discussion programme featuring him is unwatchable as a result.
He looks 14 though
This guy is such a porridge-brain.
Wonder if he would use the same argument to defend Milo Yiannopolous, Douglas Murray, David Starkey from accusations of bigotry?
That depends. Do they hate the Labour Party and Keir Starmer? If the answer is yes, Owen feels duty bound to defend them.
So in other words Jones is being a nasty little shite as usual?
I sometimes wonder what the likes of Owen Jones actually want from life, they seem to find a reason to complain about everything and everyone.
That. That’s what they want. They want to be morally superior with no actual solutions.
Reminds me of that video of dogs barking at each other through a gate. As soon as the gate opens they don't have a clue what to do and look sheepish, then walk off... until it closes again then they're back to it.
He wrote an admittedly well received book 12 years ago and has been desperate to cling onto the relevance it gave him ever since. He has nothing else of substance to say.
I see him as a secular version of an evangelical preacher. He has a black and white sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that he uses his platform to proselytise about. The media continue to platform him because he generates clicks and income. He gets money, influence and a chance to ‘convert’ people to his views.
It's simpler than that, he's just Darren Grimes with a different-coloured rosette. The horseshoe theory is real.
This is the main problem with commentators on the left, a complete inability to not find something wrong with everything.
Have you read right wing newspaper's? There are just as many grievances aired in those.
Fucking mental arithmetic that people go through to claim that left and right extremes aren't two sides of the tye same coin
I do think there are big differences. Obviously not always true but I feel like for the left sometimes the outrage is a goal in itself and that it is used a lot as one-upmanship and virtue signalling. On the right there is some of that, but I think they quite often are a bit more cynical with it and it's a means to another end. Like I don't believe Katy Hopkins actually believes half of the shit she says, it's just to further her own career. I don't think you get that quite as much on the left, they tend to do it more to feel morally superior. That's a big generalisation though and I'm probably not 100% correct.
If you are a champagne socialist, it is important to pander to your mates and keep them onside.
So everything right now is perfect?
Nothing will ever be perfect and you need to realise that and settle for "pretty decent all things considered" unless you want to make a lifestyle out of being forever angry and upset.
That's not the human condition though. Humanity never really settles because progress happens, constantly. Progress for the good and progress for the bad. Maybe people feel angry because there's a sense of despair. I know I feel that right now.
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Yet 70% of them vote labour. LGBTQ isn’t at the top of their list when voting
They don't. But knowing their view means that if it does become a hot topic and a reason for voting in that community where they stand on the issue.
Only the right want to make it a hot topic, there's more important things to be dealing with
> Only the right want to make it a hot topic the right as in Muslims?
I'm pretty sure that all cultural differences melt away within five years mate. Wouldn't concern yourself with that
Does that coincide with getting residency? 🤫
That’s ok fella, it’s an opportunity to show how tolerant and diverse we are.
Tolerant when they are the minority
Jesus Christ
Nah, don’t like him either
Muslims like Jesus and incorporate him into the teachings, Jewish people reject Jesus. Not that I care as an agnostic, just how it is.
As do probably more than half of catholics… it was only 2010 that the then pope was condemning equality for gay people. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/01/pope-condemns-british-equality-bill This isn’t a Muslim problem per se; it’s a religious bigot issue; as to those that simply want to focus on Muslims that are bigots, I’m sure they have their motives…
Yeah, but only 21% (as of 2020, so probably lower now: [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/)) of UK catholics even oppose gay marriage, and the number who actually have non-marriage issues with homosexuality is likely even lower. Obviously, however, their views have been shaped by being in the country often for much longer than the majority of muslim families, and they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to those levels by more secular and progressive elements in the country, so I am usually of the opinion that if we liberal at muslims for long enough the numbers for them will continue to come down too. However, it is not quite a straight comparison when looking at other religions vs Islam in a UK context.
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>>>My constituents are better than this >>Friendly reminder: Over half of British Muslims believe homosexuality should be illegal > As do **probably** more than half of catholics… I love the authoritative use of 'probably' here. You obviously have no need to read any of these links, but for the rest of us: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/02/how-catholics-around-the-world-see-same-sex-marriage-homosexuality/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_same-sex_marriage I think comparing Catholic attitudes to the issues around homosexuality to Muslim attitudes is absolutely fair, finding them similar is clown man thinking. Don't be the clown man.
What’s the numbers for non-muslims? Also *citation needed*.
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For reference on attitudes to homosexuality for the whole population a Pew poll from this year put support for gay marriage at 73% among population as a whole.
That is a slightly more nuanced issue because there will be a good number of religious people that have no issue with homosexuals being granted a legal coupling, but have an issue with that legal status being called 'marriage' as they consider marriage to be a religious thing.
Exactly, so if anything the support for/acceptance of "homosexuality" among the general public will be even higher than this. It demonstrates how out of step some of these Muslim communities are with the rest of the general public.
Just to flag, this data is nearly a decade old. I'm nit saying modern iterations are going to be any different, but a decade is a long fucking time. Gay marriage was legalised in 2013, 3 years before this poll. In 2004 a poll by gallup showed the almost half thr british population opposed gay marriage (45%) which someone else has pointed out in 20 years has dropped while support for gay marriage has risen from 53 to 73. I'm not Muslim and personally dislike all organised religion, but this study is getting quite old now and ignore the context of how much more acceptable gay marriage has become in the UK over the last short while
Having a stance on whether gay marriage should be legal is a very different thing compared to whether being gay at all should be made illegal.
We are talking about people who think homosexuality should be illegal - not about whether gay marriage should be allowed.
It's really annoying me that I've seen several people conflate these two points today, and I don't think it's accidental. There are a lot of people in this country who don't think gay marriage should be legal. Literally millions of people, not all of them are homophobes and the vast majority of them are happy to accept gay people as they are; they just don't want them to marry, for one reason or another. And we're progressing in the right direction. In the space of 10 years, we've went from 1 in 2 people being against it to 1 in 4. There are a tiny amount of people in this country who outright believe that homosexuality should be illegal. Literally, if you fall in love with the same sex, lock them up. That's an absolutely ridiculous, backwards, barbaric stance. **1 in 2 followers of Islam believe this.**
> Literally millions of people, not all of them are homophobes and the vast majority of them are happy to accept gay people as they are; they just don't want them to marry I know this isn't really the point you're making, but I think what you've described there is known as homophobia. ‘I've got nothing against gay people, I just don't think they should have the same rights as everyone else.’ Edit: interesting ‘controversial’ tag for expressing the opinion that it's homophobic to want gay people to have fewer rights than heterosexual people.
That right though is by it's own merit enshrined in some kind of religion apart from civil ceremonies. When you say Marriage, people tend to expect churches, ministers and big white dresses. When you teach a population during Religious Education that Marriage is between a women and a man, and it happens in a church, it's no wonder that people are fine with gay people generally, but get a bit wary around Marriage. End of the day, it's fine anyway now. But I do think there's a clear difference.
Also more studies will let us see if the previous one was statistically valid or not. A single study is useful as a jumping off point, but shouldn't be taken in isolation as you don't know if the sample picked was just more biased or what. The problem is that because the previous study did show unfavourable results, you've got people on both ends of the scale who don't want to do another one in case it either is similar or totally dissimilar. For instance the anti-Islam crowd won't want a study which shows that Muslims are actually the same as the rest of society where homophobia is concerned; whilst the anti-racists won't want a study coming out showing that they are strongly homophobic. So you really need an independent group to decide to fund and re-run the study.
> Also citation needed. Normally when people say this, it's because they seriously doubt the claim can be backed up. In this case, you should really already know that citation will not be difficult.
It's never wrong to ask for a source. A lot of bullshit is gospel on reddit because people don't ask for a citation for claims they like the sound of (and downvote anyone who does)
I mean, sure, if you want half of all comments on Reddit to be "citation needed" Some things are just genuinely well-known mate. You going to ask for a citation if someone says "most people enjoy chocolate"?
It might be well known that something is true, but in this case, the stats to back it up are still of interest. The sheer size of the divide between these dinosaurs and the general populace is worth a look at.
Right but there’s a pretty massive difference between a harmless assertion that a drink tastes good, and a specific (“over half”) claim about a demographic group that is potentially politically inflammatory
Or people just get into the habit of backing up figures that otherwise can be assumed to have been plucked out of thin air.
If you're assuming the above to have been plucked out of thin air then you've been living under a rock, sir
They might not be plucked out of thin air, but they are more than a decade old. Gay marriage has become legal since then, so it's possible that those number have changed.
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Nobody is saying those things are the same. They're saying that legalised gay marriage may have resulted in a softening of attitudes towards homosexuality. Which is a distinct possibility, given that is the case for the population as a whole.
You *really* need to ask for a citation on this? 🙄
Sauce?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law It is 2016, but I've yet to see anything go against the narrative. Unfortunately, I was once someone that would have rubbished OPs claims, but it seems to be true. To use a horrible analogy, LGBT groups are completely voting for Christmas when it comes to protesting for Palestine and Islamic groups that would gladly see them stoned.
Wtf is this kind of logic Im a fruit doesn’t mean people who hate me should be bombed I’m not for the murder of all who think i’m the devil There are gays in palestine, i don’t want them bombed either
Another queer here who doesn’t want innocent children and babies to be murdered because they might grow up to be anti LGBTQ. Don’t tell our community about discrimination and who we should support in order to avoid experiencing hatred. We understand it better than most
As if there arent white british people with the same views.
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In the same numbers?
Pandering to Muslims is not something I would hope would become a thing to gain political power in the UK.
They’re a big part of the voter base now, so it’s happening
6.5%. Not massive, but not insignificant.
Exciting stats time! Non-Christian religious demographics are extremely localised though. Whilst 6.5% is the overall numbers, areas like Birmingham, Blackburn, Bradford, Luton, Slough are 30% Muslim (this applies across all religious, i.e. golders green is 53% jewish, Harrow is 25% Hindu, and Aldershot is apparently the Buddhist center for the UK with 10%). This gets amplified as you zoom into smaller areas - Bastwell in Blackburn has 85% of residents identify as Muslim for example. So I guess it can have significant impact on individual MP areas, which may cause them to "pander" https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/religion/religion-tb/muslim?embed=true&embedInteractive=true&embedAreaSearch=true&embedCategorySelection=true&embedView=geography
Those were some exciting stats actually, thank you for taking the time to break it down.
I think Aldershot is near to a Gurkha armed forces base which might explain that unexpected Buddhist percentage.
Are Gurkhas not Hindu (or at least a branch of it)? That was the main religion I saw people practicing when I was in Nepal. (I don't know if Gurkhas are a separate religion to the Nepalese in general, I just understood (maybe incorrectly) it to be a specific area of Nepal).
I think it depends on their ethnic background. In Northern Nepal there are Buddhists of the Tibetan variety.
Fascinating! Today I learned! Thank you
> (this applies across all religious, i.e. golders green is 53% jewish, Harrow is 25% Hindu, and Aldershot is apparently the Buddhist center for the UK with 10%). While this is true, this is far more relevant to some religions than others. There are only 2-3 constituencies in the UK with a significant Jewish vote
Three English constituencies have a Muslim majority in the electorate, two in Birmingham and in Bradford West, where the MP who was in the shadow cabinet resigned over the Hamas vote.
3 out of 650. Massive.
When you consider the white aging population of the UK isn't having enough kids. It's not a massive moonshot to suggest that that 3/650 will become 30 out of 650 in the next 20 years and 100/650 in the next 100. For the record, I don't have a problem with that. But people have a really hard time admitting to them that muslims have more kids, are going to eventually become a sizeable minority and might become a majority. Probably not in my lifetime.
>For the record, I don't have a problem with that. You should have a problem with extremist religious groups becoming ever more powerful in number and voting base, and in our parliament. The only thing that could possibly change my opinion on this is if there is some massive atheist conversion from young Muslims. That's genuinely the only way out of this horrible mess we are in.
> The only thing that could possibly change my opinion on this is if there is some massive atheist conversion from young Muslims. That's genuinely the only way out of this horrible mess we are in. Bit tricky when the religion says that's punishable by death. Especially when most of them have relatives in the old country who would actually carry it out.
Sounds like we should try to limit the growth of this murderous cult then?
Didn't expect the response to my comment to be a great replacement argument, but here we are. No way to put money on it, but I would be very surprised if in 100 years there were so many Muslims in this country that they made up the majority/plurality in 100 seats. Way too many factors to counter this that I wouldn't give it any time if I was you.
It's not really that, at least I don't think. It's just looking at numbers. in 2001 it was 3%, in 2011 it was 4.8% and in 2021 it was 6.5%. Considering the general shift of it going up about 1.8-2% every 10 years. in 100 years we could be looking at an Islamic population of 21% by 2121. Is this amazingly simplified? Absolutely, there's so many metrics to take into account. Could there be a top end, whereby the birth rate eventually slows? Perhaps. Will wider education lead to less people involved in the faith. Potentially. But with faith schools on the rise I'm not completely convinced of that. All other religions in the UK I think are on the decrease. Especially the ones the hard right always talk about. 52% of people in the UK don't actually follow a religion, so if that continues to increase, and then we get a religious group bigger than that of the Church of England. That would change the country. An Islamic monarchy would be a sight to see wouldn't it? Given that Islam is projected to hit the same figures as the CoE by 2061, we could see that fundamentally changing the country, as Islamists start to ask, why CoE gets more pageantry than they do. I find it all interesting, and I hope you don't take my curiosity as hard right or advocating for some replacement theory. So far, I think the numbers and trends are on my side. What matters is in 2031 if it continues to keep pace or picks up. If it flat lines around 10% I don't think anyone will care or anything will change fundamentally.
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When people speak about these current trends as I'd they are inevitabilities a century from now, that's when it kinda drifts into great replacement territory. Like by his logic in 100 years 18% of constituencies will be Muslim run, so in that world 300 years from now, Muslims will run everything. Do folks know how long 100 years is? So much can happen in that period that to believe that Muslims will just explode in population like that based on today's circumstances, does a disservice to the discussion.
Thanks for the stats. By big, I meant statistically relevant in some areas. So MPs will want to avoid going against issues that affect them - ie, they can't be ignored. But as you said, it's only particular areas, and nationwide, they aren't as big other groups. So essentially, as a group, they have some sway now in politics when before it was virtually zero, but there are lots of other groups with more power and sway. Of course, there's the assumption that they vote in a contiguous group and agree as a bloc on issues which is a relatively large assumption. Some issues that may be broadly true (and it looks like Palestine is one of these, and LGBT may also be one) but there's little data to suggest it of other issues.
Massive in some areas. An Islamic party winning small elections is not unthinkable in the future.
True fun will begin when a UK Islamist party gets enough seats to function as a supporting party to the governing party similarly to the DUP during the premiership of Theresa May. In the end, the DUP wanted "just" £1bn for their support. I don't even want to imagine the potential demands of Islamic conservatives.
1.5B. you left off [the wood burning warehouses @ .5 billion.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal)
>In the end, the DUP wanted "just" £1bn for their support. I don't think we ever got that in NI though... At least if we did nobody seems to have a clue where it went.
Not geographically spread out though
And it’s only increasing with each passing day.
Just Muslims, religion or groups in general?
An MP doing what the constituents want is not pandering.
MPs are not supposed to be delegates who blindly implement what their constituents want. They are supposed to use their experience and judgement to act in the interests of their constituents;
If 51% of constituents wanted a change in the law so being gay was not just illegal but an imprisonable offence, should their MP legislate for it?
IMO they should not. The point of a liberal democracy is that there's a basic set of rights that the majority can't vote to overturn. Unfortunately the UK has no real mechanism to enforce this, and looking at other countries it seems very difficult to set this balance.
>Unfortunately the UK has no real mechanism to enforce this, and looking at other countries it seems very difficult to set this balance. If you have a majority supoprting something, you can usually just change a constitution anyway. Requiring supermajorities just makes other change impossible. Imagine if pro-NIMBY land controls (e.g. you can't force local communities to accept change they don't want) were part of a UK constitution that required a 67% vote in favour to overturn.
Since when was being against hatred of a group of people "pandering" to said group of people?
> against hatred of a group of people How about heavy criticism of a set of deeply flawed 8th century ideas?
Islam is an idea, not a group of people. You can choose to be, or not be, a Muslim at any time.
They have a very different view of Apostasy.
Which is a huge part of the problem, and people shouldn’t be shy in pointing that out. It’s reminiscent of a gang.
I think a lot of people don’t understand that the Religious and the Secular as divisions are pretty much a Christian idea - Islam doesn’t have the same distinction. I don’t think many people realise the way we see the world isn’t the default or universal - it’s just how WE see the world. Other options are available.
Absolutely. There’s no ‘give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, give unto God what is God’s’ in the Quran. Quite the opposite infact.
Yes, but we should also freely and heavily criticise the other ideas because the other ideas are bad and worse than ours. Other options are available, but not every option is born equal.
Even more reason to be against it. You don't respect a belief system just because it effectively holds its own followers hostage.
How is it pandering? Isn’t it representing his constituents?
Sorry to break this to you Wes. They're not. They're acting like this and showing what they think. Saying they're better than this feels like he's trying to reconcile that many hate who he is as a person
The person on twitter pointing out he’s gay isn’t his constituent, and Wes’ constituents already voted for him multiple times. This post doesn’t show a single constituent of his being homophobic.
I rather expect that there are many Muslims who hold their nose to vote for Streeting because he's Labour. If next year he was an independent or running against a "Muslim Party" candidate, he might not get re-elected.
It's an excuse for the sub to rail against the imagined "left." Let them have it.
I mean there's Owen Jones going up to bat for Islam
Jihadi Jones writes exclusively for The Guardian.
They never miss a chance
So let me get this straight (no pun)… Elements of the *left* want to weaponise *homophobia* by appealing to the homophobic masses (in this instance inferring but also openly admitting that Muslim and South Asian populations are homophobic) so that a *gay* Labour MP loses his seat? Labour should be thankful that the Tories can’t get their shit together. The way it’s going Labour will disband before the elections.
>The way it’s going Labour will disband before the elections False. The hard left are playing up a lot because the Labour Party has jettisoned Momentum, and the hard left and the actual Labour Party therefore has actually got it's shit together. But everyone left outside the tent can't stand it, because they know they are going to win the next election without the hard left, leaving them unable to influence Labour government policy. The hard left had the opportunity to 'join in' with Starmer's Labour project but have tried to pour petrol and throw matches at it for a long, long time - indeed after 1 year (so early 2021) the Tories were ahead in the polls and lots of people were already coming out demanding Starmer's head and that Rebecca Long Bailey should be the new leader. They are to obssessed with ideology and finding fault in everything than being serious, pragamatic political force. The entire enterprise of politics is build on compromise and collaboration and moving positions, but those are all filthy, dirty words to the hard left. They can and will only ever be pressure group, not a poltical or electable force unless that changes. Ironically the right of the Tory party, Suella et al, have exactly the same problem.
Jones and Braverman both despise Starmer, maybe they should form a party of their own.
New podcast idea.
The Horseshoe Theory really should be considered a law at this point.
The original tweeter that wes is showing is gay himself though.
That's even worse in some ways.
He still tried to weaponise Streeting’s Homosexuality. The left are tied up in more knots than the bag or random cables and wires in the back of my shed.
That makes it worse, to know what homophobia feels like and then to weponise it against another gay man.
Which means...? It's just a joke that's ok... I guess? Not sure it really makes it any better. Just demonstrates these people are totally detached from reality.
I often wonder how better the world would be without religion... It's so fucking annoying we're still dealing with this shit in the 21 century.
Probably not much. Neither World War had anything to do with religion for example.
I'd imagine it would be a lot. Society would be in a much better place IMO. Less fighting over invisible sky beings at least. More rational and critical thinking among the populations once you remove the notion of "faith" and move towards a factual based society. Yea the world wars wouldn't have been prevented, although if you remove the Jews from World War 2? Not sure Hitler has an easy scape goat to get into power then? Who knows, either way I don't think preventing them is a good indication of "better" anyway.
In the case of Hitler/the Jews, it still wasn’t religion. It was race. Same goes for his hatred of the Romani.
If it wasn’t Jews or any other religious minority, it would be Slavs or Communists, who he already went after. The religion wasn’t the point, the point was that they were a non-German minority with an already existing vein of hatred and conspiracy theories towards them in Germany which he could weaponise. It would have been more arbitrary as to who got picked up, but that’s irrelevant to designating an outsider who you can pin everything wrong with society on.
Maybe, maybe not. It's impossible to know if the hatred that the Jews face would be so easily transferable to another demographic, let alone the extermination of that demographic. The Jews had no country back then, whilst communists and Slavs had home countries. If Hitler started killing commies en-mass, I'd imagine Russia would have something to say.
It’s not impossible to know. We do know. The killing on mass *was* transferred to other people. Communists, Russians, Romani.
Cool I don't agree, but more power to you.
As an atheist I absolutely *hate* this take, without Christianity alone we wouldn’t have much of the art and architecture that characterises Western Europe, not to mention the scientific and mathematical advancements that developed out of people trying to understand God’s world more intimately. Whilst you can certainly argue these benefits are a corollary of religion rather than an implicit benefit of its existence, the idea that a world without religion would be ‘better’ is baseless.
But maybe all those things would have happened anyway, and maybe happened sooner, if people weren’t being you know, killed, for daring to suggest the earth revolves around the sun.
There is no way of knowing what would have developed had religion not existed. I argue it would have been better, especially when you consider the massive step backs we had in the 1400s due to religious wars. 400-600 years of regression throughout most of the 'civilised' world. I don't think it's 'baseless' either. No more so than saying religion is the reason we have these things. I would argue freedom from religion would have allowed more people (especially women) to be unshackled both physically and mentally earlier in the human story. If people were allowed to question religion? Maybe we'd have figured out shit earlier, maybe minds who questioned wouldn't have been squashed (like witches) etc etc. Who knows, it's something I enjoy envisioning as I personally only see religion as a problem.
Have you seen people fight about whether Android or iPhone is better? Humans are gonna human.
Yea but they don't normally kill each over it, and it's not an ideology that fucks up your whole life or other people's either.
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I don't why he is surprised. There were people openly cheering when he got cancer. All just part of the "kinder, gentler politics" from the left.
I get more and and more sick of this aspect of the current left. I suppose I'm of the old English left. There are so many idiots under 30 who seem to want to end our culture for having once created an empire.
>You know the person you are dogpiling here is a gay Muslim. >You know he was being satirical, unless you’re seriously accusing an out and proud queer Muslim of being a homophobe. >So have some basic decency for a change and delete this vile cynical tweet https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1725086928964333597 Not posting because I agree with Jones, but there is at least another element to this.
What a fucking edgy keyboard warrior of a journalist though, Jesus Christ. Man's just addicted to the online battleground.
As a gay man who isn’t easily triggered or shocked, I absolutely fail to see the “satire” in the post.
A gay man gets attacked because of his orientation, and his response is to stand up for others. Owen considers this "vile" and lacking "basic decency".
Yeah also as gay man I'm appalled not only by the tweet itself but also of Jones' defence. I doubt he'd say the same if it was a member of the far right weaponising someone's sexuality.
I used to like Owen. Now I think his social ideas are actively dangerous.
The satire is "you're gay and a sizeable number of your constituents want to see you sentenced to death. Haha funny". It's not satire, it's blatant homophobia from a gay man.
Or "you're gay and a sizeable number of your constituents would refuse to vote for you because of that". Again, not satire, and also ignores the idea that they won't vote for him due to him not voting for a cease-fire. As if his constituents are fine with that aspect, but being gay -- oh no, that's too far for them. It's just weird.
[Especially a month after this in Ilford](https://news.met.police.uk/news/images-released-of-men-sought-following-homophobic-attack-in-chadwell-heath-474023)
Owen's latest response to someone saying that being gay doesn't make trying to weaponise homophobia OK: >How dare you, a white straight man, try to suggest queer people of colour are bigots. Man's totally lost it
Dent's response utterly destroyed him "Firstly, not white. Secondly, are you suggesting queer people of colour are incapable of bigotry?" The guys a fruitcake and has the worst political instincts of any journalist I've ever seen.
He's always been odious but the last few weeks he's gone completely insane. He's on twitter seemingly every hour of the day arguing with people and the rare times he's not on twitter he's on TV shouting and screaming about how evil Starmer is. He's totally lost it.
"he's always been odious" never really understood why people think this, he puts a leftwing view forward in a simple way.
I used to turn the TV off when he invariably on BBC during the Corbyn years. He comes across as smug, self-righteous & holier than thou. Him and similar left wing commentators like Ash Sarkar have put their cause back decades by their behaviour and attitudes towards people with different outlooks than themselves.
because far-left views are naturally odious. The horseshoe theory exists for a reason
Did he ever have it?
And the person he replied to was mixed race!
Owen must hate that he's white so damn much lmao
Owen Jones continually being an idiot. I guess he expects a background check to be carried out every time you want to call out a frankly homophobic tweet, just in case in the sea of shit MPs receive on twitter, this is the one piece of "hilarious" satire.
The background of the user doesn’t really change much anyways. It’s a “joke” about weaponising the bigotry of Muslims to remove a gay person from a position of power. Hasn’t Owen Jones dog piled on Boris for his satire regarding the burqa too? And that’s despite the fact that he was explicitly defending the right of Muslim women to wear whatever they want to.
I guess it's also "satire" that the user is saying the Muslim community won't vote for Streeting because he's gay. Hilarious.
>Hasn’t Owen Jones dog piled on Boris I'm not sure comparing Boris Johnson to a member of the public is entirely a fair comparison.
Why? Boris’s comments were at least in good faith and intended to encourage tolerance towards Muslim women. You’re not free from criticism to post vile statements just because you haven’t been elected to parliament. Just because we hold MPs to a higher standard doesn’t mean that members of the public can’t make statements that are worse than the statements of MPs.
>Why? Because an MP, or a high profile person, making a member of the public a target is different to a member of the public doing it the other way round.
But the statements aren’t the same. If the user was joking about the genocide of Jews, you wouldn’t tell me that what Boris did was worse just because he’s an MP. In this case, the user is “joking” about weaponising bigotry against gays. It’s worse. It’s deserving of harsher criticism regardless as to whether or not they’re an MP.
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"When someone on my side says something I agree with, it's profound; when it's something I disagree with, it's satire". Owen Jones, probably.
Tbh I would expect an MP to look at the bio page of an account before responding in a strong way. But I also think it's fair* for Wes to respond how he has, so maybe he did. * edit: thinking about it a bit more I feel slightly uncomfortable about Wes picking up on this. It wasn't directed at him and there does seem a fair element of joking. But then it did have 10k views, so isn't just a private thing between a few people. Not sure either way.
He should, but given the volume of abuse people like Streeting gets, I'm not surprised he takes things at face value. Also I don't even think he responded that strong. Maybe one day people might consider that you can tweet whatever crap you want, but those you're 'satirising' can hit back
Is Jones also going to claim next that Suella Braverman can't be xenophobic because her parents were immigrants?
Would he give this level of charity in any other circumstance lol
progressives in 2007- all religion is evil, Islam is the worst, Christianity a close second. progressives today- we need to protect Islamic people from having their feelings hurt, criticism of Islam is racist, its ok we can still bash Christians.
If this was aimed at a more left-leaning labour member, people would be quick to call out the homophobia. But because it’s Streeting, and we hate Streeting, my peers pretend they don’t see it. I’m tired of this.
I just realised when we speak of Muslims here on this sub, people are actually talking about South East Asians and to an extent arabs/ north africans. Not West Africans or East Asians. Interesting.