Censors create martyrs

Who is the Joe Rogan of the left? I have no idea, but Keir Starmer is the centrist Xi Jinping.

Starmer’s approach to human rights is like China’s approach to net zero. Happy to use it to further their own interests, but obviously you losers are alone when it comes to making sacrifices to achieve it.

Oliver Eagleton’s 2022 polemic “The Starmer Project” was published before Starmer had time to show the country his true colours in government. Two years in, Eagleton will be feeling vindicated. Analysing his career as DPP, Eagleton concludes that Starmer’s defining feature is not his image as a human rights champion — that has little basis in any deep-rooted values, and everything to do with using the signalling of human rights as a cause celebre to entrench his public image, while in reality harbouring a deep commitment to state authority reinforced by punitive crackdowns on civil liberties.

Eagleton describes Starmer as the “punisher-in-chief” for the government during the 2011 riots, when Starmer facilitated all-night court sittings, which resulted in individuals receiving harsh prison sentences for minor offences, such as stealing bottles of water or boxes of doughnuts. Starmer personally supported a government “superdatabase” which can track all phone and internet communications, and was the US’s best ally when it came to extraditing Julian Assange. His pursuit of the extradition of the autistic IT expert Gary McKinnon to the United States for hacking military databases was only frustrated by the known lefty agitator Theresa May, and defended by the Socialist Prince Boris Johnson. 

There are teenagers in Brixton who’d never heard of Hasan Piker before Monday, but now they’ve heard that loser Starmer has banned him from coming here, they will be piling onto his channels. I can imagine whatever the akshually, debate me bro, version of Zoomer is congregating in their group chats after the Government announced that the presence of Piker — along with fellow left-winger Cenk Uygur — “may not be conducive to the public good” and therefore banned them from entering the country are currently resharing botched Voltaire quotes. “Bruv, whoever you can’t chat shit about? That’s who’s running the ting.”

“Bruv, whoever you can’t chat shit about? That’s who’s running the ting.”

It is likely that more people know of Hasan Piker and the Young Turks than know of Keir Starmer. Piker has over 1 billion views on YouTube and over 3 million followers on Twitch. The Young Turks, the channel that hosts Uygur, has 6.63 million subscribers on YouTube and gets 500 million views a month across its channels. Starmer’s recently launched Substack has hidden its subscriber count, but they are still visible if one cares to count them. I did. It’s 197. Not even the who’s who of Westminster is subscribed to his Substack. And why would they? Starmer has perfected the act of saying nothing, hiding his real intentions behind proceduralism. Successful commentators polarise; that’s how they built an audience — especially in the US, the undisputed mecca of political hyperbole.

Centrists understand that when it comes to right-wing commentators. They will say, for example, that it would be foolish of any politician to reject an invitation to Joe Rogan, given his enormous audience (11 million listeners per episode). There is no equivalent in the UK, but the closest is Labour MPs being told to hold their tongue and go on GB News panels, or stay strong when a Cabinet member writes for the Sun or the Daily Mail. If Keir Starmer cared about advancing Socialism as he cares about protecting the status quo, he would be urging them to treat Novara Media and Owen Jones with at least equal grace. Which is to say, they’d still have fights with them, but would not scoff at their audience.

Hassan Piker has previously spoken at the Oxford Union without issue. What changed since then? Perhaps it’s because Piker is now under active US federal scrutiny. He has been subpoenaed by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for his involvement in a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba in March. But why should this have an impact on whether he is allowed to enter the UK?

The reality is that Israel is one of many countries that tries to influence British politics. There is no conspiracy about that.

Listen, I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next blackpilled millennial. But the reality is that Israel is one of many countries that tries to influence British politics. There is no conspiracy about that. I find all of the commentators who prioritise foreign interests annoying, be it India, the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, China, the EU, and yes, that includes that nutty Israeli mayor who spits at you rather than talking with you, whom many of us have had to share panels with. Pot calling kettle black, one may say, seeing as I am Greek myself: but I no more represent Greek interests than a random Jewish person represents Israel’s. Alas, these people are not responsible for our Starmer’s decisions. 

We’ve covered this, Sir Keir. Freedom of speech is not freedom from hearing others speak. I’ve given up expecting consistency from either side on whose speech deserves protecting. What I cannot let go is the specific delusion that banning commentators reduces hate and division. It doesn’t. It creates martyrs.