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Surrender acts and lynch mobs: The real-life consequences of inflammatory language
“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically – the EU is an attempt to do this by different methods”
Boris Johnson, May 2016
Evoking dictatorship has become a habit for MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate. In the run-up to the referendum Johnson suggested the EU was pursuing the same goal as Hitler by attempting to build a European superstate, while Michael Gove compared Remain-backing economists to the Nazi scientists who denounced Albert Einstein in the 1930s (Gove later apologised). Two years later, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, compared the EU to the Soviet Union in a speech. In April 2019 the Labour MP and second referendum campaigner David Lammy defended his warning not to “appease” Tory MPs in the Eurosceptic European Research Group. “I don’t care how elected they are – so was the far right in Germany,” he told Andrew Marr in an interview.
These historical references seem to have rubbed off. The second referendum advocate Anna Soubry was showered with chants of “Soubry is a Nazi” by protesters earlier this year. On 27 September, after the Labour MP Jess Phillips tabled an urgent question in the Commons about inflammatory language, a man was arrested after he reportedly banged on the windows of her constituency office in Birmingham Yardley and shouted “fascist”.
Boris Johnson, May 2016
Evoking dictatorship has become a habit for MPs on both sides of the Brexit debate. In the run-up to the referendum Johnson suggested the EU was pursuing the same goal as Hitler by attempting to build a European superstate, while Michael Gove compared Remain-backing economists to the Nazi scientists who denounced Albert Einstein in the 1930s (Gove later apologised). Two years later, Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, compared the EU to the Soviet Union in a speech. In April 2019 the Labour MP and second referendum campaigner David Lammy defended his warning not to “appease” Tory MPs in the Eurosceptic European Research Group. “I don’t care how elected they are – so was the far right in Germany,” he told Andrew Marr in an interview.
These historical references seem to have rubbed off. The second referendum advocate Anna Soubry was showered with chants of “Soubry is a Nazi” by protesters earlier this year. On 27 September, after the Labour MP Jess Phillips tabled an urgent question in the Commons about inflammatory language, a man was arrested after he reportedly banged on the windows of her constituency office in Birmingham Yardley and shouted “fascist”.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/10/surrender-acts-and-lynch-mobs-real-life-consequences-inflammatory-language]
Many more examples at the link. It is a really stark warning in some ways. Leading by example and tempering ones language is no doubt the adult thing to do.... But the far right are bloody nazi's!
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