The “Stroud Freedom Group” have organised a public meeting in Stroud to be addressed by James Delingpole. In this letter we provide details of Delingpole’s background which explain why we oppose this invitation and encourage people to boycott this event.
Delingpole has a long history not only of denying the science around climate change, but of attacking climate scientists and activists, to the point of repeatedly inciting violence.
In a 2013 column for the Daily Telegraph, Delingpole attacked climatologist and geophysicist Michael E Mann, journalist and climate activist George Monbiot and Australian scientist and environmentalist Tim Flannery.
The article begins by suggesting climate scientist “Michael Mann be given the electric chair”, “George Monbiot be hanged by the neck”, and “Tim Flannery be fed to the crocodiles”. Delingpole then tries to excuse himself from making these horrendous suggestions by arguing that “The last thing I would want is for Monbiot, Mann, Flannery, Jones, Hansen and the rest of the Climate rogues’ gallery to be granted the mercy of quick release… Hanging is far too good for such ineffable toerags.”
Delingpole writes that “it would be nice to think one day that there would be a Climate Nuremberg” and an image from the Nuremberg trials in which Nazis were tried for “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” accompanied the piece. The Telegraph’s caption is simply, “Not pictured: Monbiot, Flannery, Mann….”.
This incitement to violence and suggestion of an equivalence between studying or working to reduce the impacts of climate change and the Nazi genoide is beyond disgusting. However, it is not the only example of Delingpole endorsing hateful rhetoric.
In 2012, Delingpole wrote a feature article in The Australian newspaper in which he quoted an anonymous New South Wales sheep farmer, as saying, “The wind farm business is bloody well near a pedophile [sic] ring. They’re f . . king [sic] our families and knowingly doing so.”
The Australian Press Council, described this as “highly offensive” and argued that “the level of offensiveness is so high that it outweighs the very strong public interest in freedom of speech”. Rather than accept the adjudication of the Council, Delingpole published a further piece in which he doubled-down, arguing “that the analogy may be somewhat offensive to the paedophile community.”
The author of this ridiculously provocative and utterly ridiculous comparison does not deserve to be rewarded with an invitation to speak in public by the “Stroud Freedom Group”.
The reasons not to invite Delingpole extend beyond his contrarian views on climate change and appeals to violence. As Hope Not Hate write: “Delingpole describes himself as having been “redpilled” by the pandemic, a process which appears to have involved him embracing increasingly extreme conspiracy theories and their politically extreme proponents. Delingpole’s podcast has hosted unsavoury guests since it launched in 2019, with the fringe “race scientist” Edward Dutton among his earliest guests, but a rising number of guests associated with the traditional far right have appeared on the show in the past year. The most extreme of his recent guests was “Morgoth”, an anonymous blogger and video producer from North Tyneside whose offerings combine pseudo-intellectual conspiracy theories with vicious racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia… Other guests during 2021 included QAnon promoter Charlie Ward, neo-reactionary Ralph Masilimani and the then-Patriotic Alternative member Josh (aka Richard Lionheart).”
In December 2021, Delingpole recorded an 85-minute video broadcast with Colin Robertson, a white nationalist. Robertson was suspended by YouTube in February 2021, following videos in which he said “violence, by which I mean civil war, is inevitable between us native Europeans and various immigrant groups” (2016) and enthused about “torpedo[ing] boats carrying refugees, describing in detail the “men, women, and children being blown to bits, and drowning in a mutilated form.”
In a 2012 article for The Spectator, Delingpole cites a modernised version of Kulturbolschewismus conspiracy used by Nazis to accuse Jewish intellectuals of degeneracy (translating as “cultural Bolshevism”) to explain the persistence of racism, writing “Much, if not most, of the racial tension we experience today has less to do with natural antipathy than it does with the idiot multiculturalist measures supposedly aimed at preventing it. We don’t talk about these things because cultural Marxism has very deliberately engineered a climate in which we are scared to do so.” The same term was the theme of fascist Anders Breivik’s “manifesto”, written before he killed 77 young social democrats on an island in Norway in 2011.
We imagine that the “Stroud Freedom Group” will try to divert this into a conversation about Delingpole’s “right to free speech”, and away from what he actually has to say. But Delingpole has over the years had plenty of opportunity to air his views all over the ‘mainstream media’, the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and Spectator as well as on his own podcast and in far-right channels. He has been able to publish books and become the London executive editor of Breitbart London (an arm of the media company known and described by original executive editor Steve Bannon as the “platform of the alt right”). The only question is why anyone in Stroud would feel it necessary to invite him, and other far-right influencers, to speak in our town.
We the undersigned urge all involved in the event to reconsider, and to withdraw the invitation to James Delingpole. If the event goes ahead, we suggest that people do not attend and thereby help pay what we must assume will be Delingpole’s hefty speaking fee. If you want to hear what he has to say, so that you can make your own mind up, he’s all over the internet.
Signed by,
Community Solidarity Stroud District
The following 217 individuals, in alphabetical order by first name:
- Adam Horovitz
- Adrian Blair
- Adrian Manning
- Adrian Oldman
- Alan Sage
- Alena Zavarin
- Alexci Swann
- Alice Faith Murray
- Alice Lovegrove
- Alison Widgery
- Allan Burns
- Amanda Sultan-Black
- Andrew Budd
- Andy Stayte
- Anna Bonallack
- Anna Woodford
- Anne Mackintosh
- Anthony Morris.
- Azra Sangster
- Barbara Imrie
- Bern Wakefield-Heath
- Brenda Cox
- Bridie March
- Carol Mathews
- Carole Oosthuysen
- Caroline Harmer
- Caroline Molloy
- Caroline Motzfeldt
- Catriona Bracker
- Charles Brimacombe
- Charles Wallis
- Chloe Turner
- Chris Fry
- Chris Pickard
- Chris Stockwell
- Christine Lee
- Christopher Hey
- Christopher Jockel
- Ciaran Whittall
- Cllr Doina Cornell
- Cllr Kate Crews
- Cllr Steve Hynd
- Connie Tongue
- Darina Cooper
- Denise Donnelly
- Denise Needleman
- Derek Ryden
- Dominic Thomas
- Dominique Lee
- Dotty Cooper
- Dr Natasha Wilson
- Elaine Weaving
- Elinor Croxall
- Elizabeth Holland
- Elizabeth Lee
- Elle Zwandahl
- Ellie Stafford
- Emily Finch
- Emily Walsh
- Emily Weaver
- Emma Calcutt
- Emma Riches
- Emma Seabrook
- Esther Carter
- Eva Goddard
- Eva Ward
- Fiona Ellis
- Fiona Stuart
- Fran Kellett
- Fran Mosley
- Francis Barton
- Francis Gobey
- Frank Milum-Palmer
- Gareth Kitchen
- Gareth Strachan
- Gareth Walsh
- Gareth Zimmerman BA, BEd, MEd
- Gavin McClafferty
- Gemma Sangwine
- Georgia Owen
- Georgie Strachan
- Hannah Boss
- Hanya Paradine
- Hebba Zedan
- Helen Elliott-Boult
- Helen Fenton
- Helen Hart
- Hilary Burgess
- Ione Mako
- Isa Clee
- J Nelson
- Jackie John
- Jagdish Patel
- James Beecher
- Jamie O’Dell
- Jamie Vans
- Jamila Gavin
- Jane Bates
- Jasmine Ghandour
- Jason Conway
- Jeff Gillett
- Jen Hoskins
- Jennifer Horsfall
- Jenny Kempson
- Jenny Rose
- Jeremy Green
- Jessica Cantoni
- Jessica Paradine
- Jodi Waldron
- Jodie Calcutt
- John Walmsley
- Jolyon Buckle
- Jon Wyatt
- Jonathan Holmes
- Josie Cowgill
- Jude Emmet
- Jude Smith
- Jude Stockwell
- Julia Berg
- Julie Cigman
- Jyoti Felce
- Karen Doe
- Kat Parker
- Kate Harrison
- Katherine Fey
- Kathryn Buckingham
- Kathy Trevelyan
- Kaye Welfare
- Kiera Jones
- Lara Pohl-Martell
- Laura Cullimore
- Laura Hazelchild
- Laurie Davies
- Les Jevins
- Lily Nicol
- Linda Chance
- Lisa Taylor
- Liz Cowan
- Liz Gibson
- Liz Terry
- Liz Whiteside
- Lorelai Prosser
- Lucia Jayaseelan
- Lucy Felce
- Lucy Garrett
- Luke Inder
- Lynn Haanen
- Malcolm Eva
- Marina Marvan
- Mark Hewlett
- Mark Stevens
- Mark Treacher
- Martin Stockwell
- Martin Whiteside – Green Party member
- Mary Inder
- Mathilde Louden
- Matilda Mathews Weir
- Megan Sheer
- Michael Reeks
- Michelle Chatham
- Mike McCarthy
- Miranda Pole
- Nabeela Akhtar
- Natalie Steffen
- Nell Benney
- Nick Mills
- Nick Weir
- Nicola Hill
- Nils Agger
- Nimue Brown
- Norah Kennedy
- Norman Kay
- Oisin Hayden Burrell
- Oliver Holmes
- Pam Shepherd
- Pammy Michell
- Pat Valentine
- Patricia Kattenhorn
- Paul Eagles
- Paul McKee
- Paul Roberts
- Paul Shevlin
- Paul Southcott
- Peter Seccombe
- Polly Stratton
- Prof Laurence Cox
- Rebecca Chambers
- Richard Erskine
- Rob Brookes
- Robert Hilliard
- Robin Collins
- Robin Drury-Layfield
- Rod Nelson B.Arch, ABHA, ARE
- Roger Plenty
- Rosalind Coombes
- Rose Harwood
- Roseanne Steffen
- Rosie Thresher
- Rosie Wingate
- Rowan Schofield
- Roy Widgery
- Sally Birch
- Sally Brooks
- Sally Pickering
- Sam Gowing
- Sarah C Jones
- Sarah Dixon
- Sasha Josette
- Shani Wills
- Sharon Baker
- Simon Jacobson
- Sophie Guthrie
- Stephen Lydon
- Steve Hunter
- Steven Naumann
- Steven Palmer
- Sue Oppenheimer
- Susan Roberts
- Susan Turner
- Tamsin Morris
- Tarra Gilder-Rai
- Teresa Casey
- Thomas Brown
- Tina Cowan
- Tom Lowrie
- Val Saunders
- Valerie Randell
Varda Zisman
Community Solidarity Stroud District 
Stroud is no place for anyone who promotes violence against another. Climate change is a real threat.
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