by Caroline Molloy
I (periodically) read “The Light” – a far right freesheet given out in Stroud & elsewhere.
The people giving it out in Stroud might look like harmless eccentrics, but the freesheet they are distributing (and writing articles for) functions as one long bait and switch for hippy-leaning people concerned about modernity and technology, to be directed to a variety of far right, anti-government, anti-immigration, racist, climate change denying propagandists.
No centre spread on how the notorious antisemitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a ‘Must-read document’) this month – unlike last month – see picture.
But instead, we have:
P2 Concerned about COVID vaccines? The Light directs you to check out CitizenGo – an ultra-right wing anti-abortion and anti-gay movement.
P6 Interested in esoteric theories about the heart and precious metals? After a harmless article about Steiner theories, The Light directs you to check out the website of far right Alex Jones acolyte, Greg Reese, who claims “the word ‘Nazi’ is a made up slur”, to read more about “suppressed” miracle Nazi technologies
P7 Interested in the ideas of the Commons, land and banking? The Light directs you to a US conspiracist site, which states in its most recent article that US governments have pursued a policy of “National Suicide via Demographic Replacement: Centralization has allowed for the implementation of mass immigration policies that are profoundly unpopular with the citizenry but exist to satisfy the ideological and economic needs of the globalist class. Because the federal government holds the power over immigration and the border, it has effectively been used to replace the citizenry without their consent.” (this is a version of the ethno-nationalist ‘Great Replacement’ or ‘White Genocide’ conspiracy)
P8 Still reading this rag? The Light directs you to a US blog about what a hero Donald Trump is for his immigration policies (policies condemned by The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security among others). Oh, and a book about how our “globalist overlords” created Black Lives Matter to help them remove our “economic and personal freedom” (rather than being created by Black people in the US to pursue economic and personal freedom).
P9 Bored with football? Here’s one of several pieces in this month’s issue by Stroud’s Richard House, this one on the merits of football fans displaying a banner saying “Keep woke foreign ideologies out – defend Europe”. House writes: “The betrayal of fans by institutions like Rangers Football Club is just one example of how sports organisations have also become enforcers of ‘progressive’ globalist ideology rather than faithful representatives of their communities. When the football club publicly shamed its own supporters for displaying a banner reading, ‘Keep woke foreign ideologies out – defend Europe’, the club was explicitly aligning itself with corporate globalist values over the cultural identity of its traditional working-class fan base. This institutional collusion with globalism is just a microcosm of a larger phenomenon whereby institutions that were once rooted in local culture and communities. now prioritise ideological alignment with governing bodies like UEFA over the very people who sustain them. By forcing fans to either accept ‘modern, progressive values’ or disassociate from the club, Rangers demonstrated how sports are routinely weaponised in order to enforce cultural submission to globalist ideologies.” (What Rangers actually said was “For the avoidance of doubt, if you do not believe in 2025 that absolutely everyone is welcome to follow Rangers whether at Ibrox or away, then Rangers is not the club for you, and you should disassociate yourself with the club immediately”).
P12 Worried about our basic needs, such as water? You need to meditate more, and make sure you don’t “get pulled back down into the weeds; into thinking confined by the parameters of the existing system”. In particular, don’t blame privatisation. The writer bemoans how at a conference, “the mere mention of water triggered one participant into a rant about political parties and privatisation. The current debate about our failing infrastructure turns on binary options which have already been tried – the stuff of life provided by central government or corporations – demonstrating the narrowness of mainstream thinking.” (In fact England has the most privatised water in the world, and it’s been disastrous – so equating state and privatised water as two equally flawed binary options just supports The Light’s anti-government, ultra-free market position).
P13 Worried about where energy comes from? Don’t be – “energy isn’t a finite resource”, we’re “fundamentally changing the energy equation”, you can just bolt a perpetual motor machine onto your car, technology that is allegedly “verified and commercially ready” (spoiler – this breaks the laws of thermodynamics, so no, it’s not).
P22 Interested in history? Check out The Light’s monthly pseudo-historian columnist John Hamer and his website. Hey, don’t worry too much that Hamer has called the Holocaust “the Holofraud”, lamented the demonisation of “the ideal of white nationalism”, and has published a large amount of revolting Nazi-sympathising, denying and minimising stuff on his website, as we have set out previously.
Amidst the word salad, the most consistent message, as always in The Light, is that “left vs right” is an “illusion”. This of course a helpful message, if you’re trying to sell far-right ideas in historically more left-leaning places.
Adding to the confusion, of course, is that the Labour Party leadership has, in the eyes of many, also moved away from left wing ideas for a long time. Whatever you think about the answers to that – the kind of deeply reactionary conspiracy thinking promoted by The Light is the last thing we need, and would have been the very last thing that those who fascism and fought for social justice and liberation, would have wanted to see gaining any traction.
Right wing ideas are good at disguising themselves. Let’s not fall for it.
Community Solidarity Stroud District 