Yet more misinformation on climate in “The Light”

By Andy Williams

Below is an image from Rhodes on 24th July 2023, from Sky News. According to the World Weather Attribution Group, “maximum heat like in July 2023 would have been virtually impossible to occur in the US/Mexico region and Southern Europe if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels”.

So when Issue 35 of “The Light” says on its front page that the climate crisis is “non-existent”, one has to wonder which planet they are living on?

“The Light” says, “CO2 output keeps rising, but temperatures have stayed consistent for years”. That is simply not the case. As the graph below shows, the global average temperature has shot up since the late twentieth century, after being fairly stable for the previous 2,000 years.

“Temperature record of the last 2,000 years (Chart showing the so-called Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were not planet-wide phenomena)” by RCraig09 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

On page 2 “The Light” says, “tens of thousands of scientists and researchers … have proven there is no climate emergency” but there is no reference to a single proof. A while ago I asked a climate-change denier friend to point me to a paper that showed that the world is not heating up. After much research he couldn’t do so, and he now accepts that we do indeed have a climate emergency.

On page 4 of Issue 35 of “The Light” we have more about the climate, and yet, again, not a single technical paper is cited. The author claims, “In the past 50 years, the predictions of climate computer models about global warming and its dire effects have been wrong – demonstrating their predictive unreliability” (though without mentioning any examples). That’s just not true. Carbon Brief examined the accuracy of climate models dating back to the 1970’s. None of them was far wrong. The projection below, for example, was made 33 years ago. The chart shows how the central black line of predicted increase in global temperatures from 1990 to 2020 has broadly matched a range of measures of actual global temperatures (different coloured lines). The chart shows that even when global temperatures were lower than the average prediction, they were almost always within the lowest range predicted – and that the broad trend is as predicted.

Projected warming from the IPCC First Assessment Report (mean projection–thick black line, with upper and lower bounds shown by thin dotted black lines). Chart by Carbon Brief

Climate modelling is still inexact, as the climate is such a chaotic system and has many feedback loops, but since the 1970s models have all pointed in one direction.

Almost all climate scientists (estimated to be between 95% and 99%) agree with the view that potentially catastrophic global warming, caused by man-made CO2, is happening right now. But “The Light” insists there is no consensus, and instead falsely claims  “there is a global network of eminent, experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields, and many others who challenge the settled science”. Helpfully, there is a reference to the 500 “experts” in question. Looking through the list of signatories, it’s immediately apparent that hardly any of them are climate scientists. Certainly none of the 22 UK “experts” were expert in climate science (compare that with the 234 actual climate scientists who wrote the last IPCC report).

Analysis of the 500 “experts” referenced by “The Light” showed that only ten identified themselves as climate scientists. If, as “The Light” claims, there is “no consensus” on climate change, it is strange that they can only point to ten who disagree with the mainstream view. In fact there is an overwhelming consensus that there is a climate emergency.

There is also a reference to The Climate Intelligence Foundation (CLINTEL). “The climate view of CLINTEL can be easily summarised as: there is no climate emergency” says “The Light”. CLINTEL is led by Guus Berkhout, a physicist who used to work for the oil giant Shell as an engineer. Then, while working at Delft University, he founded the Delphi Consortium which carries out seismic research for oil and gas companies. So it’s pretty clear why he wants to show that there is no climate emergency.

The ”World Climate Declaration” written by CLINTEL, demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the climate science it attempts to criticise. There is not even a basic understanding of the science of the greenhouse effect, which was described more than a century ago.

The tragedy of climate-change denial literature, such as “The Light”, is that it sows doubt about the science. Without any evidence to back up its claims (because there really isn’t any) it divides society between those who believe the science and those who think that scientists are censored and controlled by certain dark forces, and so cannot be trusted. When publications like “The Light” attempt to sow doubt about climate change, they undermine the social movements that are protesting and demanding action from governments and corporations. They divide our communities as we try to reduce our contributions to global warming, and try to build resilience to the crises to come. If the electorate are not sure that climate change is happening they are unlikely to demand that the government takes action to address it. In today’s world, when some random person on the internet can reach more ears than an expert in their field, it’s not always easy to tell fact from fiction. “The Light” pushes the anti-science view very hard. They want enough electors to doubt the science, to make sure the issue is not addressed. No prizes for guessing who benefits from this, and who funds most of the disinformation.

Issue 34 of “The Light” also included blatant misrepresentation of the evidence around global warming – read our previous piece: “Fact-checking the June 2023 front page of “The Light”“.

Read more about the consistent denial of climate change in “The Light” in our July 2022 piece.

“The Light”: sending women back to the Dark Ages

by a member of Community Solidarity Stroud District

“The Light” sets itself up as an alternative paper, but what is it really pushing?

Over the last year, the Light has generally promoted:

“traditional families”, men being “allowed to be men”, women having “lots of children”, and “faith, flag and family”. 

It has also started promoting anti-abortion activists and the “rights of the unborn”, and sought to justify men’s “domination and rage”. 

So that’s what it promotes and defends. What does it attack?

In the last 6 months or so, The Light has published numerous articles opposing:

  • “Gender equality” (compared to “evil”)
  • “Equality of opportunity” (which it compares to “the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch trials”)
  • ““Family law” (elided with “child abuse”)
  • Abortion and contraception (which it repeatedly equates with “eugenics”, a common Religious Right trope)
  • “The massive use of contraceptives” (“clearly unacceptable”)
  • “Sex education” (which it refers to as “taking control of our children”)
  • “Role reversal” in which women don’t accept traditional gender roles (behaviour which The Light says is “communism and insanity”)
  • And (my personal favourite…) strong female leads in films and TV (not only are all these strong female characters “miserable” and with “no personalities” but their existence in film is a “woke agenda” which wants to “destroy society”. Poor old Galadriel and Princess Leia! Who knew?!)

And what does it ignore?

Notably, whilst it’s got space to fulminate about fictional characters, the Light *doesn’t* show much interest in the need for more childcare, better welfare benefits, employment rights for parents and carers, ending child poverty, or anything that would help those who still bear the brunt of responsibility for most caring – women – to do the job.

In more detail: The Light’s views on women (from recent issues)

July 23 issue

Claims that contraception charity “Planned Parenthood = Abortion/sterilisation; depopulation agenda”

June 23 issue

“Role reversal – Whilst it is true that some women are better than many men at some things, the aggressive push towards everyone ignoring their own biology smacks of communism and insanity. In professing to give the right to choose, this is doing the exact opposite”

May 23 issue

Highly sympathetic interview with a former Fathers 4 Justice activist in which he talks about “family law child abuse”, and promoting his book.

A page-long article presenting the views of a Conservative Spanish bishop who claims the UN is anti-family and encourages abortion. Says it also encourages “the massive use of contraceptives” which is “clearly unacceptable”, as well as “so-called gender equality”, tolerance of which is comparable with tolerance of “evil”. Women should get married young and have three or more kids, he says. The Light author concludes, “It is refreshing to see a man of God standing up for what is right”.

April 23 issue

“[O]n the surface, the idea of equality of opportunity irrespective of gender can be pitched as a noble cause, but then so were the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials.”

This is in an article which suggests “the fairer sex” are not having a great time of it, any more than men – but the article goes on to suggest that the only thing harming women these days, is the behaviour, not of men, but of transgender people (for example, entering beauty contests). Probably most women have bigger concerns than transgender people entering beauty contests, such as why women still do most housework, caring work, and other work, are paid less, have less wealth, and experience so much violence and sexism from men. But none of that is mentioned in the Light’s article.

March 23 issue

In an article titled “The War on Masculinity”, the paper states that “the System’s war against humanity” includes a war “being waged against men”. It suggests that “toxic masculinity”, “domination and rage”, “could also be understood as men resorting to their innate biological responses in trying to cope when they find themselves trapped in an insane society.” It goes on “Why make men more feminine? We might even wonder whether the obvious war against meat could even be a cover for the drive to subvert manhood, with… emasculating phytoestrogens [in soy]”. 

It goes on “God did not create women to do everything men can do. God created women to do everything men cannot do” and that “Maybe the goal is not to make us like women, but rather like infants, dependent and very little threat to them”. It says (at some length) that the only “toxic masculinity” is that which is exercised by the 1% of “psychopathic men” that are running the world. Which is sadly against all the evidence – and what women know – that men of all social classes perpetuate violence towards women.

Another article holds up as evidence of Bill Gates’s world domination, the fact that his father was “head of the abortion industry in the USA (Planned Parenthood)” and a “eugenicist”. There’s no evidence for the latter claim, and the equation of contraception and abortion advice with “the abortion industry” and “eugenics” is a classic Religious Right, anti-women, trope.

January 2023 issue

A page-long article headlined “Volunteer arrested for silent prayer near abortion facility” about the head of an anti-abortion group who had been arrested for protesting outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham. The article’s author is given as ‘ADF-UK’. ADF are a Religious Right American anti-abortion group. The article presents the anti-abortion activists as only having “tirelessly served…providing charitable assistance to” and “supporting” women, and anti-abortion protests outside abortion clinics, as “free speech” that must be protected from “censorial” restrictions.

Another article suggests that “faith, flag and family” are all that protect us from the Chinese-style totalitarianism that Western governments would otherwise want to impose.

December 2022 issue

A long article equating concern about climate change, and the promotion of birth control, with eugenics and “the greedy termination industry”, whose cause has been “cemented to the core of feminism”, the author bemoans. (Just because some early twentieth century birth control advocates endorsed eugenics, clearly does not mean that the two are the same a century later, but this is a popular trope amongst the Religious Right).

November 2022 issue

After a long rant about how the latest Star Wars film features “a strong female lead with no flaws…and weak, clumsy idiotic men” as part of a “political agenda”, the article goes on “The agenda of making men weak and women strong is not only visible on the big screen, but also occurs in Disney’s TV shows [where Obi-Wan Kenobi, a male] is bossed around by young Leia, who is 10 years old”. Disney, we are told, is cashing in on our nostalgia to fund its “homosexual, social justice propaganda shows”. The article’s author is also upset that Natalie Portman has a strong character in the latest Thor film, and that the Rings of Power (Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel) contains similar “woke themes”, with Galadriel, alarmingly, an “independent, all-empowered woman” (actually she’s an elf, but let’s not split hairs). All of these peskily strong female characters are then summed up as “strong, miserable female leads with no personalities”, brought to us by sinister forces who want to “destroy society, confuse and blur gender roles, eradicate traditionalism…” and other nefarious purposes.

Another article contains a glossary of supposed “old speak” (as opposed to Orwellian ‘newspeak’, the graphics make clear) which claims that the phrase “white male privilege” is merely a “racist AND sexist insult” (though white men own most of the world’s wealth, guys, so actually it’s a material fact). “Patriarchy” is another phrase that is nothing but a “sexist insult”, the Light tells us, rather than a way of examining the continued evidence and experience of women having less wealth and experiencing more violence, both at home and abroad.

Another article in the same edition is headlined “New abortion law in Hungary gives unborn babies a chance for life”. The article is about a new Hungarian law “requiring women who are seeking an abortion to listen to the baby’s heartbeat before termination”. The objections by Amnesty, amongst others, that this move makes it much harder and more traumatic to access abortion, The Light disdains as “predictable”. The Light goes on to praise the Hard Right Hungarian PM, Orban, as a champion of “traditional family values”, and concludes “It is hoped that many thousands of lives will be saved in Hungary because of this new law. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade, and the new decree in Hungary, the fight for the rights of the unborn baby appears alive and well”. (No mention is given to the rights of women to determine their own bodily autonomy without these traumatic restrictions).

Another article in the same issue entitled “Profit the driving force of healthcare” again suggests access to contraception and abortion are merely “euphemisms” for eugenics.

A short history of bigotry… and what do we do about it?

The Light appears to have the same attitude to women as reactionaries always have done. That is to say, women are most valued when they are barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Despite The Light’s supposed focus on bodily autonomy in relation to vaccines, it presents all the other things that give women autonomy and choices over their bodies and lives as overwhelmingly negative – be that access to contraception, abortion and education; the right to choose a different sexuality; the right to choose different partners; the existence of strong female role models in the media; a welfare state that supports women by taking on some of the caring responsibilities; even the existence of convenience food. This is also why you basically never hear The Light advocating for better childcare provision, anti-poverty measures, protection from discrimination (unless it’s to do with vaccines), or other key feminist demands. 

The Light’s reactionary world view disempowers women. Even when women are interviewed as political actors (as they sometimes are), they are mostly portrayed as pure, “fair” vessels, whose main agency, as far as they have any, is to protect the borders of the nation and people’s bodies (mostly their own and their families) from a variety of supposed incursions. To police what people take into their bodies. 

Many women (and men) do have rightful concerns about issues like health, food, and so on. But The Light exploits these concerns, stokes paranoia around them, attaches a historically illiterate view of ‘tradition’, and weds this toxic mix to an altogether uglier agenda. It’s a technique that has a long history on the far right, as many of you will know, from early twentieth century ‘volkisch’ messaging in Germany, to ‘eco-fascism’ and body fascism.

Those women who don’t focus on bodily purity ‘correctly’ (in The Light’s eyes), can expect to be vilified and dehumanised in words and in pictures, too – from the NHS nurses whom The Light wants to subject to Nuremburg trials and even execution, to the ugly, classist and misogynist centre-page cartoon of a heavily pregnant woman vaping, in last month’s issue.

It’s an agenda in which women are also portrayed as victims – of the penetrating “jab”, as well as of trans people, and in particular, of migrants. The idea that migrants (ie, men with darker skin) are “endangering women and girls” is repeated throughout recent issues of The Light, explicitly and implicitly. 

This shouldn’t surprise us. Racism and sexism have tended to march (literally) in lockstep, from the murderous Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs of segregation-era America, through to the UK tabloid press and EDL thugs like Tommy Robinson and beyond. Racist propaganda has frequently portrayed white women (and the white babies they are, in this world view, supposed to produce) as needing protection from dark skinned men. In truth, in today’s Britain, the overwhelming majority of sexual and other violent crimes against women and girls are perpetrated by assailants who are the same race/ethnicity as their victims. Nonetheless, the racists always love to portray white women as needing protection from darker skinned men, both through segregation, and by the (sometimes violent) actions of heroic ‘white knights’. 

In this vein, revoltingly, a few months ago The Light published an article invoking these ideas to strongly defend the men – many suspected of being associated with far right groups – who had carried out a violent attack on a migrant hostel, an attack in which police vans were set on fire and migrants were terrorised. Ongoing protests by far right groups at the hostel have seen migrants punched. Last month The Light ran another article suggesting that the government was ignoring the “safety” of female “citizens” by housing refugees in hostels, claiming their presence is “potentially endangering women and girls” (this article, incidentally, was written by someone who was filmed abusing a black anti-Brexit campaigner and poking a union jack flagpole at his face). 

As a woman, I’ve found that when I try to talk to any of the people handing out The Light on the High Street, however calmly, it’s fairly pointless. They don’t have answers beyond interrupting me to say that the BBC is as bad (guys, two wrongs don’t make a right!), or shouting “Lies”, or “Sheep”, or something like that.

But whether it’s on the role of women – or on racism, antisemitism, climate change, homophobia, transphobia, or a whole host of other things, The Light’s content is not just right wing (many of its articles are actually quite similar to those in the Daily Mail, except much more poorly written). It is also, more worryingly, deeply reactionary, and in places, frankly crypto-fascist. I don’t want it on our streets. And what I’ve learned lately is that calmly taking a copy and then scrunching or ripping it up in front of them is most satisfying. Make sure you recycle!

Fact-checking the June 2023 front page of “The Light”

Is The Light telling us the truth?

“It was a real shock to find that they had tried to trick me. And they had also lied” – Andy Williams picked up the June issue of “The Light” and looked into their front page story. The front page of Issue 34 of “The Light” claimed in its headline there is “No climate crisis” and “Carbon Dioxide has zero effect on temperatures” and presents two graphs in an attempt to back this up. In the piece that follows Andy outlines his investigation into the claims and graphs presented:

I’ve been hearing a lot about The Light recently, so I decided to give it a try. I’m a sceptical reader, fact-checking everything that seems a bit odd. The article at the very top of the June issue really caught my eye.

That there is apparently “No climate crisis” was really big news to me. The science of “global warming” – how carbon dioxide tends to stop heat from the earth escaping off into space – has been accepted as fact for more than a century. So “The Light” would have to have good evidence to show that it’s not true.

The header of Issue 34 of “The Light”. Superimposed text reading “Factchecked: false” because we don’t want to repeat their claim as is

The “uncensored truth” – or hiding data?

The front page of Issue 34 of “The Light” used a compelling looking graph to back up the headline claim. The graph showed that despite CO2 levels rising for a 17 year period, the surface temperature of the earth has stayed about the same. It cited data from a website called remss.com – associated with Remote Sensing Systems, which “provide[s] research-quality geophysical data to the global scientific community”. Unfortunately, when I tried to follow this up, the link provided didn’t really work. A little digging uncovered that they were using the data associated with the graph below. This shows the temperature of the lower troposphere  – not the surface temperature, as claimed.

The full graph from the remss paper shows data from January 1979 to June 2023. Across this time period a trend line shows an overall warming trend in the troposphere of 0.21°C every ten years. That is a high rate of warming.

REMSS chart. Source: https://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html

The version of this data in “The Light” (shown below) only shows 1997-2013, however. Those making the chart have deleted the cooler periods before 1997 and the much hotter times after 2013.

The first of two graphs to appear on the front page of “The Light” as it appeared

The two graphs don’t look at all similar until you realise that they have chosen just to plot the bit of the original graph in the red box.

It was a real shock to find that they had tried to trick me. And they had also lied. The full graph (and the article explaining it) shows that carbon dioxide does have an effect on temperatures.

The REMSS chart with an annotation to show the area “The Light” chose to show in the red box, and all the data they didn’t show their readers

This was not a mistake

This was not a genuine mistake by the authors of The Light. They must have hunted hard to find this graph. Then they went to the trouble of replotting just the segment of it which made it look as if temperatures are falling, then they added CO2 emissions and mislabelled the whole thing. They know that temperatures are rising due to greenhouse gas emissions, but they are trying to prove the opposite.

Text underneath the chart commands readers to “Ask those pushing… to explain this”. It is very easy to. The chart is an example of a classic disinformation tactic known as ‘cherrypicking’ – deliberately selecting/excluding data from a larger dataset in order to misrepresent the evidence. “The Light” use the strapline “The uncensored truth” to describe their paper… but on this occasion they have deliberately “censored” the full data.

More cherrypicking

The Light also featured a second graph. What about that one?

According to the graph, the temperature over Greenland has varied between -29° and -34° over the last 10,000 years and is now actually a little colder than average.

This graph was published in 2008 and versions of it have been widely used by climate sceptics. The Carbon Brief website provides a helpful article on the misuse of this data, with background on how such long-term data regarding temperatures is collated. They explain:

versions of the graph have, variously, mislabeled the x-axis, excluded the modern observational temperature record and conflated a single location in Greenland with the whole world.

More recently, researchers have drilled numerous additional ice cores throughout Greenland and produced an updated estimate past Greenland temperatures.

This modern temperature reconstruction, combined with observational records over the past century, shows that current temperatures in Greenland are warmer than any period in the past 2,000 years.

An accurate and up to date graph is in the Carbon Brief article referenced above, and is included below. The recent rapid heating is clearly visible at the right of the image covering observational records since the year 2000. Carbon Brief summarise this by saying “Recent temperatures are clearly higher than any seen in Greenland over the past two millennia”. They acknowledge that “they are likely still cooler than during the early part of the current geological epoch – the Holocene – which started around 11,000 years ago”, but emphasise that “warming is expected to continue in the future as human actions continue to emit greenhouse gases, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels. Climate models project that if emissions continue, by 2050, Greenland temperatures will exceed anything seen since the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago.”

Source: “Greenland temperature reconstruction from Vinther et al. (2009) using proxy data from six ice cores. Data spans the past 12,000 years with a resolution of 20 years. Observational temperature data from Berkeley Earth is shown at the end in black, with a 20-year smooth applied to match the proxy resolution. Proxy records and observations are aligned over the 1880-1960 period.” (taken from Carbon Brief’s piece on Greenland ice cores.

The big problem with the graph used in Issue 34 of “The Light”, below, is that it does not go up to “NOW” as suggested on the axis. It only goes to 1950, so recent rapid warming – associated with greenhouse gas emissions – is not shown.

The second graph featured on the front page of Issue 34 of “The Light”, as it appeared

A second problem with the graph in “The Light” is that it presents a single ice core record from Greenland as representing all (global) “Temperature Variation Over the Last 10,000 Years”. As Carbon brief explain “Any individual location will have significantly more variability than the globe as a whole. A single ice core is also subject to uncertainties around elevation changes and other perturbations to the ice core over time.” The chart they present which we introduced above instead combines data from six Greenland ice cores.

Why did “The Light” pick Greenland? The graph below shows the world’s longest archive of observational temperature records – the central England temperature record, which covers the last 360 years. Temperatures are clearly going up. As well as 2022 being the hottest year so far in England, the graph also highlights how much more common it is for a year to exceed the 1961-1990 average. You can find this chart and an explaination of it on the Met Office website.

Source: metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet

At the global level, the graph below shows one of the largest reconstructions using multiple proxies for past temperatures. It is from the Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, “a collaboration between thousands of palaeoclimatologists from 125 different countries, who published a thorough analysis of global surface temperatures over the past 2,000 years – called the PAGES 2K project”. The red line shows the rapid rise in observed global surface temperatures after 1850. You can find this chart on a Carbon Brief webpage discussing “How ‘proxy’ data reveals the climate of the Earth’s distant past“.

“Source: “Global mean surface temperature reconstruction (yellow line) and uncertainties (yellow range) for the years 0-2000 period from the PAGES 2k Consortium along with observations from Cowtan and Way from 1850-2017. Data available in the NOAA Paleoclimate Archive.” (from the Carbon Brief piece on ‘proxy’ data for temperatures in the distant past.

Global warming is happening

The front page of “The Light” was interestingly time. The month it was published, June 2023, was the hottest on record according to scientists from the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Aadministration (NOAA). Heatwaves affected Europe, Asia, and North America, with record-breaking wildfires in Canada affecting 10 million hectares – equivalent to the area of the whole country of Portugal. Meanwhile, devastating flooding affected India, Japan, China, Turkey and the U.S.

The average global surface (land and ocean) temperature in June [2023] was 1.89 degrees F (1.05 degrees C) above average, ranking June 2023 as Earth’s warmest June on record.

June 2023 was 0.23 of a degree F (0.13 of a degree C) warmer than the previous record set in June 2020. June 2023 also marked the 47th-consecutive June and the 532nd-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average. 

From the NOAA

Why is “The Light” lying to us?

If the authors of The Light are correct – that carbon dioxide has no effect on temperatures, and there is no climate crisis –  why are they relying on graphs so easily shown to be misleading? There should be loads of solid evidence to back up their claim. Instead they have to cherry-pick bits of data, or show old, incomplete graphs.

The authors know they are publishing misinformation. Finding bits of graph to back up their assertions means reading through reams of papers and viewing graphs that show that global warming is happening.

Perhaps the editor has been deceived, rather than publishing misleading graphs deliberately. But if the paper really is the “truthpaper” it describes itself as, shouldn’t he have checked the charts showed the full “truth”? What other mistakes has he made with regard to evidence on other topics if he was willing to overlook the obvious ones here? Denial of climate change is a consistent theme in “The Light” paper (as we wrote about last year). Yet nearly all scientists – people who spend their working lives trying to discover the facts, and examining the evidence – say we are facing a climate crisis.

We might not like it, but that doesn’t mean we can escape reality by relying on dogy graphs.

We have to ask: why is “The Light” lying to us?

You might be interested in further information on how CO2 and other “greenhouse gas” emissions affect global temperatures – and increasing emissions lead to global warming. The following discuss this in more detail:

“Global temperature and CO2 levels are correlated and both have risen overall since the late 1880s, according to researchers… The greenhouse effect has repeatedly been verified in experiments since at least the 1800s” (from “Fact check: Global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels are correlated, contrary to claim”)

“How do we know more CO2 is causing warming?” (from skepticalscience.com)

A video cited at the above link which explains the basic physics and chemistry involved in understanding how CO2 effects global temperatures, and the long history of evidence around this:

We read it so you don’t have to (Issue 34 of “The Light”)

What’s in Issue 34 of the self-styled “Truthpaper”?

On page 1, there’s an article about the “climate hoax”, which blantantly cherrypicks data in an attempt to mislead people global temperatures aren’t rising and that CO2 has no effect on the climate. This is yet another example of “The Light”‘s consistent denial of climate change (which we’ve written about before) – and we’ll be published a detailed breakdown soon. See our short version on Facebook now.

Page 3 features a piece by Ian Fantom, who founded the “Keep Talking” discussion group together with Holocaust Denier Nicholas Kollerstrom. The group was set up to defend Kollerstrom’s right to deny the Holocaust.

Pages 4 and 5 are a double page spread by Niall McCrae, including an attack on refugees, a ridiculous claim that the UN has a “policy of mass resettlement from poor to rich countries”, and a rant about “transgender ideology” in schools

Page 5 also includes a lament by right-wing Tory and Brexiteer Rodney Atkinson (brother of the comedian Rowan Atkinson) – complaining that the Conservative Party is not conservative enough

Page 7 is taken up by an attack on traffic management initiatives

Page 10 is a full-page simpering interview with right-wing troll Katie Hopkins (we’ve covered this in a bit more detail in our piece on the ways “The Light” promotes the far right)

Page 11 features a half-page plug for his own channel by Aidan Myatt, who has launched Ickonic Media, to produce and promote the work of David Icke and his son Gareth. David Icke used to be a footballer but is infamous for claiming he is the son of God, that the world is run by lizards, indulging in antisemitism and all sorts of bizarre and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.

Page 14 is a double page centre spread covering brief version of “The Light”’s takes on various issues including their take on feminism: “While it is true some women are better than many men at some things, the aggressive push towards everyone ignoring their biology smacks of communism and insanity. In professing to give the right to choose, this is doing the exact opposite.”

Page 18 offers a piece about vaccines by Serena Wylde “author at Conservative Woman”

Page 19 provides an International News Round-Up includes a link to the far right Epoch Times

Page 20 is taken up by an incomplete article about cancer (“it’s not what we’re told”) by two people with backgrounds in accountancy and electrical engineering

Page 22 – the final page of articles before letters and adverts – is a yet another article from far right american website “Red Pill Revolution” on “eternal Natural Law”. The article refers to the “climate change scam”, asserts “Death and Life are one and the same”, and defines readers by concluding “We are the children of the Ancient Universal Order”. As we discuss in our piece on the far right in The Light, previous articles from this source in the paper have been vitrolic and verge on incitement to violence – for example Issue 29 features the sentences: “You know who you are, scum. This time there will be no forgiveness, no amnesty, because you have offended the divine spirit that dwells in God’s people. Your offences must be avenged, according to natural law”.

This is the second of a series of pieces we have published giving a quick overview of some of the dodgy content in The Light, alongside our more in-depth pieces on themes across issues. If you’d like to write a summary of the next issue, get in touch.

Ripping up “The Light”

If you’re offered a copy of “The Light” when walking on the High St in Stroud, take it and dispose of it. You could quietly take it home and put it in your recycling, or you could rip it up in front of the stall as in the video below from Saturday 8th July – its up to you. As a community, let’s let them know this hateful rubbish isn’t welcome. The action in the video follows a letter to the Stroud News and Journal from a different group to ours that is also fed up with The Light being distributed locally, “Why it is time to switch off the Light newspaper in Stroud“

Why do we call it hateful rubbish? See the detailed articles on our website covering the promotion of individuals, organisations and ideas of the far right, antisemitism, transphobia and homophobia, and denial of climate change in The Light

The Far Right in The Light

A few weeks ago the BBC launched a new radio/podcast series exploring ‘Conspiracyland’. The series focuses on The Light paper. Accompanying the series, the BBC published an article reporting some of the “links with the British far-right” in The Light.

We’ve written about antisemitism, transphobia and homophobia, and denial of climate change in The Light. In this article we talk about what links these things together. We provide information on how The Light features the ideas, organisations, and personalities of the far right. Some of this information appeared in the recently published BBC article, but much of it did not. Even our article cannot include every example.

The Light isn’t a simple far right publication – it’s not the case that every article is from the far right. Yet, the Light often provides space for, points to, and includes adverts from far right individuals or organisations. The paper effectively functions as public relations / advertising for the far right. It does this by concealing the far right nature of organisations and individuals, and mixing their content with other content. By reaching audiences that would normally reject the far right, it appears to be providing a useful recruitment tool.

We want to make sure people are aware of the background of the people and organisations being promoted. We want to stop them from being sucked into working with these groups. The content that is by, or points to, the far right is not always recognisable as being far right. This isn’t about swastikas or jackboots. That’s not the way that most of the modern far right conduct themselves, at least in the UK and other English-speaking countries. We want to challenge the way the far right are using The Light to recruit people through presentation of an ‘alternative’ or softer image.

What is in this article?

The Light contains lots of different types of content. Much of it is nasty or misleading, or right wing but not far right. We’ll continue to cover other problems with content in The Light in future articles. In this article, we’re only looking at far right content (footnote 1). We’ve included individuals and organisations that focus on ‘othering’ groups of people. Extreme nationalism – or white supremacy across larger geographic areas – are hallmarks of the far right. Far right organisations and individuals promote racism and bigotry including antisemitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia and hatred of people from other parts of the world. These problems can appear all across society, but the far right focuses on organising around these ideas, and using them to create scapegoats to explain all societal problems. Far right groups seek to exclude or eliminate their enemies from geographic areas, and threaten or engage in violence to achieve their aims (footnote 2).

Anne Marie Waters of ‘For Britain’

As one example, The Light has featured Anne Marie Waters (AMW) several times. Until recently, AMW was leader of the ‘For Britain’ political party. In 2017, she sought to be leader of UKIP (the UK Independence Party). She was a co-founder and key figure of Pegida UK. Pegida was a Europe-wide, anti-Muslim street movement (footnote 3).

Anne Marie Waters (AMW) has extreme views on Muslims and on immigration. It’s not only us that consider her far right. Her views are so extreme that other right-wingers found her too extreme for UKIP. Even former UKIP leader Nigel Farage called her and her supporters “Nazis and racists”.

Readers of The Light might not know who AMW is, but the editor Darren Smith doesn’t have the same excuse. In Issue 9 Smith published a sympathetic interview with AMW, headlined “Far Right Fascists Or Old School Conservatives?”. Smith attempts to present her as the latter – describing the party as one “that wants to preserve its country’s traditions, borders, ancient values”. The article doesn’t mention any of AMW’s far right rhetoric. Smith obviously knows about the reaction to AMW, but conceals her view that “immigration will have to stop”. He does not reference her opinions that “A lot of people need to be deported. Many mosques need to be closed down. It really has to get tough.””

Other far right individuals and organisations

Anne Marie Waters isn’t the only far right figure/organisation that has been featured or celebrated by the paper. Indeed, one of AMW’s articles in The Light is all about promoting Tommy Robinson. Robinson is one of the most well known far right activists in Britain. He was the founder of the violent far right street movement the ‘English Defence League’. Before this he was a member of the far right British National Party. With AMW he was a co-founder of far right Islamophobic organisation Pegida UK.

Issue 34 – the most recent issue at the time of writing – contains a sycophantic interview with far right social media personality/troll Katie Hopkins. Hopkins is known for racist rants that cost her jobs with mainstream right-wing media outlets. Infamous examples including comparing migrants to cockroaches and calling for a “final solution” for Muslims, using a term the Nazis used to describe their genocide of Jewish people. Hopkins left MailOnline ‘by mutual consent’ in 2017 after giving a speech attacking Muslims to far right groups. She was reported to have told her audience they should ‘arm themselves’ and ‘fight for their country’, against “institutionalised discrimination against whites”. The interview with her in The Light is headlined “Loving and laughing across Britain”. She is presented as a member of the “truth movement” as she attacks “leftist wokedom”. No mention is made of her history of racist and bigoted comments. She refers to being ‘banned from South Africa’ as a badge of honour, but doesn’t mention that this was “for spreading racial hatred”. Just as with its reporting of Graham Hart’s conviction for inciting racial hatred against Jewish people in the UK, The Light conceals the vile nature of extreme racism – and fails utterly to condemn it.

Issue 27 features an obituary for ‘fearless campaigner’ Jeff Wyatt, former Deputy Leader of the For Britain party. The author is Niall McCrae, a former lecturer involved in far right organisation Hearts of Oak, with Tommy Robinson.

Niall McCrae is a regular contributor to The Light. Issue 9 features an article co-authored with Robin Tilbrook. Tilbrook is the founder of the far right “English Democrats” party, originally known as the English National Party. The English Democrats are “a far right-wing party known for its English nationalist and anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes” (footnote 4). Hope Not Hate note that “In recent years [the English Democrats party] has grown in size due to an influx of former members of the British National Party (BNP), many of whom are open nazis”. Issues 17 and 19 contain full page adverts for the ‘Workers of England’ “union”. This organisation is not a union but a front group for the English Democrats political party, as Hope Not Hate explain:

“The union’s General Secretary is a perennial candidate for the English Democrats and the WEU’s only other officers are the Chairman and the Treasurer of the English Democrats. […] The WEU uses the services of the law firm run by the leader … which has little experience in representing workers or understanding of trade unionism.”

Issue 9 includes an article (“Ten Steps To Mass Mind Control”) by someone with the pen-name “Lasha Darkmoon”. The pen-name Lasha Darkmoon is also used by a frequent contributor to Nazi websites. Their bigotry and conspiracies cover antisemitism and racism towards Muslim people and non-white migrants to Europe (footnote 5). The article itself describes Holocaust denial as “the number one heresy of our day”. Darkmoon suggests there is an effort to “discredit the Truth… labelled a ‘conspiracy theory’”. This is not the only example of The Light or its supporters tolerating or endorsing Holocaust denial. The Light previously defended a man convicted of inciting racial hatred for making violent threats to Jewish people. Their article presented no criticism of the gross ways in which he “question[ed] the official account of the Holocaust”. The people who distribute the paper in Stroud have twice hosted a podcaster who promoted Holocaust denier Nicholas Kollerstrom. They have also held two events where Sandi Adams has spoken, despite being informed by us that she hosted a Holocaust denial documentary and other antisemitism on her website.

Far right governments

This isn’t only about fringe individuals or organisations. The Light also sometimes celebrates politicians running governments – if they are of the far right. Issue 26 enthuses about “Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing bloc” celebrating a “historic” victory in Italian elections in late 2022. Meloni is the leader of the “Brothers of Italy” party. When young, she was a member of the youth wings of neo-fascist parties founded by followers of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She is on record as praising Mussolini at the age of 19, and praising a minister in his government as recently as 2020. The article in The Light mocks factual reporting of these points, but makes little effort to hide its politics, approvingly quoting far right rhetoric from her speeches: “Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby; yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology; yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death, no to the violence of Islam; yes to safer borders, no to mass immigration; yes to work for our people.” The same article praises a “conservative and traditionalist tide” across Europe, citing Poland and Hungary as other examples – where far right governments also currently rule. Issue 27 features an article supporting the introduction of restrictions on access to abortion by the Orban/Fidesz government in Hungary. We could debate whether these governments merit the term ‘far right’, but they are certainly among the most right-wing governments seen in Europe in recent decades. Beyond Europe, the paper published an article supportive of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s false claims of election fraud. Bolsonaro has been described as “a caricature of the far right” and an “apologist for the most violent period of Brazil’s military dictatorship” (footnote 6). For a paper apparently opposed to authoritarian control and division, it’s revealing that it only has good things to say about these governments. It’s also revealing that The Light never criticises governments or politicians when they express hateful rhetoric towards or policies undermining the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people and migrants (footnote 7).

Incitement to violence

The above examples are accompanied by rhetoric close to incitement to violence in some articles. Issue 25 contains a full page article from the far right US website ‘red pill revolution’ titled “Awaken your inner warrior”. The article comes complete with a bizarre photo of a topless bearded man grimacing at readers. It begins “Friend, you and I are not part of a new breed. We belong to a very old one, a proud and noble warrior race”. The reference to race is notable. The article goes on “we are now faced with a new kind of enemy. Also, we have little left to lose, which is bad news for Them.” Issue 26 contains another call to arms from the same website. This time it presents a ridiculous racist conspiracy theory that refugees are being transported to act as an army. The authors write, “if they are planning to confront us, perhaps using the thousands of young men ‘of conscriptable age’ shipped into the country under the label of ‘refugees’, to subdue what they may choose to call ‘unrest’… well… God help them. We may be peaceful, but we are still warriors.” In Issue 29 another article from the same source argues: “You know who you are, scum. This time there will be no forgiveness, no amnesty, because you have offended the divine spirit that dwells in God’s people. Your offences must be avenged, according to natural law”.

Hate for asylum seekers and refugees

Perhaps the most revealing article in The Light on this topic is a piece in Issue 31. The article defends a protest which turned into a riot against asylum seekers being housed in a hotel in Liverpool. The article makes considerable effort to conceal the far right organisations and ideas related to this protest. It opens by suggesting that the term ‘far right’ is nothing but a ‘trope’ which has been ‘rendered utterly meaningless’. Yet, the violent protest the article defends is widely known to have been promoted by far right organisations including Patriotic Alternative (PA). Hope Not Hate describe PA as “the largest and most active fascist movement operating in the UK today”. Patriotic Alternative had visited the hotel in the weeks before the riot, delivered leaflets in the area, and promoted the demonstration on social media platform Telegram. A prominent member of the group was at the protest. While concealing the involvement of the far right, the article reproduces classic far right themes. The author writes of “huge numbers arriving” and presents asylum seekers as an economic burden and threat to “children and communities”. There is no information about the lives of the people living in the hotel. These included a Christian who fled Iran who explains that the Iranian government “has killed a number of my personal friends”. He wrote about the impact of the violent protest at the hotel, saying “I wanted to talk to the protestors, but I couldn’t. The sad thing is, now my friends are all afraid to go outside.”

The piece defending the protest at the hotel is consistent with other articles in The Light. The centrepiece of Issue 27 denies that people seek asylum from war, torture or oppresssion. It lists the term “asylum seeker” as an example of “newspeak” in the style of Orwell’s 1984. The “Oldspeak Definition” offered by The Light is “government enabled economic migrant”. Issue 26 contains an article presenting all asylum seekers as only “economic migrants”. It is revealing that a paper that presents itself as opposing tyranny shows no solidarity with people who flee their home countries. Meanwhile, dehumanising rhetoric about asylum seekers and refugees by politicians is never condemned by the paper. Government policies that restrict access to public services or involve invasive personal data collection or sharing as part of border controls aren’t featured in the paper.

Conclusion – don’t be fooled

The supporters of The Light often claim they are “neither left nor right”. The content of the paper shows otherwise. To feature one or two of these articles might have been a mistake. After all, the organisations and individuals aren’t upfront about being on the far right. But the number of articles represents a clear pattern (footnote 8). It appears obvious that the paper is doing this deliberately. It endorses far right individuals and organisations, and provides them with a route to new audiences. It doesn’t seem believable that the editor doesn’t realise what he is doing. How are the editorial team of The Light identifying pieces to publish? Do they never consider authors’ previous work when choosing whether to promote them? If this pattern of far right content is an accident or mistake, what does that say about the coverage of other topics in The Light?

Don’t be fooled. Make sure your friends know what’s behind The Light and where it wants to lead them. We invite people to join us in making clear our opposition to The Light being handed out in Stroud by signing our statement at tinyurl.com/TheLightStatement.

What about the people who hand out “The Light” in Stroud and other towns around the country? Not all of them are far right, yet they are still handing out this paper. At least one has chosen not to hand out specific issues. We invite them all to reconsider handing out this paper. As we wrote in our first piece in January 2021: “We ask that you take the time to listen, to research the subject. We ask that you think very carefully about whether you want to continue reading, sharing – even writing for – The Light.” Whatever we think of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it was dealt with, none of us should have anything to do with a paper that promotes the far right.

Footnotes

Footnote 1:

The Light and its supporters often argue that it is an unfair “slur” to refer to anything as “far right”, or that political terms like left and right aren’t of any use. We disagree – for us ‘far right’ is a useful term to describe individuals, organisations or ideas. Arguing that the term far right is unacceptable is strange given the paper often accuses others of being Nazis. An article in Issue 28 claims to help people understand “the road to fascism”. The December 2020 Issue argues the UK government’s response to the pandemic to that date was ‘Just like the Nazis’. Issue 12 has an article claiming an ongoing ‘Nazification of the NHS’. A further piece in Issue 28 casts The Light and its supporters as part of a “worldwide resistance to today’s Nazi goons”. We don’t think these claims are correct, but they show that The Light is happy to accuse others of being far right to make a rhetorical point when they want to. 

Footnote 2:

We do think it’s important to be as clear as possible about what is and isn’t far right. Our definition is based on Sam Moore and Alex Roberts’ excellent book “Post Internet Far Right”. The book explores the ideas that motivate the political parties, protest movements, internet personalities and individuals that make up the far right. Their definition is “‘Those forms of political behaviour that work on or advocate for the reproduction of capitalist social roles and relations on the basis of ethnic nationalism, racism, xenophobia or antisemitism, and often through the application of violent means at odds with principles of formal equality and thus at least publicly unavailable to the liberal state’.”

Footnote 3:

Anne Marie Waters was once a member of the Labour Party. This doesn’t get her a free pass, nor anyone else. Others have made the political journey from Labour and socialist parties to the far right. For example, Sir Oswald Mosley was once a Labour minister and went on to found and lead the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.

Footnote 4:

In 2017, Tilbrook made a complaint about the description ‘far right’. The Independent Press Standards Organisation found that the Yorkshire Post had shown “sufficient examples of activities and speech associated with the English Democrats in support of its characterisation of the party as ‘far-right’”.

Footnote 5:

Examples of articles by Lasha Darkmoon include: “Rape Jihad: Dark Days for Europe” (web archive link) and “The Migrant Invasion of Europe and the Dawn of a New Multicultural Dystopia” (web archive link). Though these were not republished in The Light, it’s reasonable to ask how the editorial team of The Light identifies pieces to publish. We also think its fair that publishers should consider authors’ previous work when choosing whether to promote them. Both issues are particularly important when publishing a piece arguing in favour of Holocaust denial.

Footnote 6:

Groups of indigenous people in Brazil have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate whether the recent far right president Jair Bolsonaro’s actions “constitute crimes against humanity.” These actions include weakening environmental protections, encouraging private development of the Amazon, and the displacement of Indigenous people. But The Light chooses to side with Bolsonaro instead of indigenous people and other victims of his government. Issue 28 repeats Bolsonaro’s false claims that his recent loss in the Brazilian presidential election was due to fraud. The article is taken from American far right site The Gateway Pundit, which has a history of publishing untrue stories and conspiracy theories. The reality is that it is Bolsonaro who has been found to have committed “election violations”. He used “government communication channels to promote his campaign and [for] sowing doubts about the vote.” As a result he has been barred from running for political office until 2030.

Footnote 7:

It isn’t just right wing politicians from countries other than the UK that are praised. Issue 31 even manages to provide a full page article endorsing the ideas of recent Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss. There is no critique of her very right wing politics. No mention of the terrible impact on people from her short tenure as Prime Minister. Instead, the piece welcomes her fantastical claims to be ‘anti-establishment’, even as she has been member of the political party that has been in government for the past 13 years.

Footnote 8:

There are links to many other right wing publications and websites. These are often referenced as “reliable” sources of information. An article in Issue 27 cites and links to US far right media Breitbart, founded by the former Chief Strategist for Donald Trump – Steve Bannon. In 2016 Bannon himself described the outlet as “the platform for the alt-right”. The term ‘alt-right’ is used to self-describe an attempted coalition and rebrand among far right forces in the USA and globally. The article linking to Breitbart attacks what it calls the “Hollywood woke agenda”. Apparently “Female characters are godlike, while men have been downgraded to clumsy fools” in all Hollywood films. (we have to ask how anyone who reads this stuff can take it seriously?!). Other groups advertised include “Project Veritas” – an American group which engages in fraud to discredit liberal organisations and trade unions. “SaveUsNow” is the political party of convicted shooter and conspiracy theorist Mark Steele. Issue 26 includes an article by “The Voice of Wales”, run by two Swansea-based UKIP members. The site had its YouTube account removed after accusations of racism. There are many more examples we cannot fit into a single article. Perhaps the worst thing the paper regularly points people to is the video sharing platform Bitchute. Hope Not Hate says Bitchute is “knowingly playing host to terrorist propaganda and incitement to violence.” Support for the platform is at least complacent about the prevalence of far right hate speech, Holocaust denial and glorification, and videos posted by mass shooters. At worst, the paper is aiming for people to find and engage with this content. 

Things “The Light” Wants You to Dislike

We read April’s edition of “The Light”, so you don’t have to!

The April edition the self-styled “Truthpaper” tells us we should dislike…

1. Concern about climate change (p1)

2. “The ‘green’ agenda” (p1)

3. Refugees (p2)

4. Trans people (p2)

5. COVID vaccines (p3)

6. Medical examiners (p4)

7. Walkable neighbourhoods /  traffic calming measures (p5)

8. The EU (p6)

9. Everything modern, particularly technology, environmental protection, public health measures, and sex education (p7)

10. Voting (p8)

11. Rich people (or anyone else) paying any taxes (p8)

12. Any government of any kind, ever – governments regulating bosses and big business, or legislating to protect children or anyone else – it’s all bad (p8)

Here’s a little more detail:

1. On page one the Light’s lead article (about Charles III), written by its editor, dismisses climate change as merely “fear mongering about the weather…based on nothing more than provable deceptions… [a] manufactured belief”. This is the latest example of The Light’s consistent denial of the reality of climate breakdown, which we have written about previously.

2. The same page 1 article heavily suggests any attempt by governments to protect the environment are linked to what it calls “globalist” ideas, “outright tyranny” and “surveillance”

3. The article that fills page 2 suggests heavily that “male migrants” are not “safe” to be around, a demonstrably false idea beloved of racists throughout history. The author is a notorious hard right former academic who was filmed abusing well-known Remain campaigner Femi Oluwole at a demo, calling him a “f***-ing traitor” and poking him with a flagpole.

4. The same article claims “transgender ideology” is a massive issue and suggests expending energy trying to get your MP to define “woman”.

5. The article that fills page 3 is basically one long quote from a “Psychological Wellbeing Practioner” (i.e. – not a medic) who says he had to go off with stress when the NHS didn’t listen to him about vaccinations.

6. Page 4 is an opinion piece from an NHS manager (i.e. not a medic) who makes various unclear allegations about the reporting of COVID deaths. He has left the NHS to set up a clothing business called “Trillionaire Gent Squad”, which is promoted at the end of his article.

7. Page 5 consists of a report of a meeting where some men were “brimming with passsion” in their opposition to “20 minute neighbourhoods”, a policy goal to have essential shops and services within a 20 minute walking distance and prioritise pedestrians over cars.

8. The article on page 6 claims that being pro-EU is a position driven solely by greed, and which killed democracy.

9. The article on page 7 tells us modernity is bad because, it claims, this is what CS Lewis, author of the Narnia books, thought. Though the whole page-long article contains only one, tiny, direct quote (“man-moulders”) from Lewis’s writing, so it’s hard to tell if this article fairly reflects his views.

10. The article on page 8 says (repeatedly) that any government is “always inherently immoral and illegitimate”, that tax is nothing but “force” and “thuggery” and no-one should be forced to do anything.

By page 9 I couldn’t take any more of it, but you get the gist…

This is all from one issue of The Light – but the paper consistently publishes material denying climate change, attacking climate activists, promoting homophobia and transphobia, and defending hate speech and bigotry – read more in Community Solidarity Stroud District’s previous articles here.

Mama’s War – remembering victims of the war in Bosnia

On 6th April we remember the victims of the war in Bosnia which is generally acknowledged to have started on that day in 1992. Over the next three years, Bosnian Serbs forces led a war of ‘ethnic cleansing’ targeted at Bosnia Muslims and Croats.

More than 2 million people were burned out of their homes in the villages over the 3 years of the war. 1,000 children were murdered during the Siege of Sarajevo. People were sent to concentration camps, including Omarska, where they were beaten, tortured, starved, raped and killed. Rape victims included young girls. Survivors were deported. More than 100,000 died. In July 1995, 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were murdered in Srebrenica. It was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust. More information is available from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

In the piece below local resident Damir’s mum describes her memories of the start of the war in Bosnia. She was 50 when the war broke out. A Croat married to a Bosnian in the secular and integrated county of Yugoslavia living in a small town in Bosnia similar to Stroud where she had worked as a primary school teacher most of her life. This is her account of her experience of being put under house arrest and eventually being made to made to leave her home.

Mama’s War

To help me make sense of the Bosnian war I recall a conversation with my father in 1987. He said: “Nasty things are going to happen in Bosnia. I cannot guarantee my predictions and I do not know how to help but…”

I was surprised with his words. I thought it the ravings of an 84 year old man and I couldn’t take it too seriously. He died shortly after in January 1988.

In 1991 the war starts, first in Slovenia, then Croatia. My Bosnian husband, my son and I are living in Bosnia. My daughter is in Zagreb studying. 

In June 1991 my colleague visits us at home. Not only have we worked together, but we are friends and socialise regularly.

She delivers a document by which I am fired from work saying “Management sent me to deliver this to you. Don’t be angry as WE can lose our jobs too.”

I felt confused, dizzy, offended, degraded and bewildered. Who are WE? I had worked, as a teacher with her, in that school for thirty years. 

That same day the military police visit. They interrogate us regarding weapons, and take my husband for further interrogation.  He is a retired territorial army officer. After he returns, he doesn’t say anything. He lies on the sofa and just stares at the ceiling. He is taken to these interrogations three more times.

My son Damir has left this hell 11 days ago. I watched his departure hidden behind the curtain.  Fear consumes me but at the same time my thoughts are: “Let him be safe, even if I don’t see him any more!”  

A young colleague who lives in the same building notifies me that going out is forbidden. Life continues with constant peeping behind the curtain.

Uniformed groups are taking people (Catholics and Muslims) to interrogations. I am deliberately not calling them Croats and Bosniaks. They were all born here, they attended the same school, all supported the same local football teams, all attended weddings and funerals together.  But now, religion makes them different, less human, a reason to be killed.   

One day I am allowed to go to the bank. There is the ever-present young colleague, patrolling the apartment block corridors, observing who is talking to whom. 

Outside at the cross- roads among a group of armed men is another colleague of mine. We worked together for 20 years. He is avoiding me, pretending to pay attention to something else, turning his back to me. As I pass I can hear steps behind me. I do not know what to expect. Maybe this is the end? Quietly he calls my name. I stop. Fear consumes me. He whispers “Sorry! Please remember I am ashamed. I am ashamed even to look you in the eye.”

Arrests continue. My life consists of peeping through the window behind the curtain. There are more and more armed men who do not belong to this town. However in these armed groups, there is always one local person pointing out who lives at a specific house and who should be arrested and in some cases killed. 

Often I walk through the apartment building hallways as going out of the building is forbidden.  I meet a woman I know, from a neighbouring building, with handfuls of bags, coats and jackets. Once, I cannot explain why, I ask her what she is carrying? Without shame she replies: “I am taking stuff from abandoned flats for the army!” 

You wouldn’t believe how much you can see and learn peeping through the window or from quietly spoken words in the corridor. This way I manage to learn who has been killed, who is in prison and who has “left” the town.

By left I mean kicked out, possessions taken

We learn that my husband’s first cousin has died. He was taken to prison, beaten up, sent home and died in the morning.  His mixed marriage didn’t save him, he was dead. 

One night a neighbour from our building, a judge at the local court, scratches on our door about 3am. It is dangerous for him to visit us. He brought us a couple of apples, cried talking about the situation, paralysed with fear for his young children. His brothers are in charge of the political party that led to this madness. One of them is a highly placed army officer. None of that has stopped him from being human.

We have an opportunity to leave. This means leaving all our belongings, our flat, everything and to pay for the cost of transport.

The same evening someone knocked at the door. It was unwritten rule for women to open the door. If men did that they would, often, be beaten up on the spot or even killed. Three soldiers demanded the car keys: “For the army!” they said. All night they drive our car up and down the street, revving the engine, honking the horn. When they have had enough smashed the car into the wall.

One bag. That is all what we were allowed to take. Our whole life was to be squeezed into one bag. I leave my son’s trumpet with a friend hoping one day he will be able to retrieve it. No words can describe leaving my house, locking the door. 

We are waiting for the buses behind the cordons in front of the town hall.

Former friends and colleagues are passing by pretending that we do not exist. We were taken across the mountain towards central Bosnia. The bus stops and my husband is taken off without explanation. The busses are ordered to continue. I run out of the bus after them. I don’t remember what I was saying but manage to pass him his medication. 

We are dumped several kilometres before the front line and ordered to continue on foot to the border. We were placed in the former barracks in Travnik. For ten days I lie in the bed, staring into empty space, forcing myself to get up only to try and find information about my husband. Some of my former pupils are here who care for me and bring me food. 

I visit the army headquarters to enquire again about my husband. An officer shows me some papers and asks “Excuse me, do you know how to read or shall I read this to you?”  

I don’t have any tears left to cry. I hear myself reply “Yes, yes, I know how to read.” I can imagine how I must have appeared. A teacher with 30 years’ experience so down trodden I might be illiterate. Ironically I probably taught him or even his parents how to read.

One day one of my former pupils woke me up: “Miss, miss, he is here!”

We embraced, no words, no tears, dirty, tired, happy, humiliated … I swore.

With the next convoy of refugees we continued towards Croatia.

At the Croatian border myself and my husband are singled out and told we cannot go through. I lose my mind and my fear. I am so full of anger and hatred, I cannot describe my feelings.

I pull out my birth certificate shouting: “Who are you going to deny entry to Croatia? I was born there. My Mother, my brothers, my family are there. I am going home. Bastard!” My husband tries unsuccessfully to calm me down. 

The official just turned and left. Without asking we boarded the bus and entered Croatia. Here we finally learned that our dear son had managed to reach my mother’s home and is safe. 

After over 100 days of hell I am back in my mother’s house which I left in 1961 to start my new life and build my own family in Bosnia. I possess nothing, I am dirty, scared, exhausted but we were all alive. 

We hear the news that our neighbour, the kindly judge, was eventually sent to a front by his brothers and was killed. Despite him being (against his will) a soldier on the side that had destroyed our lives both my husband and myself cry for him. He was a good man. 

Candlelit vigil in memory of Brianna Ghey, 26th Feb 2023

On Sunday 26th February 2023, Stroud Pride organised a moving candlelit vigil in memory of Brianna Ghey, the 16 year old trans girl from Warrington who was murdered on February 11th. Below you can read a speech by one of the organisers, Jen Hoskins, and watch another speech by a local parent:

“At a time when hatred and bigotry towards trans people, especially trans women, has become mainstream in the press, the tragedy of Brianna’s killing has deeply affected so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community across the country. With this vigil, we hope to make space for the trans community and allies to grieve, reflect, and most importantly to come together.”

“I didn’t know Brianna. But by all accounts, she was a bright, funny, brave and kind young woman. Her friends have said that she loved anything pink, she loved her friends, and she was proud to be trans. She dreamt of her life after school, away from the bullies, making plans to get a flat with a friend and live her best, fullest, beautiful life”

“In a statement, Brianna’s family said: “Brianna was a much loved daughter, granddaughter, and baby sister. She was a larger-than-life character who would leave a lasting impression on all that met her. Brianna was beautiful, witty, and hilarious. Brianna was strong, fearless, and one of a kind. The loss of her young life has left a massive hole in our family, and we know that the teachers and her friends who were involved in her life will feel the same.”

“While the news cycle will move on, for Brianna’s loved ones, this is something that will never leave them. I want to take this moment to recognise their huge loss, and to say that I’m sure everybody here is holding them in our hearts.”

“While we can’t speak about the specific circumstances of her death, we are left with one fact. Brianna’s dreams and plans were taken from her. Everything she was and everything she would have grown up to be was ended at the hand of another. She deserved better. She deserved to get to grow up. She deserved to live without fear. She deserved to get to be herself without violence and hatred haunting her young life.”

“I know many of you, even though you didn’t know her, will be feeling grief, anger, helplessness. I know because I feel that way too. It hurts, to sit with this, and feel like there’s nothing I can do. It hurts to know that this young woman, just 16 years old, a member of the trans community, had her life stolen from her; that mainstream outlets like the Times disrespected her memory after her death by erasing her truth and deadnaming her, that others are doing the same online right now to her and to women and girls like her. If like me you feel heartbroken, angry, helpless or afraid, I want you to know that those feelings are real and valid. I also want you to know that you are not alone.”

To finish the event, Jen read the words of two of Brianna’s friends:

Brianna’s friend Vivienne said: “I want people to remember Brianna for Brianna, not that she was murdered. I want people to understand that she was just a teenage girl living her life and she had so many dreams, and she was so loving and funny. I want to remember her for her beauty and her humour. Bri shouldn’t be remembered as a murder victim, she should be remembered as Bri.”

Brianna’s friend Hannah said: “If Bri would want anything from her passing, it would be change. I pray that her death isn’t meaningless, and that the UK government and society see the issue and change. We can’t let this happen again.”

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Community Solidarity Stroud District stands against all forms of hate. We also understand that falsehoods used to ‘other’ people, based on gender and sexuality, hurt everyone by redirecting conversations away from the everyday misogyny and bigotry that is essential in propping up systems that oppress us all. Several members of our group attended the vigil tonight – and we send our thanks to organisers from Stroud Pride for hosting the event.

The candlelit procession moving down Stroud High St

Sandi Adams and antisemitism (why she should never have been invited to speak in Stroud)

Our origins as a group lie in a letter written asking the Stroud Freedom Group to withdraw an invitation to Sandi Adams to speak at a rally in November 2020. We were concerned about antisemitic content on her website, which we discuss below (featuring some screenshots as evidence at the end of the piece). Please be aware that this article has to discuss and feature vile antisemitism by necessity to make our argument. Not only did the ‘Stroud Freedom Group’ fail to ever seriously respond to these concerns, it instead chose to invite Sandi Adams to speak again in this town, this time at a public meeting held at The Old Convent on 1st December 2022 (screenshot 1).

We hope that a longer piece – we apologise for the length in advance – might convince members of the Stroud Freedom Group to think more deeply before they pick their next speakers. We also trust that others are capable of drawing conclusions about the nature of this group from their pattern of behaviour: a willingness to ignore and endorse those who engage in antisemitism. This, of course, isn’t the first time the group has hosted a speaker with a history of promoting antisemitism. We still have no formal reply from the group to our concerns about the article in The Light defending a man convicted of ‘inciting racial hatred’ against Jewish people, and defending his Holocaust denial (though some members of the Stroud Freedom Group have acknowledged this article shouldn’t have been published).

In the November 2020 letter written by three members of what has become Community Solidarity Stroud District, we raised the following content on Sandi Adams’ website as concerning:

  • Her endorsement of a notorious, highly antisemitic pro-Nazi Holocaust denial documentary Europa: The Last Battle (12-hours long). She argued in her post that the documentary convinced her that ‘Churchill was in the pockets of the Jewish bankers’ and described it as forming a ‘game-changer in terms of embracing an ‘alternative truth’ about modern events in Europe’ – see screenshot 2. A brief description of the film and it’s antisemitic approach can be found here)
  • A webpage she wrote in July 2020 entitled “The truth IS anti-Semitic” in which she argued that “Jewish lobbying groups in many areas of life are powerful and insidious” (screenshot 3). She is mostly careful to restrict her comments to “extreme interpretations of Judaism” and “Zionism”, but the language conjures up the oldest conspiracy going, that of antisemitism. For example, she talks about “treacherous intent”, a global plan for “cultural destruction” and seeing people as “cattle”. She also says it is “vexatious” if people are not allowed to “question the holocaust”, and launches into a garbled discussion of the most notorious antisemitic hoax in history, the fake “Protocols of the Elders of Zion…real or not”.
  • A webpage she wrote titled “The World Order – How It Works (there’s nothing particularly new about it)” (screenshot 4). While avoiding directly making the antisemitic claim that the Jews run the world, it approvingly cites and references vile Jew-haters such as Eustace Mullins as sources, and uses barely-coded language such as “At the present moment in the evolution of the World Order a captive, but immensely powerful United States does the bidding of the Illuminati Zionist international bankers.”

Though the group accused us of being ‘libellous’, these pages have since been deleted – which suggests Adams did not want attention drawn to them by people who would point out that the antisemitism was blatant and inexcusable. It is clear that their deletion does not reflect a change in attitude toward antisemitism on the part of Adams. Sandi Adams’ website still hosts antisemitic content – a page titled “The Crucifixion of Russia” (screenshot 5) hosts a documentary film for which the full title is “The Jewish Crucifixion of Russia” (screenshot 6). The antisemitism of the title alone is obvious – framing Jews as “Christ killers” has been a theme of antisemites for centuries. But just to make sure, Adams leaves us in no doubt about the reasons she is hosting this 100 minute propaganda piece on her website – she enthuses about the way the film presents “the role of the UK, US and other countries in supporting the world wars and extermination of eastern European cultures with the help of key Jewish bankers and families”. The video concludes “Communism was always a Jewish tool, used to purge Christianity and freedom. Although it is believed the Soviets lost power years ago, the Jewish hand behind it is very much alive today. The Soviets and their system of psychological warfare never disappeared. The psychological warfare being waged against us all is very much the remnants of Communism, that serve to enslave us without a single shot being fired.” When first posting her endorsement of this video, Adams described it as “A vital examination of Russia’s 20th Century history” and added a grossly antisemitic cartoon. The image is made up of a Jewish ‘puppetmaster’ under a Star-of-David pulling the strings behind the scenes, and controlling both Stalin/Bolshevism and Churchill (who is selected to represent Zionism), while a stereotype of a Jew waits for a hand out in front of them (screenshot 7). The illustration bears a resemblance to similar imagery used by the Nazis (see the Antisemitism Policy Trust’s briefing on Antisemitic Imagery and Caricatures). All of this takes the notorious forgery known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and builds upon it – presenting Jews as controllers of world events and warmongers in ways which bear no relationship to reality, and instead scapegoat entire communities in ways which contain clear potential for harm.

The documentary film isn’t the only example of antisemitic content that remains. To this day, the ‘Introduction’ page that is the first thing visitors see on the site references “The propaganda machine of the “Deep State” and “Rothschild Banking Dynasty””. There is no reason to pick on this not especially remarkable Jewish family of bankers rather than any other or critiquing the financial system more broadly, than the long history of antisemitism surrounding the name Rothschild. At best this is a dog-whistle to antisemites, at worst, it’s picking up on an antisemitic theme that originated in 1846 but was given renewed impetus by a Goebbels film made by the Nazi government in 1940 (Die Rothschilds Aktien auf Waterloo). 

It’s also worth writing about the content on Sandi Adams’ website that isn’t antisemitic but is concerning. One of Sandi Adam’s bizarre obsessions is with “Agenda 21”, which she describes as “indicative of a longer plan of human population control and world domination that has its roots and tentacles spread far and wide through-out all areas of modern life and culture for over 130 years.” Without shame, Adams and other conspiracy theorists have – since the year 2021 to which “Agenda 21” was oriented has passed – simply copy-pasted their theories into reheated scaremongering about “Agenda 30”.

In fact Agenda 21 is a non-binding planning paper, adopted by the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. It was so inoffensive that the leaders of 177 countries were able to sign up to it, including US president George H W Bush. But it is not a treaty. “It has no force of law, no enforcement mechanisms, no penalties, and no significant funding. It is not even a top-down recommendation, seeking instead to encourage communities around the world to come up with their own solutions” to environmental problems. Given the weakness of government attempts to deal with environmental problems, it is a bizarre basis for a conspiracy theory.

But in the decades since, right-wing groups in the US (like the John Birch Society, the American Policy Center, and Sovereignty.net), have claimed that this document is a blueprint for a totalitarian world government. Opposition to Agenda 21 is now a touchstone of loyalty to right-wing politicians and talk show hosts in America, and is increasingly part of the mainstream right including the Republican National Committee. It’s been so successful that even local county-level planning officials have been voted out for being insufficiently critical of Agenda 21.

It’s part of a general rejection by the American right of all international institutions, from the League of Nations and onwards, now blended with a rejection of any measures intended to prevent climate change. And now it’s here in the UK too, courtesy of promoters of climate change denial like Sandi Adams, Piers Corbyn and The Light.

More information from Agenda 21: The UN, Sustainability and Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At the SPLC write: “as with all such baseless propaganda, the hysteria over it has had the effect of poisoning any kind of rational discussion of the very real challenges we face — challenges that are essential to tackle head-on in an increasingly complex and stressed world” .

Screenshots – and links where appropriate to archived versions of the webpages which allow for checking the veracity of the content without contributing to Sandi Adam’s webstats or the popularity of her website in search engines.

  1. Public meeting held at The Old Convent, hosted by Stroud Freedom Group
  2. Sandi Adam’s endorsement of a notorious, highly antisemitic pro-Nazi, vHolocaust denial documentary Europa: The Last Battle
  1. Sandi Adams’ July 2020 website page titled entitled “The truth IS anti-Semitic”
  1. A webpage on Sandi Adam’s website titled “The World Order – How It Works (there’s nothing particularly new about it)”
  1. A page on Sandi Adams’ website titled “The Crucifixion of Russia” 
  1. Full title of the video hosted on the above page, “The Jewish Crucifixion of Russia”
  1. Grossly antisemitic cartoon featured on the initial version of the above page, before it was replaced by an embedded version of the video.