Category Archives: David Irving

My Visit to the London Forum

Background

Some time ago, in late 2016, I was invited to address the London Forum. At that time I had only very peripherally heard of it. This is how it describes itself:

The London Forum is a non-party aligned conference group for nationalists, identitarians, thinkers and commentators from across the Right.

https://identityforum.org.uk/the-london-forum/

and it is connected with the online publisher, The Identity Forum, https://identityforum.org.uk/, which says of itself:

By publishing original work on identity, culture, race, tradition, metapolitics and other topics of interest, our goal is to provide a forum which produces engaging, insightful, high-quality content.”

At the time of my invitation, I had just been disbarred, despite having not actually practised at the Bar for over 8 years, despite having what the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal described as an unblemished record as a barrister (including commendations from the Bench and favourable mention in the main legal directories), despite many other factors in my favour. The complaint against me had been made by a Jewish-Zionist organization, “UK Lawyers for Israel” and related to (in the end) 7 tweets posted (out of some 150,000 at the time). I intend to blog about my case in detail another time. Suffice to say that I accepted the invitation to speak to the London Forum, despite convenience and ease suggesting that I decline.

I had endured “15 minutes of fame” (two days or so, in reality) in late October 2016, as parts of the Press went mad about the (supposedly) “neo-Nazi” barrister and his punishment (presented to an unwitting newspaper readership as getting my “just deserts”, of course). Did I really want more mainstream media attention stoked by Zionist extremists and their hysteria? Not really. Exhibitionism is not a large part of my personality. However, I conceived it to be my duty to speak up, not for myself but for freedom of expression in the UK, under attack from various quarters but especially from the Zionist element.

On the Day

So it was that I went to the London Forum on Saturday 4 February 2017, as one of half a dozen speakers addressing an audience of perhaps 100 people in a large tourist hotel in Kensington. Most of those who spoke can be seen and heard on the London Forum youtube channel, along with speakers from earlier events:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEwrMR1v4vK-LAp4805x6Bg

The reception was warm and the meeting, which started at 1200, proceeded peacefully, though occasionally a very faint chanting could, just about, be heard. It transpired that that scarcely audible chanting was from about 30 masked “antifa” idiots who had congregated outside the main entrance of the hotel. The London Forum was happening one floor up and on the other side of the building. I later discovered that, at first, there were only a few police personnel sent to deal with the rentamob, which had been summoned, no doubt by a Zionist, via tweets; the “activists” were probably overflow from the much larger (40,000-strong) anti-Trump march which happened slightly earlier. It seems that the fools were under the impression that the London Forum was “a secret neo-Nazi gathering”, a description which found its way into the bad-joke online rump “newspaper”, The Independent, a day or so later.

The meeting carried on, most of the audience being entirely unaware of the small protest happening one (atrium) floor down and on the other side of the hotel. The meeting ended at its scheduled time of 1700 hrs. By that time, the main public areas of the hotel had been flooded with what seemed to be about 60 police, including a police medic (I saw the back of his jacket), vans outside and a helicopter whirling overhead. A senior-looking officer (no high-vis jacket, a cap) seemed to have taken charge. He (I was told) gave the order to clear away the would-be “revolutionary” snowflakes from the hotel by issuing a “Dispersal Order” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_Behaviour_Act_2003#Dispersal_zones], after which the snowflakes presumably went home to mama or to wherever they lodge (several that I saw on the Internet, days later, seemed to be foreign). Certainly, by the time the meeting participants left the hotel, the “antifa” idiots had all (all 30!) melted away like real snowflakes.

Aftermath and thoughts

The Press, TV, radio largely ignored both the meeting and the pathetic though noisy protest. The Independent “newspaper” (now online only after its circulation dropped in early 2016 to about 20,000) carried a piece by one Niamh Mcintyre, a student-journalist. Her piece got almost everything wrong: the maybe 30 “antifa” idiots were “80” in the Independent’s “report” and the (open to all bona fide people) London Forum was “a secret neo-Nazi gathering”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/neo-nazi-meeting-london-richard-spencer-alt-right-fascist-activists-white-supremacists-a7563021.html

Niamh Mcintyre’s “report” also said that previous London Forum speakers had included Max Weber. This was remarkable, in view of the fact that Max Weber died in 1920!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

I think that the poor snowflake meant Mark Weber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weber

I saw tweets from Niamh Mcintyre, Independent “newspaper” “journalist” (student) to “London Antifascists” and similar “antifa” idiots, asking “what is happening?” [at the hotel] and requesting comment. At no time (right up to now) were any participants or London Forum officials asked for comment or information, it seems. However, the “antifa” idiots’ comments were printed uncritically by the Independent, even one calling for “direct action” (terrorism and intimidation) to “close down” free speech even in a private forum.

After I tweeted (Wednesday 8 February 2017) about the Independent’s ignorance and lack of journalistic ethics (not checking basic facts, not getting both sides or several sides of a story, bias etc), the egregious error of “Max Weber/Mark Weber” was removed from the Independent online report, but the rest of the nonsense is still up, including a claim that the idiots caused the meeting to close early. Untrue. It carried on to the scheduled end .

The Metro free newspaper carried a slightly more, though not very, accurate report:

http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/07/neo-nazis-allowed-to-hold-secret-meeting-at-central-london-hotel-6432405/

though it saw fit to add a laughable extra line about how it had warned the hotel that “ethnic minorities” and staff might be in danger! Journalism died one day and was replaced by something else…The Metro “newspaper” also described how the London Forum had previously “hosted” “infamous holocaust denier..Max Weber” (who died in 1920!). Not very surprising that newspapers are dying, when they employ the ignorant to make up “fake news”…

Did “antifa” achieve anything? No. The London Forum took place, the videos of speeches are online and (equally importantly) free speech was upheld.

What if the police had not been there? Well, the “antifa” idiots were few (possibly, at peak, 35) in number whereas the audience, speakers and LF security (pretty fit and skilled) numbered well over a hundred. The “antifa” may have got off lightly. They are just the “useful idiots” for others (Zionists) and of no importance.

Freedom of expression on social, political and historical topics must be protected,

c4jxgm2ukae7tt_Update, 9 September 2018

Readers of the above blog post may have noticed that the links for London Forum and Identity Forum are not working. This is because YouTube decided, having been pressured by the Jew-Zionist lobby, to remove those channels in their entirety. The leading light of the London Forum, Jez Turner [Jeremy Bedford-Turner] was prosecuted after the CPS was taken to court on a judicial review application by the “Campaign Against AntiSemitism”, yet another pack of Jewish Zionists in the UK. This is what we are up against: a stealth police state and its private equivalent, which have little or no legitimacy and which must be overthrown.

Update, 6 January 2018

I have seen my own speech to the London Forum posted online recently, so it may be that patriots have posted all the London Forum speeches or talks somewhere or other.

Free Speech: Individuality and Collectivity

Rudolf Steiner often spoke of the ever-increasing individualism in our age (that period which he named the “Fifth Post-Atlantean Age”, which started around 1400 AD and is due to run until about 3500 AD). This is an inevitable continuing process and will bring many benefits if people are guided by conscience. However, if people are not guided by individual conscience, the forces of the individual will tear apart society.

Against the forces of individualism stands “society”, which encompasses law, unwritten “laws” of convention and expectation and also the powers of the State (which holds itself out as the concrete expression of the people as a whole).

Society is, of course, a good thing. In proper measure, it makes possible and supports such aspects of life as law, public order, organized help for the sick, disabled, elderly, poor etc. It is a structure which supports the family, too. It also provides, via the State,  the structure for defence against outside forces (hostile states, natural calamities etc). However, if taken too far, society and/or the State becomes oppression, involving the repression of individual liberty in various ways (most obviously, perhaps, suppression of free speech or other freedom of expression).

Society restricts freedom of speech. It is hard to imagine a society beyond the most primitive or germinal in which complete freedom of speech exists (eg spoken or written threats against the person). On the other hand, when society (the State, or perhaps a religious or political cult) prevents individual expression, reasonable restriction becomes unreasonable repression. One thinks, perhaps, of the more extreme socialist states of the 20th Century, such as the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao Tse-Tung, Albania under Enver Hoxha, Cuba under Fidel Castro. The same was true of anti-socialist tyrannies such as Nicaragua under Somoza.

Particular emergency conditions may lead to a temporary tightening of what is regarded as acceptable free speech. In the Second World War, the various combatants restricted free speech considerably. In the UK, those who spoke out against the war or government policy faced both prosecution (State) and persecution (society generally). Even the USA, with its famous Constitutional safeguards, clamped down on freedom of expression.

As in other fields of life, we can see that the tension between the demands of the individual qua individual and those of the collective results in what amounts to a compromise. It is a question of either where society (in practice, usually the State, but possibly a smaller community such as a town or even a family) decides where the line is drawn, or where the individual draws the line, based on conscience or preference and regardless of where the State and/or society has drawn it.

Most people, most of the time, obey the dictates of the collective. Were that not so, law could not exist except as a facade with nothing behind it (cf. Stalin’s Russia etc); neither could the State or its power, in the end. On the other hand, the individual must always obey conscience and it therefore becomes vital to distinguish between individual conscience and individual wilfulness or egoism. No outside force can decide what is conscience and what is wilfulness or egoism. The individual, the individual human soul, is the only judge or arbiter here. Where the individual and the collective collide, the results can range from martyrdom of the individual to reform or even revolution affecting the collective.

Where do I myself, as both individual and citizen (i.e. part of the collective) draw the line? For me, freedom of expression about social, political and historical matters should be absolute. Other forms of expression (eg threats, libels, fraudulent misrepresentations) can be (and commonly are) restricted to a greater or lesser extent.

It follows from the above that I prefer the approach taken in the United States to that of most EU states (including the UK). Restrictions on freedom of expression are often imposed for or from outwardly “good” motives, but rapidly become a slippery slope with evil results. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Notes

  1.  http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_sent_via_social_media/
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution