right-wing race riot apologists rage over nothing

  • Post last modified:August 12, 2024
  • Reading time:10 mins read


Perhaps people of the far-flung future will look back on the old-fangled times of Twitter-turned-X and wonder was 12 August 2024 the day the gammon-peasants of Britain-web finally signed away their bigot-hive minds to the right-wing ‘GBeebies‘ bourgeoisie? That is, if the wranglings on this bygone hell-scroll about the Magna Carta are anything to go by.

However, if history is written by the victors, it won’t be the insufferable political commentator Alex Armstrong whose story goes down in infamy. At least not by today’s reckoning. Monday 12 August 2024, the good people of X roundly eviscerated his latest trash take.

Magna Carta: biting the dust, or merely gathering it?

It all began when Armstrong dusted off the dusty annals of a repeatedly debunked right-wing trope:

In fairness to the guy, he can count. It was indeed over 800 years ago. However, as the Secret Barrister pointed out, it was also that long ago that it was relevant:

But maybe we’ll let him off for his historical sleight. After all, it’s almost as long ago that Armstrong was too – oh no hang on, he was never relevant. More to the point, people on X highlighted that the Magna Carta was also completely irrelevant to courts sentencing the far-right criminals from the recent race riots:

Admittedly, the Magna Carta’s almost immediate demise in 1215 wasn’t quite the end of it. Some right-wingers seized on this. Specifically, it was purportedly reconfirmed 32 to 42 times between the 13th and 15th centuries. What swiftly followed though was a live re-enactment of the Bayeux Tapestry – if the fascists gammons were Harold getting pierced in the eye:

I know, wrong century, but when did the true course of history matter to the right-wingers clamouring on X? Largely, the original artifact was by barons, for barons. That is, if you weren’t landed, or aristocratic gentry, the charter meant squat:

It sure as hell isn’t protecting any working-class communities now from elite, wealthy forces today. Whereas, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that the right-wingers are so keen to do away with, is:

Law of the land

In fact, the final vestiges of the Magna Carta in law today comes in just three small passages. Clause 1 protects the freedom of the English Church. Clause 9 governs the “ancient liberties” of the City of London. The final one, clause 39 stipulates the right to due process under the law. Before any Reform goons giddily “gotcha” me, this says that:

No free man shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his property, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor shall we go against him or send against him, unless by legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land.

As it happens, parading on violent, racist, Islamophobic pogroms is going against the laws of the land.

Anachronism and massive wanker misinterpretation aside, Starmer also hasn’t changed said laws:

But we thought the right-wing loved a good book-burning:

Of course, that’s how easy it is to rewrite history to any fucking story you want. It’s also this very anachronism and twisting of facts that has let frothing at the mouth ‘free speech warriors’ run riot – quite literally – across this not-so green and pleasant land. Because when it comes down to it, they invariably mean the freedom to hate, discriminate, harm, and oppress marginalised communities.

Oh wait, my mistake too. The dunder-headed apes losing their collective minds doesn’t quite happen until the Musk monkey-brain implant takeover of 2033. You know who I mean by that – and it’s not humanity’s closest species cousin.

If there’s one thing about the 12 August historians will never forget, it’s that creepy as fuck AI painting of Keir Starmer. The rest – Armstrong, Farage, and his rancid ilk – should be consigned to the dustbin of history. But not before we kick their racist, fascist asses, and the capitalist establishment they represent into yesteryear, and leave them there to wither.

Feature image via X – Alex Armstrong/Wikimedia – Clem Rutter/Youtube – GB News/the Canary





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