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People are defending Howard Beckett after Labour suspends the Unite leadership candidate
A senior trade unionist has been suspended by Labour following a tweet about home secretary Priti Patel.
Unite’s assistant general secretary Howard Beckett – who is standing for the leadership of the major union tweeted:
“Priti Patel should be deported, not refugees. She can go along with anyone else who supports institutional racism.
“She is disgusting.”.
Apology
Beckett made the remarks following protests in Glasgow over the detention of two men by Border Force officials.
Beckett deleted his tweet and apologised for the wording:
Read on...
My earlier tweet, deleted after half an hour, was never intended to be literal. My intention was to emphasise that racist policies should be rejected & have no place in society. The wording was wrong, offensive & I apologise unreservedly to Priti Patel. No one should be deported.
— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) May 13, 2021
He later said: “Priti Patel message on Eid al Fitr is to deport Muslim refugees. Those who have been forced to flee war zones.
“We are seeing appalling institutional racism again and again from the supposed pillars of the British elite.
“Our society should have no place for racism, at all.
“I’m very sorry for my earlier tweet. I was angry to see Muslim Refugees being deported on the morning of Eid al Fitr.”
He said his earlier message was “never intended to be literal” and “the wording was wrong” and “offensive”.
“I apologise unreservedly to Priti Patel. No one should be deported.”
Equal treatment?
While many people recognised the apology was needed, Novara‘s Ash Sarkar highlighted that while there were issues with the tweet, the Labour Party isn’t treating people equally over allegations of racism:
I criticised Howard Beckett at the time, directly and publicly. But Beckett apologised and has been suspended, while others remain in the party who have never shown contrition for egregious examples of racism.
Either the process is the same across the board, or it's factional. https://t.co/EYKzA6magQ pic.twitter.com/zLDs6MHyvA
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) May 14, 2021
THIS. IS. IT. https://t.co/h0bLA7s1h1
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) May 14, 2021
Support for Beckett
But people have also been taking to social media to express their support for Beckett. The Canary‘s editor at large, Kerry-Anne Mendoza summed up the situation:
If you’re backing the anti-immigrant Home Secretary, you’re not the anti-racist.@BeckettUnite is an ally and I’m damned if we’re letting this happen again.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈 (@TheMendozaWoman) May 14, 2021
Beckett's tweet was:
– rhetorical
– based on Priti Patel's actions, not race#stopthepurgeThis is weaponisation of the racism smear for factional purposes. This outrage is artificial and manufactured.#FordeReport
— Sotto Voce 2020 (@sotto_voce_2020) May 14, 2021
Palestinians being buried and migrants being deported on the daily and the swiftest Labour has moved all year was cuz of "deport Priti Patel". That's all you need to know about why this furore is bullshit & you so called "white allies" are doing the most to substantiate it.
— Shanice 😈 (@Shanice_OM) May 14, 2021
And as Ben Smoke also pointed out:
if nothing else i guess congratulations to the labour party for managing to take one of the most inspiring and incredible moments of community and direct action we've seen in forever and turning it into another pathetic factional war. all very predictable and petty.
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) May 14, 2021
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‘Argument in bad faith’.
My online ‘career’ started in late 2000, and was on an early political online forum. While good natured enough at first, the inevitable rivalries soon overtook it. People decided not to like each other, largely over policies (Israel was naturally a big divider, fx.).
But there came further divides in this early experiment in online democracy and debate.
Some people could vociferously disagree, even spend hundreds of hours in extremely heated and even personal disagreements, and yet still remain honest in their arguing and bickering. One such, an American Republican gentleman from Maryland, became one of my closest and greatest friends until he passed away last year from cancer.
However, a small minority went much further. They would lie to “Win”. They would misrepresent what you had said, obfuscate, spread disinfo, and use bullying tactics to close down discussions they couldn’t ‘win’ legitimately.
Such people did not become friends.
What has been witnessed in the past few years has shown that to be an online microcosm. While the invasion of Iraq, Libya, et al showed how the corporate media would unite to lie, the treatment of especially Corbyn and Assange, among so many others now, quite clearly shows to anyone with functioning eyes, ears and brain (And compassionate honest soul); that such behaviour is not only acceptable to the PTB, but actually EXPECTED.
It is obvious to anyone with the aforementioned capabilities that what happened was this person was so ANGRY at Priti Itself, and was also so post-racist, that he didn’t even consider that Bad Faith Actors could pick up what he had missed – that she is non-white (Although white than white on the inside, whiteness being cultural rather than skin colour. Ask the Irish).
To this anti-racist that didn’t matter. He was angry at the policies of the person in the Office.
But to the legions of Bad Faith Actors, (BFAs?), this was an OPPORTUNITY.
Stand with me for a minute and lets ponder together the emotions (Sorry, ‘thoughts’) that went through Priti Itself’s logic circuits when she read this. Was she devastated, and felt threatened by a risk of deportation because she isn’t white? Hmmm. Perhaps not, would you agree?
There was not the slightest harm done to that cold hearted b*ch. A smirk, followed by an evil laugh when she realised she could use this for her own calculated ends.
Good luck on getting ME to remove any such material!!
Situations like this are why Nature provided us with a long middle finger.