What is this "extremism" the Tories are on about?

11 days ago they whipped up an Islamophobic panic over unspecified threats and abuse, by unspecified people, against unspecified MPs. Now they're defending a guy who said a specific MP should be shot"

On March 1st Rishi Sunak made a sinister and authoritarian speech on the steps of Downing Street about "extremism" in which he invoked the Lindsay Hoyle conspiracy theory that parliamentary procedure had to be subverted because of unspecified threats and abuse, by unspecified people, against unspecified MPs.

Just 10 days later it was revealed that the Tories’ biggest financial donor Frank Hester said that the specific MP Diane Abbott "should be shot" during a racist rant in which he also said that she makes him "want to hate all black women".

The problem for Sunak is that Hester is the Tories’ biggest donor, who has bankrolled their operation to the tune of £10 million in recent years, so predictably the Tories have gone into "circle the wagons" mode to defend their guy, and make out that this extreme violent and racist rhetoric should be forgiven and forgotten simply because he’s now apologised!

Even by Tory standards this is an astonishingly rapid turnaround from condemning unspecified and absurdly unlikely threats and abuse against MPs and decrying extremism, to vehemently defending exactly what they were rabble-rousing about just days ago.

Once again Starmer’s Labour have proven that they’re almost as bad.

Not only did Keir Starmer and Lindsay Hoyle deliberately trigger the tsunami of Islamophobic abuse and conspiracy theories with their still unsubstantiated insinuations that they had to rip up parliamentary procedure because MPs lives would have been in danger had they not hijacked the SNP’s Gaza ceasefire motion to remove reference to Israel’s collective punishment of civilians, their response to Frank Hester situation leaves a lot to be desired too.

Several Labour MPs have called for the Tories to "give the money back", but it’s utterly absurd to reward a racist for his violent and extremist rhetoric by giving him £10 million. They should obviously be demanding that the Tories hand the £10 million over to anti-racism charities and community projects.

And then there’s all the faux expressions of solidarity with Diane Abbott, despite the fact that Starmer’s goons have kept her suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party with the factional aim of replacing Britain’s first black female MP at the looming general election.

Yes Diane Abbott wrote an offensively worded letter to the Guardian in which she mangled a perfectly acceptable point about black and Asian people being more visible targets for racist abuse and bigotry than white Jewish and Roma people, so it seemed like she was saying they never suffered any racist abuse, but she apologised for what she wrote and clarified what she’d intended to say.

How come Hester gets away with no censure at all merely because he eventually apologised for calling for Diane Abbott to be killed, but Abbott still gets hounded out of her parliamentary seat despite apologising for her offensively mangled point about black and Asian people often being the more visible targets for racism and abuse?

Starmer has outright ignored the damning Forde Report into Labour’s sickening "hierarchy of racism" and the "hostile environment" they’ve been creating for people of colour within the Labour ranks, and the continued suspension of Diane Abbott is proof positive Labour also has a profound racism problem.

It’s not the overt racism Frank Hester displayed in his grotesque rant, it’s systemic racism that’s built into the Labour Party’s leadership and disciplinary procedures.

One of the most alarming things about the Frank Hester situation is where he’s got all of this money to buy political influence.

It turns out that since 2016 Hester has raked in over £440 million in government contracts from the NHS and local authorities through his TPP companies, from which he’s extracted tens of millions in profits for himself.

It’s astonishing that individuals and companies that make so much money in government contracts are even allowed to kick back a percentage of their profits to the political party that awarded them the contracts in the first place.

Labour could easily say that they’d ban recipients of government cash from donating to political parties, but that wouldn’t go down at all well with the private health millionaires who have been buying influence over Labour Party policy with donations to the likes of Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting, and Rachel Reeves.

Meanwhile the Tories have been attempting to broaden the definition of "extremism" to include socialism, anti-genocide protests, and environmental activism, and to bring in new rules to ban individuals and organisations described as "extremist" under this new definition from participation in public and political life.

Under the proposed new plans socialists, Scottish independence campaigners, environmental organisations, and anti-genocide protesters will face being banned from public life and from even speaking to MPs, while a Tory donor who calls for the killing of an MPs he doesn’t like will be allowed to continue buying £millions worth of political influence!

The vehement Tory defence of Frank Hester and his £millions in dodgy donations to their party make it absolutely clear that they’re intent on politicising the definition of "extremism" to such an extent that it includes pretty much anything that’s contrary to Tory party interests, while excluding even the most vile and violent extremism if it comes from Tory politicians or their millionaire donors.