Jake Hepple's stupid stunt. 'White Lives Matter Burnley'. Credit: Michael Regan/Getty
Was there ever a time when honest disagreement over contentious issues was deemed permissible? Were we ever truly free to say what we believed, without fear that the Thought Police would come calling? Was it always the case that a rigid conformity of opinion held sway on certain questions, with all dissent destined to be met by a wild hysteria and demands for swift recantation?
It is easy, when surveying the public square today, characterised as it is by such deep-rooted uniformity and a climate in which any sort of resistance constitutes a revolutionary act, to conclude that things must have been this way for all time. That the uncompromising group-think that pervades so much of our discourse has always existed. That freedom of expression and the ‘marketplace of ideas’ are obscure concepts peddled only by heretics and those with a kamikaze disregard for their own reputations or careers.
Like a prisoner who, as his sentence grinds on, finds it increasingly difficult to recall a time when he enjoyed liberty, our society risks falling into the trap of believing that the ever-tightening constraints placed upon our freedoms have always bound us.
It is not so, of course. In fact, we don’t have to travel too far back to identify a time when our culture was quite different. If someone said or did something crass or thoughtless – even if the act was committed in the full glare of publicity — society would generally react by curling its lip or tutting or dismissing the culprit for an idiot. And then the world would move on. Nobody had been injured, nobody died, and one person might have been left feeling a bit embarrassed or sheepish. Real opprobrium was reserved for those who truly deserved it.
How the world has changed. It seems unimaginable today that someone — particularly anyone with a public profile — could depart from the orthodoxy on any subject of delicacy or contention, especially one of cultural sensitivity, without inviting the now-customary storms of outrage. These usually begin with a rabid kind of finger-pointing, invariably conducted through social media, and very quickly progress to demands for an apology, appeals to the transgressor’s employer that he be fired from his job and, where the individual enjoys any sense of prominence, an insistence that he be banished from public life for good. The actual merits of the person’s words or actions are irrelevant. All that was necessary for the pitchfork-wielders to do their worst was that ‘offence’ had been caused. When the storm eventually passes, the person is likely to find himself excommunicated from polite society.
The disturbing thing is that this ‘cancel culture’ has taken hold not because it can claim support among the mass of the population, but because a minority of intolerant fanatics has somehow managed to cow everyone else into submission. They have effectively been allowed to set the boundaries of acceptable debate on certain topics, to decide on behalf of us all what constitutes a legitimate opinion, and to determine the sanction to be imposed upon anyone who refuses to comply.
And, faced with this growing threat to our freedoms, our ruling class, including most figures in the fields of politics, business, the media and public services, have cravenly folded. Worse, in many cases they have actively sided with the zealots.
Which brings me to Jake Hepple. I have little doubt that Mr Hepple is a bit of an oaf. I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve when he arranged to have a plane trailing a “White Lives Matter” banner fly over a football stadium in Manchester when a match was taking place. He may have simply wished to make mischief or court publicity. Or perhaps his actions were genuinely intended as a sardonic rebuke to the Black Lives Matter movement and some of its more questionable aims and tactics (which, in spite of what we are led to believe, do not command unanimous support throughout the country).
Whatever his motives, it was a pretty silly thing to do. Of itself, however, the message plainly wasn’t offensive. White lives, after all, do matter. Taken in isolation, it is a statement with which few would disagree.
The response, then, to his stupid stunt should have been to shake our heads at its puerility and hope that the perpetrator faded into obscurity as quickly as he had come to our attention. But, of course, in these days when ‘silence is violence’, quiet dismissal of Hepple would have been tantamount to endorsement of his actions. So the wheels of the bandwagon started rolling, and everyone duly clambered aboard.
First up was Burnley Football Club, whose players were taking part in the match inside the stadium (while, it should be noted, displaying the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ on their jerseys) and of whom Hepple was a supporter. The banner was ‘offensive’, said the club in a statement, before going on to pledge that those responsible would be issued with ‘lifetime bans’.
Then, so it seemed, anyone and everyone who might in some way be connected, however tenuously, to Hepple or the incident felt obliged to express their own words of condemnation. Blackpool Airport, from where the plane had taken off, said it stood against ‘racism of any kind’ and promptly vowed to suspend all banner flights. The CEO of the UK Civil Aviation Authority itself, no less, also saw fit to weigh in, resolving to work with the police in any subsequent probe. Right on cue, Lancashire police then launched an investigation, only to confirm a day later – entirely predictably – that it would not be pursuing the matter any further because no crime had been committed (thereby leaving us to conclude that its initial actions were motivated more by PR concerns than by any serious belief that the law had been broken).
Football pundits tripped over each other in the rush to express their full-throated fury and indignation – though whether they truly felt such levels of outrage or merely felt compelled to pretend they did because, well, it was expected is another question.
Most absurdly of all, a Danish brewer issued a statement disassociating itself from Hepple and assuring us that it did not condone racism in any form after a photo emerged on the internet showing him holding a can of its beer. I half-expected McDonald’s, whose logo could just about be seen behind Hepple in the same photo, to announce that he was no longer welcome to eat their Big Mac and fries.
Needless to say, after all this outcry, Hepple was sacked by his employer.
On one level, some of this reaction is quite simply absurd and deserving of mockery. On another, however, it is deadly serious. Because, in the end, this isn’t just about Jake Hepple. Nor is it about the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s about a culture of intolerance and dogmatism that has poisoned our society — a culture that permits only a single and established view on particular questions and unleashes swift retribution upon those who dissent.
A cultural revolution is taking place across our land, and opponents can expect no mercy. It is Mao Zedong meets Joseph McCarthy. It is unhealthy; it is oppressive; it runs counter to our nation’s long-cherished traditions of liberty and free expression; and it leaves millions of ordinary people feeling alienated, dismayed and bewildered.
If we are ever to force a retreat — as we surely must — it will be done through the mainstream majority coming together and saying enough is enough. Until now, too many among those who wield power and influence in our society have demonstrated an abject cowardice as this new tyranny has taken hold. They have kept their heads down and hoped for an easy life. That must change. Because, if we’re not careful, it will soon be too late to do anything about it.
Paul Embery is a firefighter, trade union activist, pro-Brexit campaigner and ‘Blue Labour’ thinker
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SubscribeI have a good Canadian friend who is a retired GP. A few years ago, while Carney was still Governor of the Bank of England, he told me that Carney was disliked in his native Canada, and that Canadians were glad to see the back of him when he was appointed to the BoE by the Labour socialist Prime Minister, Gordon ‘Grim’ Brown.
Carney occupies a place at the apex of the Woking Class elite. He was bad news as Governor or the BoE – very political – pushed Net Zero, did everything he could to discredit and destroy the Brexit initiative, Climate Change fanatic, into the whole notion of transferring wealth from the developed nations to the developing world, socialist in outlook, DEI enthusiast, etc. I hope we never again see his like running our national bank. He did us no favours.
I hope he does not grab power in Canada as he will be bad news for you too!
As a Canadian, I can say that you are right on about Carney being disliked in Canada. A lot of Canadians felt sorry for Brits when he became the governor of BoE. However, Canada is as polarized as the rest of the western countries, and many diehard Liberals are cheering on Carney’s campaign. I hope that the wind of change is coming to Canada and the Liberal Party gets wiped out in the next election.
I will be praying for you, Joanne, and your Canadian compatriots!
I do hope Carney is not elected leader of the Liberals. He is the only member of that carnival of fools with an outside chance of beating Poilievre.
Does Carney not realise he is the symbol par excellence of an ideology and class that are now almost universally loathed – along with their annual festival of greed and narcissism that we will be forced to watch yet again next week.
Poillievre’s Conservatives are bound to rightly crow: He’s an outsider alright! A citizen of Europe, not Canada.
Trudeau’s dirt has hung on the Canadian scene for so long that it’s now covered his entire party, and anyone who looks or sounds like him. Carney is likely to serve as the Liberals’ sacrificial goat at the next election, much as Michael Ignatieff did 16 years ago, and as Kim Campbell did for the Tories back in the ?90’s. Canadians despise an unlelected incumbent. At least let’s hope that’s still true.
Looking at this man, you realize from his face and eyes, that he is dead and hollow.
The liberals are definitely not trading up.
Canadians would be insane to elect this man – or tolerate his presence in any public office. Take it from a Brit who has already experienced the consequences of his galloping dishonesty, incompetence and political naivety.
So this guy’s never held any political office and never been elected to anything. But seems to think he can just rock up and become leader of a political party and even Prime Minister without any of this experience. Who does he think he is ? Donald Trump ?
Why would anyone want to save Canada’s liberal establishment? In 40 years Canada has gone from ~90% of the US per capita GDP in 1980, to 80% in 2010, to 60% today, while their average home price is double the US.
The liberal establishment and their war on natural resource extraction have devastated Canada economically.
Perception is reality and this works very well for Carney. He can say he had nothing to do with Liberal Party over the last decade – something Freeland simply can’t do. He will probably support scrapping the carbon tax, which is very much hated in Canada, even though he was likely the architect of that very policy. Carney is very intelligent in the very worst way. He is an unwavering convert to the cult of climate change hysteria and has relentlessly pushed net zero behind the scenes. He believes in all the progressive ideas so in vogue with the technocratic intelligentsia today, like ESG and DEI. Carney will be an unmitigated disaster for Canada, but he’s infinitely smarter and more presentable than Trudeau, and that makes him very dangerous.
The Liberals are very good at spin however the Conservatives are going to have a field day with all the video of him endorsing the policies that are driving Canadians insane. Look for another 10 minute video called “Who is Mark Carney” or some such. One was circulating today where he says ‘as a European…..”. Shades of Ignatieff.
He is being nicknamed Justin Carney, also Carbon tax Carney.
Another champaign socialist pushing the green agenda.
He will espouse the same smug progressive pro-immigrant, anti-business, anti-freedom and net zero policies that the uniparty has applied to the ruination of Europe and Canada.
His UN Net Zero investment club is literally falling apart in real time. A bunch of US heavyweights pulled out a few days ago and the Bank of Montreal pulled out today.
All I can say is that, as the theoretically apolitical Governor of the Bank of England, he was a thoroughly disingenuous and highly politically-motivated partisan player in the anti-Brexit camp. I happened to agree with him, but he acted in a manner of which he should still feel ashamed.
The Liberal Party clearly thinks the problem is Trudeau – not their policies. I am not a Liberal supporter and would be pleased if Carney is their leader. He is very closely aligned with their current policies and general mindset and will have to convince voters he has turned a new leaf. What they really need is a newcomer who has a proven fiscally conservative and practical track record. Christy Clark (former Premier of British Columbia) – who dropped out of the race – would have fit that bill nicely. I think her French was too weak. I would have worried if she were their leader.
For Canada’s sake I’m praying for Pierre Poilievre’s rising Conservatives to win decisively in the next election.
Carney is Trudeau v2.0 – albeit less glamourous. The Liberals are looking at decimation in the next election, which will come despite Trudeau’s desperate machinations to delay it. There’s still a faint home among some that “maybe a new face will make a difference”. I doubt it. And the polls doubt it too.
Carney is a card-carrying member of the WEF/Net Zero club that Trudeau and most of his cabinet belong to which makes him a laughable choice to take over just as the failed DEI, ESG and Net Zero ideologies are disappearing off the corporate radar. Freeland is a fellow traveler (famous for her post-pandemic bon mot “we have to restart the economy but it must be a green economy”) yet the word is Trudeau dumped her to make room for Carney as finance minister. The idea that Carney is selling anything like a “new direction” for the Liberals is a sick joke.
Conservatives pundits are correct when they say Carney went to the Daily Show simply because Stewart didn’t have the background knowledge to challenge his “I’m an outsider” baloney.
Carney also tried to sell the ‘just a regular guy from small town western Canada’ story but a western newspaper pundit knew better.
“For instance, he left out Ottawa and London, where he was governor of the respective national banks. He missed New York City, where he’s both the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and chair of the board of the huge international corporation Bloomberg. He also missed his community in Davos, Switzerland, where he and fellow Europeans (he also has U.K. and Irish citizenship) make up the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, and Toronto, where he’s chair of the Canadian multi-national Brookfield Asset Management, with its US$900 billion in assets. (my note- he’s since stepped back from Brookfield to run for leader) Carney has also said he sees himself he’s a member of the same social movement as radical climate activist Greta Thunberg.”
He is far from an outsider. He is the brain behind Trudeau’s disastrous policies. He is the godfather of a child of Chrystia Freeland, the executor of Trudeau’s policies. What a puppet show! Trudeau’s drama skills are finally peaking!
As to winning Alberta, good luck! An out of touch elite and textbook hypocrite, he was the one who blocked the Energy East pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline, while his firms invested billions in foreign energy in UAE, America, India etc., outsourcing Canadian emissions to achieve Canada’s net-zero goals and simultaneously destroying the Canadian economy.
A true globalist and opportunist with three passports, Ignatieff 2.0 is just visiting!