Facebook - Home of Neo-Fascism According to Dennis MacShane MP

There is such thing as a worthy foe. Not all of the enemies of truth and freedom count as such, but some are at the top of their game, as proved by the following article.

It was revealed today that there is increasing concern about the proliferation of 'hate speech' on the social networking site Facebook. Anti-racism and immigrants' rights groups are upset because people are setting up 'racist' and 'anti-foreigner' groups in a development they call 'cyberhate'.

They demand that the owners of Facebook do more to police the site and its content.

The example they use? Hatred preached against Poles. Apparently there is a group against the number of Polish people now in England, and someone made a comment along the lines of 'they should all be thrown down a well'.

At this point, Dennis MacShane MP waded into the row. His father fled Poland and fought for the British during the Second World War. Mr MacShane insists that the problem with these sites is that they 'allow racists to talk openly, without fear of reprisals'.

He went on:

'The way you defeat extremism, intolerance, prejudice and racism is to atomise it and make people feel that even if they think racist thoughts they can't say it openly.

'But websites like Facebook have unfortunately allowed people to come together in one space and say, 'there are people out there like me'. That is something that worries me greatly.

'For all the good social networking sites do, they also allow people to express prejudice that in a civilised society should be kept under lock and key.'

Is it just me, or does it sound as if Mr MacShane would have actually felt right at home in Nazi Germany?

A few problems with all this jump out at me immediately. I don't think many British people have a problem with Poles - what they do have a problem with is the blatant, shameless lies the Labour government told just before EU enlargement.

We were told that 'maybe 20,000' Poles might wish to come and work in England. The government don't know how many turned up in reality, but it was between 600,000 and 1,000,000 - if of course it isn't cyberhate to point that out.

I have absolutely no problem with Polish people - indeed I was brought up to have great respect for them.

My Great Uncle George fought his way up Italy with a Polish unit, and respected them as fine soldiers and fine men.

My Father, who attended a Catholic grammar school in London in the mid-fifties, had several Polish children in his class, all of them sons of emigres, and he said they were a pleasure to know.

Most of the Poles who came here after EU enlargement were conscientious and hard working - and this is why I think these 'anti-racism' groups and MacShane are being deliberately disingenuous.

They have chosen an extreme group against a generally tolerated and well-liked immigrant group, and pretended that is the norm.

Well it isn't. Most criticism of immigration and certain immigrant groups is perfectly legitimate, based on fact, reason and logic. If the immigration debate is to go beyond 'foreigners good' and 'foreigners bad', then we need open and honest debate about which immigrants work out from the point of view of our society and which don't and must be restricted.

People like MacShane simply wish to suppress this debate altogether, as his rather chilling rhetoric demonstrates.

The problem with banning 'racist' speech is who exactly decides what is racist?

To some people, anyone who is against mass immigration is a racist.

There are other problems - what comes first, the right of certain people not to be offended, or the truth?

If I assert that, for example, in Lambeth I am far more likely to be mugged by a black youth than a white youth, is this racist?

Maybe - but it's also true. Isn't the latter actually quite important?

Facebook is full of extreme Leftist rhetoric that seems to concern no one - type in 'Peter Hitchens must die' or 'f**k the Daily Mail'.

There are several groups that laud Hitler - but also that many more that laud Stalin, Castro, Guevara and Communism, an ideology which is responsible for over 100 million deaths. So which is more offensive? Do both get banned, one, or neither?

Dennis MacShane can pontificate all he likes, but ultimately his party drove people to the BNP more effectively than Nick Griffin ever could have. It did so by disenfranchising a huge number of ordinary voters, generally through issues such as the change mass immigration from the Third World has wrought in Britain.

It also ostracised anyone who disagreed and accused them of being a fascist, racist Nazi so loud and so often that these terms have become meaningless.

Increasingly, it seeks to make even the term 'Right-wing' become loaded.

I'm happy to accept that many people disagree with me. But I will never be happy to ban them from holding legitimate opinions. After all, isn't wanting to see those who disagree with you crushed, isolated or thrown in jail one of the hallmarks of a genuine fascist?

Where does all this end? Who gets to arbitrate and dictate which opinions are allowed and which aren't?

The article makes much of the fact that there is a group on Facebook called 'get P*kis out of England'.

It fails to mention, however, that if you type in 'hate Israel' you get over 500 results.

But then I suppose some hate groups are more equal than others.