ICYMI, Ann Widdecombe Doesn't Understand Either Slavery or Empire

Welcome to Worst Hot Take of the Week – a weekly column in which NEO, AKA@MULLET_FAN NEO, pits two of the wildest takes the world's great thinkers have rustled up against each other.

Take #1

What's the story? Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe compared Britain leaving the EU to slaves rising up against their masters in a speech at the European Parliament.
Reasonable take: I disagree with some EU policies and believe they can negatively impact aspects of business and industry in the UK.
Brain rot: I’m glad, as an English person, we are rising up against our EU owners. We are absolutely comparable to slaves.

Ann Widdecombe became the first Brexit party MEP to speak in the new European parliament this week, and chose to honour the occasion by likening Britain’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves. Brilliant. "There is a pattern consistent throughout history of oppressed people turning on their oppressors, slaves against their owners, the peasantry against the feudal barons, colonies against empires," Widdecombe stated, "And that is why Britain is leaving.”

Slaves, of course, weren’t exactly known for their right to autonomy, parliamentary proceedings and the ability to trigger an emancipation clause to leave behind their unimaginable suffering. Still, the speech received praise from fellow Brexit Party’s MEP, Alexandra Phillips, who tweeted: “Tears in my eyes. She represents the ignored majority. Brave and principled. Our Ann.”

Labour MP David Lammy was less eulogising about Widdecombe’s sermon: "It is impossible to explain how offensive and ahistorical it is for you to equate my ancestors tearing off their chains with your small-minded nationalist project. Shame on you." Similarly Martin Horwood, a Lib Dem MEP for South West England alongside Widdecombe, suggested she had a slackening grip on reality – and if she wanted to talk about oppression she should “look at her own record on oppressing women and minorities when she defended shackling pregnant women and opposed repealing Section 28.”

After the speech Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's Brexit coordinator, tweeted that Nigel Farage was now “facing some stiff competition as chief clown of the Brexit Party in the European Parliament”. To be fair to Widdecombe, she literally declared last month that science might be able to “produce an answer” to “being gay” – so there really wasn’t much chance of her doing anything other than delving into some veritable unhinged rot in parliament.

I guess these sort of insights from Widdecombe gives us a real sense of the warped, deranged entitlement British right-wingers have when a 71-year old self-confessed virgin is genuinely bothered if you are having gay sex or not.

The fact that Widdecombe’s speech, without any irony, likened Brexit to a colony rising up against an occupying empire or the liberation of slaves shows us the selective memory Britain often has of its own history. We can only cite imperialism as a bad thing when it’s referencing us as being the victims. So it comes as no surprise that while Widdecombe and her colleagues furiously oppose the EU’s apparent “imperial grip” on Britain, her views differ greatly concerning British imperialism, where she believes Britain should not “apologise for its Empire” because it would be “childish” and “self-indulgent” to do so.

Sometimes you can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the English ruling classes like Widdecombe and her Brexit Party lot sounding like fucking Lenin citing the “peasantry rising against the feudal barons” but only ever in the context of Brexit. God forbid someone ever makes them talk about that shit in relation to the British class system.

What makes the likes of Wibbecombe even more detestable is that, when not turning their backs on the EU anthem in “protest” or allegedly already failing to turn up to European parliament sessions for important votes, they are all perfectly happy collecting their salaries and undoubtedly rinsing their expenses while complaining they have to commute to the Strasbourg, where they voluntarily ran for election to attend. What a bunch of divvy little cunts.

Take #2

What's the story? Jonathan Pie says opposing fascists is, indeed, fascist.
Reasonable take: There have been many historical examples of struggles against fascism. We need look no further than World War II to see how important it is to combat this ideology.
Brain rot: Poor idiots, so dumb, it is indeed YOU who hates fascism that are the fascists!

This week the fictitious British news reporter, Jonathan Pie (played by British “comedian” Tom Walker), not content with just doing terrible skits, decided to come up with a new definition of fascism: “If your method of 'fighting fascism' involves beating people over the head and chucking stuff at them, you're not fighting fascism, you *are* fascism.”

Despite Pie’s assessment of what the term fascism actually means, we will probably be waiting some time for dictionaries to adjust their definition from “a form of radical right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism” to “someone with a Prince Albert piercing who throws milkshake over some cunt”.

This mind-bending appropriation of the term would literally see every single Allied soldier during World War II a confirmed fascist.

Sorry grandpa, I don’t make the rules.

Imagine being so liberal and thinking you’re so incredibly smart that you believe you can debate some cunt trying to kill you, but can’t differentiate between people who want to build dictatorial white ethnostates, using violence against minorities, and people who literally want the opposite of that. Jonathan Pie’s version of fighting fascism seems to be lowly mumbling “c’mon guys, can’t we all just be pals around here?” when a lynch mob starts fastening a noose.

Ricky Gervais also offered his take on anti-fascism by stating: “opposing left-wing extremism doesn't mean you support right wing extremism. Opposing right-wing extremism doesn't mean you support left wing extremism. You're allowed to hate all extremism. There are loads of other choices. Also, stop wasting milk”.

These takes came as a direct response to the story of journalist Andy Ngo, who was attacked by anti-fascists while attending a Proud Boys rally. This is the same journalist who wrote the widely derided article 'A Visit to Islamic England'.

There’s no doubt liberal commentators would have probably condemned Maurice Bavaud’s 1938 failed assassination attempt of Hitler as a failing of “logic” and “reasoning” on his part and a failing to “find common ground” with the cunt. Using Pie’s logic, we probably should save a thought for poor Hitler, driven to take his own life after clashes with Soviet fascists outside his quaint bunker home.

It’s like white, rich centrists do nothing but exist to reference the four Harry Potter houses and prop up the far-right by treating fascism as something to be debated. That’s the privilege of people who aren’t affected by the consequences of bigotry.

Winner: While Pie’s new definition of fascism actually being left-wing people throwing a drink is a scorchio take, Widdecombe’s “Brexit is like when the slaves were freed” sizzler is a heatwave in the seventh level of hell.

@MULLET_FAN_NEO