A massive 36-tweet thread exposing the extraordinary scale of Tory racism and abuse is going viral for very obvious reasons
If you were a traveller from space and your only means of understanding what was going on in Britain was to read newspapers and watch the BBC, you'd have thought that the Labour Party was a truly despicable organisation that nobody in their right mind could possibly consider voting for.
However, thankfully, many people nowadays are waking up to just how extraordinarily biased our mainstream media is, and that their constant smearing and attacks on Jeremy Corbyn - a man who wants to pay for things that will truly benefit ordinary people out of the extra money Britain makes from cracking down on tax-evaders like the super-rich tax-avoiding billionaires who own Britain's media outlets - from becoming Prime Minister and actually forcing them to finally pay their fair share.
But for the many ordinary people who are forced to go through life struggling from day to day, or those whose minds are constantly worrying that one missed paycheck or one unexpected illness could see them lose everything and be out on the streets, it's almost impossible to keep fully up to date with the intricacies of modern-day politics. Many are therefore forced by necessity to simply rote-learn their knowledge of current affairs and events from the background noise of TV news, or a quick glance at the odd newspaper headline on their coffee break at work (if your employer even bothers to give you one).
And this is exactly what the Tories and their super-rich cronies want. If people are constantly worrying about money, or frantically busy working all the time in insecure employment, you are much less likely to have the time or energy to properly engage with the world of politics and find the facts about what is really going on in the world.
This incomprehensibly frantic and insecure society that we live in is precisely why politics is throwing up extraordinary upsets at the moment, and why the establishment - who are not living the same insecure lives as ordinary people - simply don't know (and frankly don't much care) what to do to stem the tide of political chaos.
In some cases it's the far-right winning from the resulting confusion and chaos, and in other cases it's the populist left. But, in addition to the frantic society we live in, the crux of what is stifling the inevitable march of positive progress across the Western World is that whilst almost all ordinary people know full-well that our current system is inherently unfair on them and that it desperately needs changing, the super-rich billionaires who have virtually monopolised the means of communication are providing such a skewed argument from what actually constitutes reality that it is almost impossible for ordinary people to see who is the good guy looking to change things for the better and who is the bad guy simply looking to grab your vote.
In other words, as Malcolm X so eloquently put it:
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."
Whilst Malcolm X's sentiment specifically refers to the heroic fight by African Americans to obtain civil rights in American society, it also perfectly relates to today's unbelievably fraught political climate.
Whilst the vast majority of British media outlets are giving an extraordinary amount of negative column-inches and air-time to attacking Jeremy Corbyn for supposedly not doing enough to stamp out racism (a man who has literally spent his life campaigning against racism), the same media outlets are giving a free ride to the party that has, throughout its entire history and numerous incarnations, done absolutely everything it possibly could to promote racism, and silence those who speak out against it.
The difference is this: whilst Jeremy Corbyn has spent 40 years fighting, protesting, and campaigning against racism for absolutely no other reason than it is the right thing to do, the Tory party have proved time and time again that they will only bother to speak out against such things if they know it will score political points.
But hypocrisy knows no bounds in the Tory party - and, what's more, they couldn't care less.
For whilst Jeremy Corbyn's Labour have a tiny minority of supporters who may espouse some particularly distasteful and racist sentiments at times, it can never possibly compare to the outright open sewer that is the Tory party.
So, in the spirit of fairness and equality in the media - here are at least 165 times (we've literally tried counting numerous times but there are actually too many for us to be sure of the precise figure) the Tories proved they were, and always will be, the real nasty party:
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978334234069946373
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978334708898697216
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978335001782743041
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978335001782743041
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978335380251561984
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978335702835441665
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978336007706857472
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978336248631787521
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978336485811413003
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978336700987527170
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978337235815804930
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978337456079671297
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978337686531473409
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978337917025349633
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978338189319528448
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978338441371975680
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978338634725298176
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978338845006745600
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978339197651161089
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978339393470652416
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978339608202301441
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978339803744948227
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978339983726653440
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978340284496011265
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978340464125411328
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978340652709801984
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978340848017518592
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978341032831184897
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978341485686018048
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978341674022785029
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978341913785962497
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978342157227581440
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978342399717060609
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978342587995185153
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978342587995185153
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978342768442474497
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978343009346555905
https://twitter.com/Trickyjabs/status/978343870269444096
Thomas' thread may well be incredibly long and brilliantly thorough, but he has missed out some rather important incidents of blatant racism committed by Tories:
In the 1970's Margaret Thatcher and the Tories branded peace campaigner Nelson Mandela a terrorist, whilst the Federation of Conservative Students - the official Young Conservative group at the time - wore stickers and printed posters demanding we should 'Hang Mandela'
In 1989, David Cameron defied international sanctions to go on a jolly to apartheid South Africa on a trip funded by a firm that lobbied against the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime. Cameron was forced to apologise for the trip 17 years later, in 2006
Former Tory Minister, ex-Party Chairman, and Life Peer Norman Tebbit - a man dubbed the 'Father of modern British racism and prejudice' and the 'Chingford skinhead' for his 'his repeatedly racist remarks' - set the so-called 'cricket test' and castigated British Asian immigrants for supporting Asian cricket teams, used the phrase 'P*ki- bashing', and said afterwards, 'I think there are good reasons for not hiding behind euphemisms'.
https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/978334314692775936
In July 2006, Chorley Tory Councillor Shaun Smith was arrested following an alleged racist incident at Manchester airport. He quit as a Councillor in 2009 after refusing to provide the police with a blood sample following a separate drink-driving incident.
In November 2009, Tory MP for Spelthorne, David Wilshire, said the expose of MPs expenses left them treated like Jews in Nazi Germany, stating “Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler’s gas chambers”. David Cameron asked him to apologise.
In April 2013, Tory Councillor for West Sussex, John Cherry, told the Mail on Sunday, "Ninety-seven per cent of pupils will be black or Asian. It depends what type of Asian. If they're Chinese they'll rise to the top. If they're Indian they'll rise to the top. If they're Pakistani they won't,” and described Stockwell as “a coloured area”. He resigned his position as a Councillor, but there is no indication he faced any sanction from the Conservative Party.
In May 2014, Tory Coulsdon activist Stephen Lees tweeted “Every single Muslim should be expelled from this country – not deported – expelled, and every mosque demolished." The Conservative Party denied he was a member. Yet he was apparently a former Secretary of Coulsdon South Conservatives.
In August 2014 UCL Conservative Society was under scrutiny for a series of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist remarks, fostering a culture of discrimination and bullying, and creating a “toxic” environment. One comment included, “Jews own everything, we all know it’s true. I wish I was Jewish, but my nose isn’t long enough”. In October 2014 after an investigation by UCL Union, the Conservative Society was ordered to apologise. There is no evidence that the Conservative Party investigated the incident.
In October 2014, Maidenhead Tory Councillor Alan Mellins suggested complained about Travellers and said the solution was to “Execute them.” He apologised and then later resigned as a Councillor over the incident. It is not clear whether the Conservative Party took any disciplinary actions.
In January 2015, a Conservative Councillor for Bishop’s Stortford was accused of anti-semitism for a tweet and condemned by Tory MP Robert Halfon as “abhorrent” and “unacceptable”. Councillor Colin Woodward apologised and no action was taken by the Conservative Party.
In October 2015, a Tory Councillor in Rugby, Jim Buckley, tweeted re: Sadiq Khan,“Your next London Mayor? You think his corner shop would be open on a Saturday?” He was suspended from the Conservative Party, and charged (though not convicted) with sending an offensive message.
In February 2016, Glasgow Tory Councillor David Meikle accused the SNP of anti-Semitism for opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He later apologised and withdrew his comments.
The already widely-discredited Tory youth movement, Activate, were exposed on a leaked Whatsapp chat saying they wanted to gas “spice h*mo chavs”, “run some medical experiments on them”, and described the poor as 'vermin'.
And this is by no means a comprehensive list! If you have any more incidents of Tory racism, abuse or criminality that Matt Thomas or Evolve haven't reported in this article, just drop us an email at editor (at) evolvepolitics (dot) com with the link and we'll add it in.