If the Government can just reach out and ruin a man’s life, without any need of a fair hearing or a guilty verdict, then we do not live in a free country. This is what has just happened to the video blogger Graham Phillips (above)
Peter Hitchens – Mail Online July 30, 2022
Today I need to defend a person I do not much like. I will explain why I do not like him in a moment, but that is not the important bit.
What matters is this: if the Government can just reach out and ruin a man’s life, without any need of a fair hearing or a guilty verdict, then we do not live in a free country. This is what has just happened to the video blogger Graham Phillips.
The danger is that, because Mr Phillips is so hard to like, the Government will get away with it. And then, when it uses the same powers on somebody else, it will be too late to protest.
As the great US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said: ‘The safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.’
Some of Mr Phillips’s activities have been questionable, though he firmly denies many of the charges against him. For me, his worst action was his cruel and stupid questioning of a badly wounded Ukrainian prisoner of war. Others have condemned his interview of Aiden Aslin, a British citizen who had been fighting with Ukrainian armed forces and was captured by the Russians.
It has been suggested that the interview was a breach of the Geneva Conventions. Mr Phillips, contacted in Lugansk, says Mr Aslin asked for the interview himself, has never complained, and has given several other interviews since.
Be that as it may, last week Mr Phillips was placed on the UK Government’s sanctions list. The Foreign Office, which is in charge of this process, no longer answers the phone, and replies only once to emails, with bland official statements, so I do not have some of the details that I would like to have.
But as far as I know, he is the first British citizen to be treated in this way. His assets have been frozen. His bank accounts are blocked. He also cannot pay those to whom he owes money.
For example, his home insurance has now been cancelled because his insurers are forbidden to accept his premiums. All his bills will now bounce, the utilities at his London home will soon be cut off. He cannot even pay his council tax. He will face incessant claims for debts, which he can do nothing about.
As he says: ‘How can I pay these debts when I don’t have access to funds? If it goes to court, how can I defend myself when I won’t be able to pay for legal representation? Actually, how will I even find the money to travel to the court without money, or even feed myself?’ Franz Kafka, the great Czech author of The Trial, a classic about oppression, could not have invented a legal mantrap as inescapable as this.
Leading British lawyers have accurately described the objects of this action as ‘prisoners of the state’. Very well, you may say, this is how we must act against money-launderers and terrorists abroad.
You might equally well say that such powers could be used against officials of the Russian government, or officers in the Syrian Army. And if you look at the list of people treated in this way under the Sanctions and Money Laundering Act of 2018, that is who you will find.
Of course, none of these people is a former UK civil servant with a British passport, as Mr Phillips is. As long as they stay out of our reach, the sanctions are just an inconvenience to most of those placed under them.
But for Mr Phillips, they mean actual ruin. Whatever you think of him, is this a proper use of state power? Is it allowed by Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, let alone by the ‘human rights’ the Foreign Office claims to be so fond of?
The official declaration says Mr Phillips is being sanctioned because he is ‘a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies which destabilise Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence of Ukraine’.
Well, so what? None of these actions is or ought to be a crime under British law. These are catch-all charges, of the sort Stalin used in his show trials in the 1930s. Any protest against or criticism of a foreign state (or our own) could be said to do these things.
Lots of us have pretty critical views of the way various foreign countries behave, and of our own government.
Britain is not, in fact, at war with Russia. So there is no legal duty on any of us to support that war or refrain from saying things which upset the Kiev government.
This is the dictatorial use of arbitrary power by the State against an individual it does not like. It is a straightforward outrage against the rule of law. If the Government gets away with it, who will be next?
If we do not protest against it now, and stop it, then we should shut up forever about being a free country or fighting for freedom elsewhere.
I used to think i was being patriotic and would befriend whistleblowers
like kevin Field Chris Cooper Maud Dib and tattooist Chris Spivey and i would find out what i could about them and spread dirty vicious rumours
But after a time i realised, i had a Damascus moment, i was making a living as a fake fortune teller
i was using lonely woman to borrow money, and i was a general shit, but i turned my life around
and i have paid for my mistakes, but there are others who attack max igan in particular
be warned there are other shits out there
Plus of course activity employed against him by the notorious British Secret Police MI5…..which dont officially happen.
Britain today is “Stazi Lite”….all the newspapers have a member of Britains stazi within their ranks…..wot a surprise.
Infact every government department has an MI5 snitch embedded within.
The Guardians betrayal of Assange was a heinous act of betrayal….guess what,theyve got him locked away in prison on a prison sentence without end.Assange is literally rotting in the governments gulag.Youll notice the great libertarian,the Marrano Pete thicko Hitchens doesnt mention him too often.
Hitchens is a puffed up buffoon and a poseur.
First port of call for all budding insurrections is Parliament,then the Secret Police HQ on the Thames and of course the lying media scum with machine pistols on full auto….Banksters along with the treacherous Bliar will be cheered as they mount the scaffold.
Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights have to be defended every generation as if the ink ain’t dry yet.
Got to keep the screws turning or the corporations and other criminals will pretend, as with the “drug war,” that they never existed.
As Sam Francis put it 30 years ago: “A man only has as much freedom as he is willing to fight for.”
Fight, Graham Phillips, Fight!
‘Fair’
There’s NEVER been any fair,
The only fair I ever knew was a traveling band who came to town at Easter,
This guy is doomed, Like the rest of us will be when we find ourselves in a similar situation, like speaking out.
Like the young kids in the earlier blog, They never stood a chance either.
University ? Come on, They’ll struggle to even find valid worthwhile apprenticeships.
‘Babylon Britain’ is done.
Like I keep saying, the none NWO world, is the free world.
Again, they could have easily killed him, but he lives, as an example to others who want to tell the truth. We will ruin your life, literally.
It’s been going on for a long long time…
“Others have condemned his interview of Aiden Aslin, a British citizen who had been fighting with Ukrainian armed forces and was captured by the Russians.”
I suppose the Russians should release the names of the dead and injured in that Zelensky bombing?
Aiden might be on the list.
Rule Britannia, Britannia waves the rules.
We should not have been emphasising freedom, but goodness. Freedom always was sought by the Evil, who snort with laughter at the word goodness and look for avenues for their crimes, while society needs to curtail their freedom
If you think he’s the only one who’s had his money frozen you need to get out more. Thousands of people in britain have their money frozen every week. That’s what “tech” gets you. They press a button and you’re dead, because you can’t do anything without money, not even eat, and there’s no one who’ll help you. There are hundreds of people in jail because they tried to do something about it by shouting and screaming at the servants of the jews, in banks and corporate blood sucking companies, and were then accused of committing a ‘hate crime’ (because most of the front men for the scum are now foreigners). Only the rich don’t notice because they never get cut off from their money, what with being better than the poor and all.
Hitchens took the clot shot – or said he did. He has no credibility other than being a state limited hangout operating on the cusp of media and intelligence.
“If we do not protest against it now, and stop it, then we should shut up forever about being a free country or fighting for freedom elsewhere.”
Yep, let’s all cheer on the usual talking heads in Trafalgar Square. “Protest” should not be part of Hitchen’s vocabulary considering how he took the jab. He is part of the “antithesis”.
Jews, Commies & nonwhites hate ‘free speech’ because it exposes their inferiority, lies, lunacy & crimes. So why give them free speech?
Interesting how there were no anti-free speech laws in ‘totalitarian’ Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, but only in these modern purported ‘liberal democracies’ of the western world…
This freezing of the accounts happened in Canada recently, then they froze Russian state bank accounts – stealing $300,000,000,000 from Russia. Not some internet rumor BTW, this info comes straight out of Lavrov’s mouth:
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2022-04-29-lavrov-announced-the-theft-of-%24-300-billion-from-russia-by-the-west.Bk4oQX6tHq.html
Seizing monied accounts is a form of bankruptcy which is spreading around the world, and it happened to Cyprus a few years back. They just skimmed off any amount above $100,000 in all bank accounts.
Instead of just shutting down a failed system what they are doing is propping it up by demonizing political opponents and seizing their monies. This idea will soon catch on and spread as the parasites in charge always need more money. The thing about debt based capitalism is that at the end of the long credit cycle, which is now over a century since the Fed was created in 1913, is there is never enough money to go around to service all of the debt being created by fractional reserves.
Mike Rivero (What Really Happened) likened this to 12 marbles needed to service 13 marbles of debt. There is never enough marbles, some one has to lose.
Fractional reserve lending has created a situation of money starvation during exponential debt increases. So who is going to lose? Enemies of the state.
And I would remind everyone this system we live under was created by a raving mad homosexual lunatic John Maynard Keynes and promoted ever since by every mad Jew imaginable – especially that lunatic Jew economist Paul Krugman who now wants to mint one trillion platinum coins to keep playing the debt game.
https://washingtonoutside.blogspot.com/2013/01/paul-krugman-debt-limit-and-platinum.html
Keynes is famous for saying government should pay workers to dig ditches and fill them in to stimulate the economy.
Don’t be surprised if Jews concoct even crazier schemes to keep their usury system alive. What sane people need to do is realize that A.H. was on to them and rounded them up to save his people from their insanity.
Amerika is the new Weimar and soon Amerika will turn on the Jews.
This is the social credit system. The first warning about this was in the TV series ‘1990’ starring Edward Woodward. In one of the episodes, this very thing happens to an inconvenient journalist. At the touch of a button, he becomes an unperson overnight.
Jew Britannia. Britannia waives the rules.
The world will never be free while even one member of “the tribe” remains to steal my air.
It’s time to face the TRUTH, which is that Humans are of God, but the so-called “jews” with their ANTI-religion, are of the devil.
A few “jews” develop the ability to understand that “the jews” are nothing but a gang of thieves and murderers, and having reached that level of understanding, they become Human, or partly so, because they then start to reject the insane hatred of the “jew” for all life, for everything that’s true, right, natural and good (or of God), and learn what it means to be Human.
Once they reject the cult, they are no longer “jews”, but those that remain in the tribe must vanish from the face of the Earth if God’s people are ever to have a chance.
What I don’t understand is why God, who could wipe them out with a stroke of His mind, would WANT such despicable creatures doing everything they can to destroy Creation.
So why does Hitchen’s dislike Phillips? He is never clear about this. Interviewing a wounded soldier? So what? Or is Hitichens really saying that he also dislikes Phillips for the side he has taken in favoring Russia in the conflict?
Hitchens is obviously either connected to the Brit establishment and its ends, or likely not in any position to question their official narratives, “Ukraine good, Russia bad.”, and “Vaccines good, Covid anti-vaxers bad.”.
He does not go too directly against the grain, and perhaps he would likely be destroyed like Phillips if he did, and so with such news from Brit Pravda and the Cheka everywhere now, he has to be indirect and we to read between the lines. It seems he can only protest on the basis of the totalitarian methods used by the authorities to impose their will, which of course are as important as the ends.
However, would Hitchens not be more effective on these issues simply by condemning both the evil ends and the evil methods being employed? Yet, without his article how many of us would know about the criminal treatment of Phillips by the thoroughly corrupt and oppressive Brit authorities?
@Barney…
‘jews’ are like crows and other assorted avian carrion and even physically resemble them… probably at some distant point in the past they perhaps served some sort of useful function…
Like emptying latrines… souring milk or being a source of amusement…..
> What I don’t understand is why God, who could wipe them out with a stroke of His mind, would WANT such despicable creatures doing everything they can to destroy Creation.
LOL. Slaughterhouses. Deep sea trawlers. The rainforests. Animal testing. “Rescue” centres. Sewage pipes. Pesticide. ………
why God, would WANT such despicable creatures doing everything they can to destroy Creation …………
Just further proof the Empire is dying lashing out against anybody or thing which is weaker. Watch what happens in Kosovo , Balkans round two. Timing just right for Truss a nice little war against Serbia and a few weapons for those poor downtrodden Kosovan terrorists. Roll camera action Truss sits atop a tank .
White Brits had their chance with Mosley, but instead preferred their Liberal-Labour-Tory twats…so this is the Commie society you get..
You all want to stop moaning about Jew lying Ass ange! And this PHILLIPS character. And start to think like a Scouser! Unexplained Wealth Orders are given regularly in Liverpool. Just knock at your door, serve you with freezing order, voila! No bank accounts or anything. Tell you to grab a outfit & out the door. Homeless. Most Scousers have always known the government is the #1 enemy. So plan accordingly. Oh, & they don’t need evidence. Just a story off the scriptwriters.
@Yukon Jack, August 1, 2022 at 2:00 pm. Thanks for your insightful and neat summary of the debt based capitalism disaster.
Nico Crowley–White Brits still exist, and life is, and always was, a struggle
Too much free speech makes you a gobby bastard like the Jews
Lewis Jones The Government paid Shrill strikes again maybe you should move to China. Please move to China.
Roy–you did not tell me what I said wrong, but it was probably that I do not back Free Speech. Silence is golden, the emptiest drum is loudest, gobby people are annoying, but, most importantly, if you have an important message you will be able to get it through, without “permission”
Freedom for all–we get this error from Voltaire. The correct attitude is to demand prison for evil people; in there they can dream about freedom. A similar error is from Jesse Lee Peterson “If you have love, you will love everyone”–No, feel free to hate the bad people